Naked in School
The Vodou Physicist
Chapter 14 - Unstripping, High School Version
Tamara was well into the second week of high school now and was enjoying her classes—mostly. She really liked participating in the discussions, but found that her doing so was getting her recognized as a nerd. But her love for learning soon overcame her reluctance to “put herself out there,” so she embraced the “nerd” within herself and didn’t let any name-calling bother her. She wanted to put some of her free time to good use, so she contacted Mrs Moore, her counselor, to tell her that she wanted to help tutor kids in math and science.
“Do you have any preference—like girls only or freshmen only?” Moore asked. “I know you’ve mastered the whole math curriculum and physics too. What about chemistry, biology, and the other sciences?”
“I don’t really teach when I tutor, Mrs Moore. I found the best way to help kids understand the material is to guide them so that they can discover how to learn the material on their own. I show them how to read critically and how to study as we work through their questions. And I have no grade or gender preferences. The kids I want to work with really have to want to learn, though.”
“We get a lot of requests from the team coaches,” Moore told her. “The athletes need to maintain their grades to stay eligible. Can I refer the athletes to you?”
“Sure. Just so they know that I won’t do their work for them.”
Moore added Tamara to the school’s list of tutors. Tamara also had accepted the principal’s offer for her to be a student aide—her plan about how she could help the SiF kids in her school had taken shape nicely. When she first began thinking about disabling the high school students’ RFID tags, she had realized that waiting at the door and using her device there, like she had done at her middle school, wouldn’t work very well here. That was because students could enter the building through more than one door—not to mention that this school had many more students.
The problem of her being able to find out the SiF students’ names appeared to be solved when she learned that one of her jobs was to scan the daily student attendance reports into an office computer. If she simply put a flash drive into a USB port of the computer, she could save a copy for herself. But that wasn’t ethical—possibly not legal either. But her chip zapper wasn’t exactly legal either. Using it very definitely broke the SiF law. Would copying a file be more or less illegal? She needed some advice.
“Mom,” Tamara asked after school that day, “I have a legal question where a number of ethical issues interfere with the law. You know how Dad says that laws address the least common denominator of society—like one size fits all? It’s not possible for a law to consider all cases and situations, so it’s written so broadly that sometimes innocent people can get trapped into violating it?”
“That’s true, but a society without laws is basically an anarchy. What’s troubling you, dear?”
“It’s how to help kids at my school who are in SiF and don’t wanna be in it. I told you what I did at Thomas Mann. I can’t do that here... too many kids, and they have different schedules and there are a lot of doors to cover. A school district tech gave me a broken scanner and its circuits gave me access to the entire state SiF list. They didn’t even bother to encrypt it; shows you how much value the state puts on information security.”
“So what’s your ethical dilemma?” Nadine asked.
“I can use the state list to match names with kids in my school. Then I can contact them, anonymously, and offer to inactivate their chips. But I would need to get a copy of the daily attendance report. I scan them most every day so getting a copy would be simple and no one would know. It’s the ethics that bother me. Is helping the kids higher on the ethical scale than, I assume, doing something which violates a trust issue? No one told me that I can’t copy that info but I’m sure I’m not supposed to.”
Nadine stopped to think. “I should tell you not to do this, you know. But a big concern I have, in all my years of counseling my congregation, is of the power one group has over another. Holding power over someone is a form of coercion, and if exercising that power causes harm, then it’s wrong. However, to react against that power, if that action causes harm, then that’s wrong too.
“Your ethical dilemma seems to fall into a power imbalance situation, so we need to look at its parts...”
“That’s it, exactly,” Tamara interrupted excitedly. “The state with the SiF law is causing harm to the kids, forcing them to do something that they hate or think is morally wrong.”
“Okay then, the state, that’s the stronger power, and it’s causing harm to individuals. We need to look at the remedy you propose to be sure that the remedy doesn’t cause harm to anyone else. Let’s list all of the actors in your dilemma.”
Tamara looked confused. “‘Actors’? Like in a movie?”
“Oh, no, dear. Sorry. ‘Actor’ in the sense of someone taking an action. Like the kids needing to be naked.”
