Hacked - WebcamGate

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

In 2009, a Pennsylvania high school accused sophomore Blake Robbins of dealing drugs—based on a photo secretly taken through his school-issued laptop. The image, captured without his knowledge in his own bedroom, turned out to show candy. But the real story wasn’t about what was in his hand—it was about how the school got the photo in the first place. In this episode, we speak with filmmaker Jody McVeigh-Schultz, creator of SPY HIGH, and Blake himself, about surveillance, bias, and what happens when institutions cross the line between protecting kids and controlling them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I mean, even though technology has developed so much in the last 16 years, it was still as important to me as it is to you or to, if you have children, your children. There's this documentary coming out about something that happened back in 2009. If you were online back then, you might remember the name of the scandal. People dubbed it WebCampgate. You know, I used that computer pretty much all day through. out school and then a lot of my time at home as well. Blake Robbins was a sophomore at a high school in suburban Pennsylvania. He was like a normal kid, played video games, chatted on AOL instant messenger.

His school had this program where they gave every student a MacBook to use and they were like today sort of the heart of most kids' social lives. One day, Blake gets called into the vice principal's office, Miss Matzko. His mom's already there and she's not there quietly. walks into like a full-blown shouting match between her and the administration. And then they hit him with it. The school is accusing Blake of selling pills. They're calling him a drug dealer. There weren't formal criminal charges yet, but there was allegedly talk of involving the cops. It was like a very serious disciplinary accusation he was walking into with major consequences. And they say that

they have proof, a photo of Blake sitting at home on his laptop in his bedroom of Blake handling what they were saying were drugs. They're smoking gun. Blake says those were Micanikes. I mean, I don't know how anyone could mix up a Mike and Ike from a pill. Which is almost funny until you realize what the photo itself means, which is they had a camera. in his bedroom. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. You said, what? You have pictures of me? At home? And suddenly the question isn't, were those pills or Mike and Ikes? The question isn't whether you're a drug dealer. The question is why do you have a photo of a 15-year-old's bedroom? And all eyes fall back to the MacBook.

Yikes. That would be my only feedback. Yikes. It's yikes. And you kind of get why the mom was maybe yelling a little bit when Blake walked into the room. First and foremost, like, go mom. Like has the kids back from the jump. Good for her. I think there was something like 2,300 of these MacBooks given out. It was at scale. It was they were giving them out. And as we talk about in the chat, without much in the way of explanation as to what was on those computers.

So what followed this was a federal lawsuit with a payout in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, a media circus, the public getting to see how this one school district with no policies, no warnings, no real oversight had been using tools to let administrators quietly activate student webcams and then taking and storing images without their knowledge. again of minors in their bedrooms using laptops. The thing here for me that blows it away is like it was Mike and Ikes, which is hilarious. Like to be, to not be able to understand that Mike and Ix are not pills and drugs is hilarious. But also shocking and scary. And here's the thing that really blows me away is that the lawsuit completed. Two of the students were compensated. How was this not a class?

There's 2,300 of these computers. It should have been a class action lawsuit because I guarantee it wasn't just these two kids that were documented. Guarantee the privacy was violated in all of these children. Shocking. Also, why would you want to be able to look

into a teenage boys and girls' bedroom? Well, they go through puberty and have access to the internet on their computer. I don't want to see that. No. Nobody wants to see that. It's like a real. remarkably bad idea in six different directions.

100%. And it was done as we talk about in the interview under sort of the auspice of anti-theft. It was the idea that you installed this anti-theft measure on this computer that allowed you to turn on this webcam remotely so that you could help find a computer that was lost. Ignoring GPS and a myriad of other ways you could do this without violating the privacy of a minor in their own home, that was sort of, that was the, that was the, the justification that was provided and based on the results of the lawsuit that was deemed, I think unsatisfactory. I'm still, I'm still the thing that, like this is funny. Like,

like the fact that this happened shocking, yes, I could, it doesn't surprise me. You can't see my face curling up as I'm trying to talk to Jordan. It doesn't surprise me that this happened, but it's shocking that it did. The thing that really surprises me is that lawyers didn't bite onto of this and make this to do a massive class action. Like, that's a huge payday for some law firm, and I'm shocked that they didn't do it. So whoever was on the defensive side of the school and prevented this from becoming a class, it deserves a massive, massive compensation. Because imagine you had to pay him like $700,000 per kid.

