#bvsd — Public Fediverse posts

I'm a member of the Boulder Valley School District's "District Accountability Committee" or DAC. Each school in the district has a representative that meets once a month at district headquarters to hash out policy, budget, and other recommendations to the school board.

At last night's DAC meeting, during the Q&A period following our Superintendent's briefing (in which he brought up the ongoing problem of kids vaping in school bathrooms), I mentioned an amazing talk I saw at this past @defcon #DEFCON33 called "Unmasking the Snitch Puck: The creepy IoT surveillance in the school bathroom" - video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCnojaEpF2I

You see, New Vista High School, which just opened a brand new building, has installed these devices, called a Halo 3C Smart Sensor, in all the bathrooms and elsewhere inside the school building, and has made a measurable impact reducing the number of vaping-in-school incidents. But, as I told superintendent Anderson, the sensor itself brings along with it some seriously problematic security vulnerabilities, in addition to the undocumented capabilities that the researchers in the talk exploited.

The superintendent's response to that made the whole room bust out laughing: "Andrew, you never fail to bring to my attention things that scare the hell out of me" - to which I responded, literally my job, Rob. It's why they call it "Threat Research" my guy.

This is why every community board, council, committee, etc. needs a thoughtful hacker present, to relay important information like this to policy implementers and policy makers who just don't keep up with this space.

#BVSD #schoolboard #edtech #edpolicy #techpolicy #Boulder #COpolitics

UPDATE (11:40am): BPD found the person who the "reporting party" reported; that person was not armed, and is wearing a workout vest. The original reporter verified that the person police found is the person he reported. So, no weapon found, police are starting to wind down the search. Just another day in paradise.

#boulder police are conducting a sweep at #BVSD #Fairview high school in Boulder, looking for a person reported to be seen in the area holding "something that looks like a gun" - massive police presence, and air units are sweeping the area, school and the neighborhood is on lockdown, no injuries reported. Live stream of Boulder Police available from https://www.broadcastify.com/listen/ctid/247
#Colorado #COpolitics #FairviewHS

I'm at this little known company today to talk about how my team @SophosXOps helped solve a ransomware problem earlier this year that threatened organizations around the world. Getting real stuff done to help protect people and defend the public is what I do! Boulder Strong! #BVSD #SchoolBoard #Boulder #Microsoft #BlueHat

Hey, hacker fam. Quick update on what's going to be a big week.

Tomorrow I'm flying out to Bellevue and Wednesday I'm speaking at #BlueHat about the work @SophosXOps has done helping #Microsoft protect all Windows users from a very devious attack.

After I return, I'm in full-swing campaign mode running for the #BVSD #SchoolBoard. I've been doing door-knocking and meet-and-greet for days. Yesterday I spent hours giving out water to marathon runners here in #boulder

Next week though - I'll be participating in a candidate forum hosted by BVSD and you will be able to watch it live from anywhere because it will be broadcast by #livestream on BVSD's Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@bouldervalleyschooldistric5781/streams). October 18 from 6pm-7:30pm MDT (UTC -6)

You can read up now on the forum and ** you can even submit questions.**

If you work in #infosec or fight #malware like me, I'd like you to submit questions to the forum. You can send in questions about #ChatGPT or any other subject, as long as it pertains to public education in some way. The link to submit questions and get more information (including a detailed look at my platform) is here: https://www.impactoneducation.org/event/2023-bvsd-board-of-education-candidate-forum/

I try not to clutter up the infosec feed with this stuff, so for more, follow @andrewbrandt

Together, we're going to #ElectMoreHackers

The most surprising thing about this #BVSD #SchoolBoard #election is that, in previous years, they have barely received any attention from the press or the public.

The feedback I receive every time I tell people I am running for office this year? It has been overwhelmingly "Thank you for doing this" or "I'm so grateful" or "I really appreciate that you're running"

Normally candidates get asked to do two forums. This year, four (and possibly a fifth).

Also, I just found out I'll be speaking at #Microsoft #BlueHat next month, and at #SAINTCon two weeks later.

So, apologies if I reply late 😅​

I haven't seen much about this, but I saw a data breach notification come from the local K-12 school district (#BVSD) this morning, and then someone else who lives in a neighboring district (#SVVSD) mentioned that they had also seen a breach notification from their school district.

This is the notification. It says, in part, that this was "a nationwide data incident affecting over 350 school districts and higher education organizations across the US"

Does anyone have more information on these school data breaches/intrusions that seem to have been much larger than previously thought?

#databreach #schoolboard #Boulder #StVrain #colorado #infosec #schoolbreach