“Oh, got it. Yeah, the kids. Then, the SiF law... so that would be the state—Florida. Individuals? Like the SiF officials?”
“That works. Who else?”
“Um, the school, since I’d be copying a school file. So the principal? Secretary?”
“Maybe the school district officials too and even the school board members,” Nadine amended. “Can you think of anyone else you’d affect?”
“Um, no? Who else is there?”
“How about the parents of the kids?”
“Oh! Right, we need to think of them, of course. See, I knew you were very smart, Mom.”
“No brown-nosing the judge, honey. So you’ve identified the actors. Now, where does any power imbalance occur?”
“Should I list them in decreasing power? Each, um, actor has some power, I guess.”
“Doing it like that would be fine.”
“Okay, at the top are the Florida officials. They made the law and enforce it. Oh, there are police and courts too—are they actors?”
“Well, you can think of them as part of the Florida group.”
“Good. Hey, there are really two, um, strands, here, Mom. The SiF strand and the um, remedy strand, right? They should be separate, right?”
“I’m glad you saw that; very good, dear. Go on.”
“Okay, so Florida officials and then parents and then kids. The officials force the parents to harm the kids, sort of. Anyway, it’s the kids who are harmed. Florida has the power over the parents who have power over the kids. The kids have a tiny amount; resisting if they can, I guess.”
Nadine nodded. “That’s one strand or chain.”
Tamara went on. “Then my remedy would be in the other chain. Florida at the top, since I’d be breaking that law. Next, the district officials and finally the school officials, because I’d be using school files. Oh, the kids and parents would be in my chain too, I guess. Duh. My remedy affects them mostly.”
“So you have the actors now, and their relative power over each member—the links in the chains. Now consider the harm caused to people in both chains.”
Tamara frowned. “I mentioned the SiF harm to the kids. My remedy is to fix that and break some laws and rules when I do. In the SiF chain, my remedy causes no personal harm to Florida officials since they or their jobs would not be personally harmed if kids began wearing clothes. Of course, if the SiF program is stopped, some jobs might end, but that’s what? A theoretical harm?”
“You could view it that way.”
“Good, then comes my remedy chain. I think I need to go up the chain with this one. Using the student list from the school benefits the kids and possibly the parents; the parents don’t have to worry about their kid exposing them to a fine for breaking the SiF clothing law. We already know that the state can’t do anything to harm the kids or parents when a failed tag is involved—you found that out from what happened at Thomas Mann. My having the student list doesn’t harm the school officials personally since they wouldn’t know it was copied and used. The same with the district officials; no one there would be personally harmed.”
Nadine smiled. “That’s a good analysis. Now, what’s the score? Benefit versus harm?”
“Can I do the chains again?”
Nadine nodded.
“Okay, The Florida SiF chain harms kids themselves, and the parents too, a little, I suppose. There’s no personal benefit from the SiF law to anyone. The remedy chain benefits kids personally and harms no one, the same way. Oh, and I suppose I need to think of any property damage too.”
“Good point. That’s a part of the harm equation,” Nadine said.
“Sure. Okay, the RFID tags will be fried. But the parents bought them and paid to have them inserted. The value of a chip is tiny—about a dollar, Sue told me. The SiF fee is really a registration fee, not a chip purchase. So I guess the property damage is about zero.”
“I suppose that’s a valid argument, but there could be other points of view,” Nadine observed. “So how does thinking about harm versus benefit make you view your dilemma?”
“Um... Is it okay to violate the law in a good cause?” Tamara asked. “I think that if a law is bad... like it discriminates, or maybe even interferes with other laws, it can be ignored. Right?”
“There are a lot of instances of that happening, honey. Look at the recent past. Civil rights protestors would violate laws; there’s a term for this, it’s ‘civil disobedience.’ Basically, civil disobedience is illegal non-violent political action which is done for moral reasons. Some people even consider that in certain situations, doing property damage is sometimes morally permissible.”
“Oh! Sure, I remember about that in my civics class. So if no one is personally harmed by my using school records, and the purpose is to fix the personal harm to others, then it’s morally okay to break some rules.”