Like, that's a massive payout. And like, in all honesty, they probably deserve it. Yeah. So it's also, you know, you think about that area. to late 2000s. It's one of the first times I think when junior high high school kids, that mass migration of social life had started to take place to moving online. It was really one of the first cohorts. And we talk about this in the interview that at that time, it wasn't a big institutional thing yet either. It wasn't just expected like my parents came up

with the internet. I'm using the internet as a kid. It felt like a discovery for kids at that age. It was this thing that we had. We've got the AOL and instant messenger. We've got these calls we're having. We've got our little community online. And it's, uh, networks. We're getting bigger. Exactly. And, and there's been years and years of discussion since about privacy online and what it means to conduct your social life online. None of that had happened at that point. It was this wild west situation that makes, I think that betrayal all the more potent for the people that were involved in it. And you hear a bit of that in the chat. Well, like that, like I get to the school.

handing out computers, putting on some kind of mobile device management software, things like that makes total sense. Certainly. Having the ability even to like make sure that the computers are being used for bad, like turning on someone's webcam and watching them in their bedroom. Different. Very different. Very, very different.

And it's, and we talk about this, it really kind of just comes down to communication and consent. It's like, did you tell people? that the computer that you're handing them has this ability, or did you not? If you then proceeded to go do it, that's where the rubber hits the road. And what is the, like, this is the thing, too, is like, if you're going to create a system where privacy can be imposed on so much, what is the policies and checklist that you have to go through to, like, trigger that? And it sounds like in this case, it was nothing. It was like, I'm just going to play, like, webcam roulette and see what some of these kids are up to.

That is shocking. It seems as though it was, did the person who was overseeing, did the folks in the IT department want to turn it on and did an administrator come to them asking them to turn it on? Hmm. I missed this interview as I was in bed with the flu. So I'm excited to hear it as much as you guys should be. It's an interesting one. So I wanted to talk to Jody McVe Shultz, the filmmaker behind Spy High, which is this new documentary series about the story as a chance to kind of learn about this case. I had missed the first time.

And as we were booking that, they asked if Blake, the student who was at the center of it back in 2009, you know, if I'd want to speak with him as well. Both the filmmaker and the subject on this episode, brought to you by push security. We got both of them. It was fascinating. I think without further ado, my chat with the pair, Jody the filmmaker and Blake, the guy at the center of the story, way back. in 2009 that the media dubbed WebCampgate. Here, on Hacked. Blake, Jody, thank you so much for sitting down and talking about this story with us.

Thank you. Jody, I'm going to start with you. You've described this story as being not just about digital privacy, but really about things like power and control and bias. What was it about Blake's story that made you think, pick up the cameras, grab the mics, we've got to go tell this thing. Yeah, so I grew up outside of Philadelphia. I'd actually heard of this story way back when it happened.

I was in L.A. at that point, but it always kind of stuck in my mind. And one of the strangest parts about what happened is that, you know, Blake had this experience, figuring out that his school was spying on him, was taking images of him in his own bedroom, through his webcam on his school computer. And, you know, you'd expect that the reaction in this town would be that everyone would be like, this cannot happen, and we need to hold the school accountable, like Blake and his family were trying to. And that wasn't necessarily what happened.

I think the town was like very much split. And there are a lot of parents who were like, we must protect the school. Like we must protect the image of the school. And that was like kind of shocking to me. And what sort of emerged was like a story about also this area. It's called the main line in Philly. Pretty like wealthy area.

But also really close knit. like, you know, it's, you said you have your, your dog with you, Ozzie, you're like, lower Marion's as small as Ozzy, right? Like a rumor gets around there fast, right? And, and, uh, I found that it was just interesting to think about this town because, you know, I think genuinely the people in that town thought they all knew what was best for kids, for their kids. but there was a lot of different, sort of, like, opposing viewpoints.

