Sunday, December 18, 2022

Students Analyze, Hack, Remove Under-Desk Surveillance Devices

Northeastern University - In October, the university quietly introduced heat sensors under desk without notifying students or seeking their consent. Students removed the devices, hacked them, and were able to force the university to stop its surveillance.

Early in October, Senior Vice Provost David Luzzi installed motion sensors under all the desks at the school's Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering Complex (ISEC), a facility used by graduate students and home to the "Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute" which studies surveillance. These sensors were installed at night—without student knowledge or consent—and when pressed for an explanation, students were told this was part of a study on “desk usage," according to a blog post by Max von Hippel, a Privacy Institute PhD candidate who wrote about the situation for the Tech Workers Coalition’s newsletter.
More sensors were removed afterwards and put into a "public art piece" in the building lobby spelling out NO! more