“And in your case, being extremely careful in the process,” Nadine nodded.
“Oh thank you, Momma! This was a great help,” Tamara exclaimed as she hugged her mother.
Tamara decided that she would copy the attendance file the next time she was given that job.
~~~~
It wasn’t long before Tamara got her first tutoring referral. It was a junior girl who was falling behind in her math class.
“I just don’t get this geometry crap,” Olivia complained after Tamara greeted her.
“You did take Algebra I, right?”
“Yeah, and I did okay, a ‘B’ in the class.”
“Well, that’s got concepts that can be harder for lots of people,” Tamara told her. “Where is geometry hardest for you—I know it’s only been two weeks.”
“It’s all the names of things, I guess. I mix them up. I confuse area and perimeter. Circles? Circumference, radius...”
“Yeah, I know. Diameter, chord, tangent, interior angle... Right?”
“Yes. And the proofs of theorems.”
Tamara nodded. “Sure. You named the keys to learning geometry. I’ll show you how it works and we’ll have fun along the way too. Learning terms is just memorizing, like learning spelling. Let’s look at the terms used for the circle’s area, okay? So take a circular flatbread that’s covered in cheese and tomato sauce. It has a radius of ‘z’ and a depth of ‘a.’ Where does it get its name from?
Olivia looked at Tamara blankly. “Huh?”
“It’s Pi times ‘z’ times ‘z’ times ‘a.’ Pizza!”
Olivia giggled. “Oooo. Not funny!”
“A tangent? That’s a man who spends all summer at the beach.”
“Not fair, Tamara.” Olivia was smiling broadly now.
“No? Then you won’t like what a rectangle is: a smashed angle.”
“Oh my god, Tamara.”
“What’s another name for an adorable angle? Acute angle.”
“Tamara, please...” Olivia was laughing now.
“What angle is the best one to take to approach any problem? The try-angle!”
“Oh jeez... No, stop it. Do you always do that?” Olivia asked, laughing.
Tamara tried to make a serious face. “Who, me? Yes, I do. I enjoy helping people learn things and if they laugh, it helps them learn. It’s fun, right? Let’s learn some terms now and try to make them into puns. Then you’ll never forget them, guaranteed.”
At the end of the session, Olivia was so happy that she hugged Tamara.
“Oh, you were awesome, Tamara!” she gushed. “I think I can see how to do some of the theorems now, too.”
“Good,” Tamara said. “Just remember; think of the postulates and basic theorems you’re learning now as playing cards. Then you play them when you have more complicated problems to work out. See you next time?”
“For sure.”
Word of Tamara’s tutoring abilities rapidly spread and she soon became one of the more popular tutors at Edison.
Mid-September
In mid-month, Tamara brought home a letter to Nadine and Wilson telling them of a parents’ meeting the following week. The meeting was to discuss the school district’s plans to begin the Naked in School Program in Miami. Miami Edison High was not on the list of schools to begin the Program because their graduation rate was below the school district’s cutoff. But the principal wanted parents to know what was happening in the state and the rest of the school district.
The next day, Wilson came home with a newspaper.
“Hey, honey,” he called to Nadine and greeted her with a kiss. “Ray gave me this newspaper.”
He opened it.
“Tallahassee Beacon?” Nadine asked. “Why did he have a Tallahassee paper?”
“He has a sister living there. She’s a high-school counselor in the city and Ray says she sees kids in the SiF program who are depressed. You know Ray has two teen boys; well, they were caught skinny-dipping and Ray is facing having them put into the SiF program or he faces a huge fine. His sister mentioned that she knows some parents in her own school district who were faced with a similar penalty, so she told him to get the paper because an article in it mentions how some parents got the fines thrown out. She also told him that in another case, the parents moved to Georgia—it’s only about fifteen miles from her school—and they’re commuting. Those kids are in a Georgia school now. Anyway, she told Ray to get this paper because there’s an exposé of the whole SiF program in it. He gave it to me after he read it because he remembers my telling him about Tamara’s run-in with the SiF people.”
“What’s in the exposé?” Nadine asked as Tamara came into the room and Wilson greeted her.