And who got to, like, have the power to make decisions was, like, a battle. And that's part of, like, what was going down while this case was sort of being investigated and all that stuff. Because, yeah, the people supporting the school thought they knew what was best, and they didn't, think that holding the school accountable for spying through webcams was a good thing. And like, that's absurd to me. But, you know, when you're dealing with a school district, there's all these points of view that you're trying to like come to consensus on what's best for the kids. And so that was kind of a war going on.

Yeah. And I think maybe it wasn't exactly just what's best for the kids, but also what's best for their value of their property. In the neighborhood. Since the school district has such a big impact on that neighborhood, I believe, you know, possibly they were looking out for themselves in their pockets as well. I was definitely struck by that in the story that it did seem like reputation was such an unexpectedly big theme. It was the reputation of the school. By extension, the reputation of the community and property values to your point, Blake.

And yet, on the flip side of it, the reputation of the student felt like it played a really big. role in it. The students that certain administrators liked, maybe didn't like so much, which I think will get to. But Blake, I want to go back to like just before that day. You know, it's 2009. You're a sophomore. You got the MacBook glued to you. A. Well, Instant Messengers buzzing. I think your handle was SK-Ater. 1994. I got that right? Wow. You just blew my mind with that one. But Facebook's on the laptop. School assignments are on the laptop. Can you explain? Explain how central that computer was to your everyday world at that age and that point in time? I mean, even though technology has developed so much in the last 16 years, it was still as important to me as it is to you or to if you have children, your children.

and, you know, I used that computer pretty much all day throughout school, and then a lot of my time at home as well. I believe my I-chat name developed into B-Rob-23, and we were always doing essentially FaceTime's. We called it, what was it called back then? Jody, do you remember? So it was I-Chat, video chat? Yeah.

I chat, video chatting, yeah. So me and my friends are always doing it, you know, three, four people could be in video chat at once. So if we weren't together, that was another way to be together or to, you know, essentially hang out with girls that you weren't currently with. That was a big thing. So like I said, I was on it most of the day, like how any other kid today is, they just use. it in a different form and fashion. I kind of came up at the same time. And the thing I remember about that is for all the ways, it's similar, so woven into

the fabric of like a student's life, at that time it felt new. It didn't feel like this institutional thing that other generations had had. It felt kind of like me and my, you know, friends had discovered this thing. We had these messaging services. We were talking to each other on it. It felt like a new special thing. And I would imagine that this sense that there's someone else from the outside looking into these very private conversations would be even more potent at that point in

time for you. Absolutely. You know, now when you use anything Facebook-based, you know, the terms and conditions, I believe, say that the camera does turn on more for advertisement-based reasons. I know one time my girlfriend was wearing a Cheeto shirt, like pajamas, and we never eat. Cheetos. We're not snack eaters like that. And she started getting ads on her Instagram for Cheetos. So, you know, now it's something that you actually willingly sign up for. But then technology was new. And like you said, it kind of felt like something we were discovering. It was more of a first generational thing for us. And definitely didn't expect anyone to be on the other side of that camera. Now we're always being watched. It sure feels that way. It brings us nicely to that day. Ms. Matzko,

assistant, I think it was an assistant principal, calls you into the office, set the scene for us. What does she say and what did she show you that day? Well, at first, nothing. At first, I get called into the office and her secretary, who was a very nice woman, and I would always chitch out with her for 30 seconds to a minute before going to her office.

She just immediately told me, Blake, you have a suspension on Thursday, I believe it was. Ms. Mascoe's busy right now, but she will call you down to the office later and tell you why. And I remember, as she said that, I kind of honed in on what Ms. Matzgo was saying, and I could basically hear her yelling, and I immediately knew she was speaking with my mother. who isn't one to be yelled at by a school authority and agree with them? She most certainly was probably like, get off my phone with this shit. And then I came back to the office a period or two later,

and that's when she spilled the beans on herself in the district by saying that they have reason to believe that I was selling pills. I was about 15 years old. I never did pills or saw pills at that point in life, unlike 15-year-olds today. And I was just completely thrown off guard. Yeah, there were no pills. It seems as though it was a case of confusion between pills and Mike and Ikes. how did you react when they hit you with that accusation?

