According to the , the school district has activated its webcams 50 times in the past three years to locate laptops stolen from elementary schools, and recovered 20 of them. One big difference, though: Unlike in the Lower Merion case, these computers were not supposed to go home with students. That's really where those guys crossed the line. It's one thing to watch kids on school grounds, quite another to snoop on them at home (see creepy, damned, above).

Of course, if the students were able to figure out how to hack ARD, it's very, very likely that some student has figured out how to do the same with the camera software.

Meanwhile, Cringe fan N. M. served up this fascinating bit of trivia: Lower Merion counts among its graduates the late Alexander ("I am in control") Haig, Chuck Barris of "Gong Show" fame, and Los Angeles Laker star Kobe Bryant. I know there's a connection here between those three and this webcam story, and if I drank enough I might find it.

A reader known to me only as Stu had this correction to to add:

You said, "you shouldn't give Big Brotherish software to school districts and expect them not to misuse it."