“Hi, sweetie. I was telling your mom about this exposé of the SiF program that this newspaper published yesterday.
“The report starts by talking about how the newspaper got into doing the investigation. The reporters wrote that teachers in the area schools had began noticing that there were fewer and fewer naked kids in school as the year passed. So the reporters watched at a number of Tallahassee schools to see how many stripped kids were showing up. The state SiF records showed 8 percent of the kids in the Tallahassee area were stripped but the reporters saw far fewer than that. A lot of stripped kids in the Tallahassee area were getting around the law and escaping detection because they were wearing some kind of arm band. They were clothed chipped kids and the bands kept their chip from being detected. The reporters wrote that they found that instructions for making the arm band were all over the social media,. So they decided to look into the SiF program.
“The SiF program was supposed to earn the state money by charging a fee to strip kids, both residents and also tourists. The report in the paper covered tourists first. The people who proposed this program thought that by giving visitors to the state the option to strip their kids when they came to Florida, it would increase tourism and thus revenue. The article showed that for the first year or two, there was a bump in tourism but now the numbers are trending lower than before the SiF program got started.”
“That’s interesting... maybe at the beginning it was a novelty and that’s worn off,” Nadine commented.
Wilson continued. “That’s apparently what happened. For state residents, then, the paper’s reporters dug out some interesting facts. First, the registration costs—the state had to keep raising the price of registering a kid because the costs weren’t keeping up with the revenue. Now the registration cost is high—$150, and it costs the parent at least $186 for the doctor’s visit to get the SiF chip implanted. So, at first, only about 80 percent of the parents who buy the SiF registration, now it’s down to 60 percent, actually go through with having the chip implanted, especially when they see—and the kids see—the big honkin’ needle that’s used. Almost every doc will refuse to implant a chip if the kid isn’t cooperative.”
“I wondered about that,” Nadine said. “What kid would want a big needle stuck into their arm?”
“Sure. And next is the part that Ray was interested in. The report covers the legal challenges to the very severe penalties for parents if their kids violated the SiF law. The article tells about a class-action suit in Jacksonville. There were eleven families in that area whose kids violated something in the law and their parents were each fined $5000 and the children were given 500 hours of community service. Those families did a class-action lawsuit, saying that the penalties were ridiculous; they were excessive. Also, what kind of community service can a 10- or 11-year-old kid do? Also, that number of hours could mean two or even more years of service. The judge agreed and invalidated the penalties of the SiF law, as a violation of the maximum penalties permitted under another Florida law and it also violates the U.S. constitutional prohibition against ‘cruel or unusual punishments.’ The article reports that there were similar legal challenges in other courts in the state.”
“What’s that mean for the SiF program, then?” Nadine asked.
“Wait, there’s more, honey. Look at this next section of the article. It’s about the costs of running the program. The chips are the least of the costs. The reporters did an analysis of the infrastructure costs. The initial law mandated that each retail store in the state purchase and install the scanners for their shops. The merchants fought back against that unfunded mandate and the state lost. The paper reports that there are 273,723 retail shops in the state and the minimum cost of a scanner with installation is about $1100. Just placing the scanners in retail stores alone comes to an expense of $301.1 million at the lowest end, assuming just a single entrance door for each shop. Then add to that the schools, office buildings, public buildings, and everywhere else the state put the scanners and they came up with a scanner cost of not less than $549 million. Then the state ordered 3 million tags at $1.13 each. Add the cost of computers, office space, handheld scanners and all the rest... see, the total they report for infrastructure cost is $786 million, minimum. And the annual operating costs for the program, they calculated, is $7.2 million.”
Tamara interrupted, “That’s pretty much what I thought when I saw all those scanners they put everywhere! If Florida was paying for all that, I couldn’t see how they’d ever get all that money back. Even in fifty years.”