I felt, I mean, that's not who I was at all. Mm-hmm. You know, I definitely came to school late. I kind of like to do things my way. Jody, I saw you said a troublemaker in an interview. I don't know if I was quite troublemaker, but I was in her office. I think they thought you were, but do you think, times. Do you think Ms. Mattskow thought you were a troublemaker or put you in that box?

Yeah, absolutely. Because I was in her office, but not necessarily for fighting or, you know, calling a teacher a derogatory name. But she definitely was biased towards me. Yeah. And all along it was, I can, I actually remember the exact moment where I, I was showing a Mike and Ike where, I mean, I don't know where, how anyone could mix up a Mike and Mike from a pill. But I remember if you grew up the same generation as me, you remember leaving videos on people's Facebook walls? Sure do. Yeah. So I was leaving a video on my friend's Facebook wall who got me into eating Mike and Ikes. and instead of the long oval,

Mike and Ike, one was like a little ball and I was just being a child and being like, look, they jipped me, making a joke. And I can see how that could be mixed up for someone advertising a pill, but at the same time, a Mike and Ike looks like a candy or a mint

or, you know, I've never seen a pill to this day that looked like what I had in my hand that time. I couldn't even imagine what she thought it was. Yeah, I'm 30-some-years deep, and I don't think I've ever seen a pill that was a half-inch long and, I don't know, tropical fruit colored. They just don't tend to come in that shape. Yeah, like a neon green. Totally. Two-de-frutie, like, pills, party pills. It's, it's, um, That's a whole other question. But to not to put you find a point on it, the reason that they had suspicions that you were selling conspicuously

Mike and Ike shaped pills was not because you had posted a video on a Facebook wall. A photograph had been taken in your bedroom. When did you realize that's what had occurred? And take me through your experience of that. It happened when I was in her office. She was kind of explaining why, She was accusing me of these wild acquisitions and was essentially repeating conversations I had and eventually got to the point of, you know, I have pictures of you and your conversations. And, you know, I believe you're selling pills and I'm going to take this up with the authorities to the fullest extent.

And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. You said, what? You have pictures of me? At home? It's one of the most catastrophic instances of a confession hidden inside of an accusation. I think I've maybe ever seen. You know, there's this accusation. So this year, I think you're selling pills and I'm going to go to the police to,

I'm going to go to the police with this. And I have photographic evidence from your bedroom. It's like, what a remarkable. That's quite the. slip up, quite the thing to inadvertently admit to. It's almost like, it's almost like being a drug dealer and calling the police on yourself. Sure. I was robbed when I was selling drugs.

My customer didn't, you know, slid me the money and there wasn't enough. He didn't, they didn't pay for nearly that much heroin that I was trying to sell them. It's like, sorry, what was that last part there? Yeah, exactly. I want to dig into the tech side of this. little bit. Jody, what is your sense of the school software and what it was capable of, how it worked, and as a storyteller looking into this, what did you find most alarming about the capabilities of that tech? Yeah. So what's interesting is Blake and his family got with their

lawyer, they filed this lawsuit. And, you know, I think for a long time, everybody involved was like, there's just no way that they're actually taking photos and taking screenshots through these laptops. But then the school comes out after the laptop, the case goes public. And they're like, look, we can't say much. But we have these capabilities because we have security software. And it was part of their remote management. software, which was called Lanrev. It had a feature called ThiefTrack. And the idea they said was,

look, this is turned on for lost or stolen laptops. And it's to get the laptop back, you know, when the laptop's opened up, it sends a ping to that remote laptop. It'll take a picture every 15 minutes and we'll see who stole the laptop and we'll get it back. Like, even if that's actually what it was used for, like, the idea

that that's how you would recover a cell on laptop and that's like the best way to do it is so absurd to me. One of the journalists that we talked to was like, look, that's like trying to kill a fly with a bazooka. Like you've just, there's no,

reason to be taking photos. You know, another part of this software had like an IP address. That makes a little more sense. But what's crazy is that even with that, Blake's laptop was neither

lost nor stolen. So even the expressed purpose that they were like, that's what this is for, they weren't even using it for that. in this case. And so, you know, I think that's when everybody,

