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Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin (www.mercurynews.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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There are few things quite as emblematic of late stage capitalism than the concept of "planned obsolescence".

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It grants the IT department authority over the devices. Restricting unauthorized changes like adding new accounts, adding new software, removing existing software, allows for tracking of the devices and sometimes remote wiping in case the device is stolen or lost and valuable data is on the device, among other things.

Less to do with cheating and more to do with control over the device since it’s the school’s property. Preventing cheating is an afterthought of MDM (mobile device management).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I wonder what it would look like without these measures?

Back in My Day™, we had minimal MDM on the school computers.

Yes, the kids that wanted to fuck around (look at porn, download music, play games) fucked around, but they would have the old-fashioned way, anyway. The most common thing was just changing the desktop photo to a Lamborghini, or something. Anyway, we turned out…. Well… not necessarily ok, but I don’t fault the computers for lack thereof where applicable.

Admittedly, these weren’t personal laptops but just ones in the library or computer labs, but still.