Wilson nodded. “Exactly, honey. That’s just what this newspaper article reports—that for the state to recover just the initial infrastructure costs, when they started it, they needed to register more than 17.5 million kids at the initial fee of $45 each to recoup the infrastructure. The report says that there are only about 2.5 million kids and teens, ages 10 to 20, in Florida. Raising the fee to $150, as they recently did, just makes the number of kids needed to be registered to pay for the infrastructure a little less than 6 million, double the number of kids in the state—and even then, every kid in the state would have to be registered. Tourists contribute only a small fraction of the revenue, less than 2 percent. And, the report says, that doesn’t even account for the annual operating costs—to recover just the annual costs, it would require registering about an additional 50,000 kids each year. There just aren’t that many kids in Florida to support that cost. Their report’s conclusion is that the SiF program is a huge drain on Florida’s funds, not the fiscal lifesaver it was represented to be when the legislature passed that law.”
Nadine shook her head. “Couldn’t they see how much it would cost before they even began the program?”
“You’d think they would do some sort of analysis, wouldn’t you? Apparently no one did, or perhaps someone did and was ignored,” Wilson remarked.
Nadine nodded. “If Tamara could see that having to set up so many sensors would cause a funding problem, I can’t understand why the state officials couldn’t see that.”
“So maybe now they’ll stop the SiF program?” Tamara asked hopefully.
Wilson snorted. “Not likely, honey. Not unless there’s a huge public outcry. We’ll see.”
~~~~
At school, Tamara had copied the list of students from the scanned daily attendance reports to a flash drive and, using a computer matching program on that list against the state SiF list, she now had the names of the SiF kids attending Edison. She grouped the names into their respective grades. There were 68 names, broken down about evenly by grade. Knowing that complex plans are the most likely ones to have difficulties, Tamara spent a lot of time considering her options for how to zap their RFID tags. All her best ideas would require her to use her “pushing” ability and she was not sure that the lwa would help her if she needed any additional assistance.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, she sighed, and began working out how she could pull off what she considered her best approach to do the job. This would be to get the SiF kids, grouped by grade, into one single place where she could use her updated zapper—version 2.1, as she thought of it fondly—to fry all the chips at once. Settling on that approach as being the best one, Tamara began making the necessary preparations. She had tuned the EMF pulse that her zapper emitted to the frequency that the SiF RFID chips used; this would increase the chips’ energy absorption efficiency, making less power needed to overload their circuits. She had also devised an RF “reflector” for her device, enabling her to send more of the pulse it emitted in the general direction she intended, and finally, using the information she gleaned from the damaged scanner, she had figured out a way to increase her zapper’s power output. To test her improved device, she sacrificed one of her SiF chips—and was delighted to see that the chip was zapped from about sixty feet away.
Her plan needed a cover to account for the chips’ inactivation and that would involve having the kids participate in some way—and then she thought of cell phones. She could pin the blame on a cell-phone app. That meant that the kids would need to get instructions to use their phones while leaving no physical evidence of those instructions. She decided that the best way to do that was to use an on-line document, so using the computers in the Media Center room to display the document would be simplest. Also, the location of the zapping needed to be in a somewhat public area so she could be close to the kids without being noticed as being out of place. Again, the Media Center room was the ideal choice for the location, since part of it was set up with computer work stations and the other part had library and A/V facilities. This would allow Tamara to be seated in the library area but not be noticed as being involved with the SiF kids at the computers. How her zapper might affect the computers and monitors in the Media Center—not to mention any cell phones—was a bit concerning to her. But after careful, and clandestine, testing, she learned that the computers, in their metal housings, weren’t affected. Neither were cell phones. The monitor screens blinked after a pulse but were otherwise unaffected.
Her first preparation step would be to arrange for using the Media Center room. So, three days before her personal D-day, she “pushed” the technology teacher to reserve the computers for four periods on her chosen day for the SiF kids to participate in a special project that she had invented, a fictitious state SiF survey about how kids were adapting to being always naked.
The next step was a more difficult one because she would need to have Mrs Maria Leonard, the assistant principal, send notes to each teacher who had SiF kids in their classroom, releasing them during the designated period for their grade. Tamara did not want to forge the AP’s name, so she prepared envelopes, one for each grade, containing her lists of student names and she attached a printed note on school letterhead to each envelope which read,
“These students are needed for a brief state-designed survey project in the Media Center during the [insert number] period on November 11. The office secretary should send this notice to the appropriate teachers. Please deliver these instructions to each teacher today. If the student has a mobile phone, have him or her bring it, as it’s required for the project.”