um, sort of on Blake's side of this was like, oh, well, like, we have a real case here. And like the, the school district is not doing what they say they're doing. Mm hmm. I was struck by a moment in the series, like to this point where you're talking about the lawyer who had looked into how this technology worked. And he had assumed like first look at this, oh, there's some kind of consent or disclosure policy. Consent is so key to something like this. You know, security software has advanced, but it always comes down to, you know this is being installed on, say, a work computer or whatever it is. You need to know. There needs to be disclosure. It seems here there was basically

nothing, not really any signing, no officially publicly stated policy. It was just laptops on a shelf, grab one, and then it's this inadvertent open surveillance under the guise of anti-theft measure. Is this a sign of the times back then, that this was just a little more willy-nilly? Or did you sense that this was something else? To me, it was a little bit of both, because it was a little bit of Wild West. Like, look, schools had not done this before. But I think that is used as an excuse. And I think it's not, there's more than that to the story.

Because they can blame it on being kind of like new technology. And we don't, you know, we all don't know sort of like the best uses for this. But we found out through researching this that they actually considered like an intern who is working with them to like install this software before this all happened. He was like, hey, shouldn't we tell all the parents about this? This would be a huge, huge issue. You could get sued. You could get like, this is going to cause an uproar. And they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

calm down take a breath mister like they they were so dismissive of this kid and what actually came out is the i t people at that school felt like the software won't work as well if you tell kids that it can take a picture of you because they'll just put tape over their webcam and all of a sudden the recovery software won't work so they purposely did not include this in anything that was sent home. I think what was sent home was like an acceptable use form, which is mostly like, hey, you can't look at dirty websites on this.

But there was nothing about the use of the surveillance software in that form. And that was on purpose, which is crazy. One of the things that I really like about push, and I like about the solution that they have, is they've been really clever at looking at where the attack surface for an organization exists. Identity attacks have become that thing. And it's one of the main reasons why I really like them is that they're focused on where security is going, not where it's been. And I think that that's the big thing for me. And if I was CSO of a corporation,

like this is something that makes complete sense for me. It's at the heart of like fishing. It's at the heart of credential stuffing and session hijacking account takeovers. These are the number one causes of breaches right now. And a lot of security tools focus on endpoint networks like infrastructure and the browser meanwhile, the place where all of this stuff is going down and where people actually work, that's been ignored, push changes. Yeah, yeah. They build the lightweight browser extension. It observes identity activity in real time, gives the corporation, the IT department's

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It detects all of the things that like when Sandra in accounts payable gets an email and clicks a link that looks exactly like it's supposed to. And they enter their information. It detects whether that's a fishing attack or not a lot of the time. And like to me that right there is the value. They're looking at real-time threats, man-in-the-middle attacks, stolen session tokens, and new stuff like cross-IDP impersonation where the attacker bypasses SSO, multifactor authentication by registering their own identity provider. It's like end point detection response for the browser. And one of the other things I like is like they're great people.

They're great at what they do. They've been great at what they do. They're all senior security. There are people. They're senior security professionals that have grown up in the industry, understand the industry, and understand the vulnerabilities the corporations have. They understand that identity is the new endpoint and Push is treating it like that

and now they're detecting and responding to the attacks on that surface. Check them out at pushsecurity.com. Think about the last time you heard a breach story on this show. It always starts the same way. Someone somewhere saw something too late, an alert buried, a signal missed, an SOC that just couldn't keep up.

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how defenders are responding, and what strategies can help you stay ahead of the next big breach. It's not fear-mongering. It's practical, actionable, intelligence from experts in the trenches. Register now at arcticwolf.com slash hacked. It strikes me as odd to say that this one specific security measure on this laptop that's taking a photo in the event of theft won't work because if teenagers with a laptop know that they can be viewed through their webcam, they might cover it, which to me raises better than I can the ethical implications of a server full of images

taken of youth without their knowledge in a private setting while they're used. using a laptop. The ethical and, like, legal implications of that are terrifying. Was there ever a justification never given for that side of this of, like, what might have been photographed of youth? No, they had no control over what was being photographed. I mean, Blake can speak to this. You know, kids were, like, using them in their bedroom.