She printed identical notes for the ninth graders for the second period, tenth graders for the third, juniors for the fifth, and seniors for the sixth period. And by having the secretary match up each student’s name with their proper class for that period, Tamara wouldn’t need to access any student’s record.
Then she left the completed envelopes with their student lists and instructions for the assistant principal and “pushed” the suggestion to her that the technology teacher had sent the lists and not to question what this was about. Later that day, she was relieved to see that the secretary was working on the SiF student lists.
Next, she left instructions for the Media Center specialist that just the students on the four lists, copies of which she provided, were to be allowed in the computer area during their selected period. Her instructions implied that Mrs Leonard and the technology teacher were directing this project. Then she “pushed” the suggestion that the specialist wouldn’t notice anything unusual about the group.
The final preparatory step was to write the instructions for the kids to follow. The instructions would appear on the computer monitors and would consist of a text file which she would save on a web cloud-storage site. She had already set one up for this single purpose.
Tamara couldn’t sleep the night before her personal D-day; she was so wound up. Did I think of everything? What if the kids don’t get the notes? What if the internet quits? What if...
She spent an anxious morning the next day, her D-day, and just before the second period bell rang, the final part of her plan began.
Using the pass she had gotten to skip her scheduled second, third, fifth, and sixth-period classes, when the second period bell sounded, Tamara rushed to the Media Center room, where, during the flurry of activity of the class-changing time, she put an instruction sheet next to each work station. Then she sat at a work table near the computer area, making herself “little” so she wouldn’t be noticed, and waited. There were just seven clothed kids in the Media Center when the period began, all sitting on the library side of the room. After the bell rang to start the period, about five minutes later, naked kids began arriving, and the specialist began dutifully checking them off her list.
“Go sit at the computers,” she told them. “There are instruction sheets there. Two to a work station.”
Then she turned back to her work, ignoring any further activity in the room.
“What’s all this about—hey, everyone here is SiF?” one boy asked. “Hope it’s not more of the damn state buggin’ me...”
“Here’re some instructions,” a girl said. “Wonder why they said to bring our cells?”
The instructions gave one task: to enter a web address in the browser and read the document there and everything would be explained. After a bit of fumbling, everyone was reading the on-screen document.
“Greetings. It’s come to our attention that most, if not all, of the kids in the Stripped in Florida program would be delighted to be able to wear clothes again. We can help you if you want to stop being naked. If you DO want to remain in the SiF program, this is your chance to stay in it—leave this room now, because after following the instructions below, the RFID tracking chips in your arms will no longer work and you will be able to wear clothes again. This is your last chance to leave.
“Everyone still here who wants to be here? Good. Now this is important. Tell NOBODY about what happened here. It’s not likely to happen, but if you blab, you could get into trouble, and no one likes trouble, right? Having a damaged chip isn’t your fault, we have confirmed that, and the SiF people can’t force you to get it replaced, either. We have confirmed that fact too.
“Here are the steps you need to take. When you use the phone app you’ll be installing, you’ll know that there are many people who are against the SiF stupidity and the phone app, together with the website that this doc is on, will help to inactivate your arm chip. In other words, this only will work this one time, right here, right now. Don’t try this at home—it won’t work there. Got it? Are you still with us? Good.”
Tamara could hear chuckling from some of the groups as they read that last paragraph. Time to get ready, she thought. She watched the kids as they kept reading and a few seconds later, when she saw most of them begin to fumble with their phones, she fired her zapper.
“Here we go. Go to your phone’s app store and search ‘network analyzer’ and install it. If you don’t have a phone, no worries, sit next to someone who has one. Within three feet will work. All done?
“Now open the app and at the very bottom of the screen, look for ‘LAN.’ Select that and on the screen that opens, press ‘Scan’ at the top. Don’t bother reading what appears in the app—the chip in your arm is dead now and you’re free to wear clothes again.”
There was a minor commotion from the kids as the words sunk in and the specialist called for them to be quiet.
“Look, there’s more instructions,” a girl spoke. Everyone turned back to their screens.
“Don’t believe the chip’s dead? Go to your app store again, search for ‘nfc,’ and select ‘NFC Scanner.’ Install that and open it; then move your phone over the spot on your arm where the chip is. If the app doesn’t show a ten-character alphanumeric code, your chip is dead.
“Congrats! Now go back to class and remember, ‘mum’s the word.’
“And go get some clothes! Jeez, these Florida kids!”
As the kids read the last paragraphs, they started laughing and then began high-fiving each other. They began filtering out of the room, talking about how their parents would react, and their friends, and...
Tamara quickly reset the web page containing her document, since she was using a different cloud-storage address for each grade so the document the ninth graders saw would no longer be accessible. Everything went smoothly as she repeated her setup with the next two grades, and then it was the seniors’ turn. Just as most members of the group hit “Scan” on their apps, Mrs Leonard rushed into the room with the technology teacher following.
“What are all of you doing?” she ordered.
Everyone looked around, embarrassed and confused.
“Well? What is this all about?” she insisted.
A girl ventured, “Our teachers told us to come here. Then we were told to go to this web address.” She held up the paper.
Meanwhile, Tamara had already zapped the kids’ chips and then used her tablet to delete the document on the website. Then she refreshed the folder that the doc was in. But the doc would remain on the computer screens until moving the displayed page refreshed the view, whereupon the document would vanish. She tried “pushing” a suggestion to the kids to refresh their browser, but she was too far to affect most of them.
“What’s on that page on the screen?” Leonard asked.
She looked at a nearby screen and read, “Don’t bother reading what appears in the app—the chip in your arm is dead now and you’re free to wear clothes again.”
Leonard tried scrolling the document on the screen to keep reading and the document vanished.
“How do I get this page back?” she asked.
Someone handed her the sheet with the web address and she entered the address but got a “Page not Found” error message.
“Was this something about your SiF chips? Something that deactivated them?” she asked.
After a lot of quizzing of the kids, the only thing that Leonard learned was that somehow an innocuous phone app, together with a vanished web page, was supposed to have inactivated every SiF chip in the group. But she didn’t know of any easy way to confirm that. She learned that none of the kids had any idea that their chips were to be deactivated; in fact, they had no idea why they were asked to go to the Media Center in the first place. The reason that Leonard came to investigate was because of a widespread disturbance in the school about all the SiF kids’ chips no longer working and people had noticed that they had been sent to the Media Center earlier in the day. Apparently none of the SiF kids had talked about what happened to them in the Media Center—other people were able to put the pieces together.
That evening on the local news, there was an item about a strange incident at Miami Edison High School where virtually every kid’s SiF chip had been deactivated, apparently by an ordinary cell phone app, and state officials were frantically trying to get the app’s developers to explain how that had happened. Of course, the app’s developers had absolutely no inkling of what the Florida officials were talking about.
After the news, Wilson looked at his daughter. “That was your doing, Tamara?”
She nodded. “Yep.”
He chuckled. “Very creative. What was the deal with the cell phone app?”
Tamara grinned. “Creative misdirection. It gave them a technical reason to look into to explain why the chips were broken, instead of trying to discover how it really was done.”
Wilson laughed. “That’s called a red herring, you know. A misleading clue.”
“Huh? Why? Where does that come from?”
He shrugged. “Dunno—maybe because it smells fishy? Go look it up. So how did you get the school officials to help you—you couldn’t have done that alone. ‘Pushing’ them?”
“Yeah. Just a tiny bit. I ‘suggested’ things to them that they usually do anyway, so they thought that doing what I wanted was completely normal.”
“You’re sure you won’t get in trouble? Anyone see you doing ‘stuff’?” he made finger quotes.
“Either I was doing my usual office aide job or I was in the library along with a dozen other kids, so no, nobody saw me doing anything out of the ordinary.”
“Good. I wonder if we’ll hear anything more about this at tomorrow night’s parents’ meeting.”
They would hear plenty at that meeting.
Copyright © 2023 Seems Ndenyal. All Rights Reserved.