He had pictures taken of him while he was sleeping. Kids were taking them into the bathroom to listen to music while they're showering. I mean, it was everywhere. right plate? Oh, geez. Yeah, absolutely. At least I know that's what I did. I do remember them coming out and saying,

oh, well, you know, in one instance, this actually worked, and we found a computer in Pakistan. Yeah. Well, that sounds more GPS base than, I mean, did they recognize that person in Pakistan? I'm like, oh, that's my cousin, you know, Muhammad. He's in Pakistan. He's in Islamabad.

Let's go recover that computer. Well, at that point, I'm pretty sure the computer's lost and gone. And I don't even believe that to be true because, I mean, you know, maybe Mexico, but Pakistan? They actually did. We have these emails of them being like, oh, we can see the, I guess maybe it was somebody who had been to one of the high schools or a friend of person, but like a computer did end up in Pakistan, but of course they couldn't recover it. They were just like looking at images of this person who had taken their computer. And I think eventually it got back to the States and they recovered it.

But here's the funny thing. All of this like inventory protection and recovery, it probably like saved them like less than $10,000, right? You know, like, they, you know, I think at one point from like the Harritan locker room, six laptops were taken at once. And they like, you know, got all excited because they started working with local PD and they're like, we tracked them down. It's like, great, you got some stolen laptops back. But, you know, sort of just trampling all over everyone's constitutional rights while doing this cost them way more money. Like, it's absurd, the sort of value judgment they were making.

I mean, I just don't see why they didn't just use a GPS-based. Yeah, or IP, yeah, exactly. If you lose your iPhone today, there's no, you know, when you go in to find my iPhone and, you know, you click loss or stolen or whatever, there's no way to be like, oh, turn on the camera and let's see exactly who has it. Yeah. But you can see where it is. Yeah. And in some instances that might not be as helpful. But, you know, one time I lost my phone and I remember, I'm sorry, my laptop and $4,000 cash was stolen out of my car.

And I actually went to the location and it was at and it was an apartment building. And like, even if I could see the person's face, I mean, how helpful is that going to be to me? At that point, my phone or I'm sorry, my laptop and that cash was gone. Yeah. Yeah. I think what's interesting is, like, you don't need that level of, you know, like, invasion. But once they had it, and I don't know, I don't want to, like, guess what the motivation was to, like, start using that software. But once you have it, the temptation to misuse it, I think is huge.

Like, that's the problem here is that, like, once you have a dangerous technology, you're going to use it in unintended ways and in ways that are harmful. This struck you, I mean, it did to me. This struck you as one of those unintended ways. This is anti-theft software. This is meant for tracking a laptop apparently to Pakistan. Who knew? But that's its express purpose.

That purpose was not communicated. No consent was given for that purpose, but that was the purpose. There was no sense that this laptop had been stolen, correct? Yeah, I mean, Blake, tell them about, this was like an insurance issue that they said they turned on the camera for. Yeah, so at one point I had like jumped off my bed and landed on my laptop and broke the screen. And I remember going in the next morning and saying my brother jumped off my bed and broke the screen. And they gave me a replacement laptop. and to get my laptop fixed,

I was supposed to give them $150 deductible, which I didn't know at the time, because this was also new to me. And I believe I wasn't supposed to take that loner laptop they gave me home. And no one had told me this. Maybe the $150 deductible, but I definitely didn't know I wasn't supposed to take it home. So when they...

do approach me and tell me, you know, you have to give us that $150 deductible. I did come back with the check for $150. And that camera was left on way longer than the 24 to 48 hours that I didn't give them the deductible check. However, the school certainly had my address. I was at my address. if the software can stare at you through your camera, then I'm pretty sure the software can be GPS-based or, like you said, IP address-based,

and see, oh, well, Blake still just has it. There's an actual email where they say he's online at home. So they knew that you had your computer. computer and you are at home and yet they left the camera taking an image every 15 minutes they left it on for a week I mean I forget what they found the discovery but it was like three weeks I think I think two weeks like 14 15 days something like that yes yeah yeah yeah and didn't it wasn't there's email where they actually said I believe from miss Mattsco but I don't put words in her mouth no

Yeah, they actually asked, like, do these need to stay on now, now that we know where he is? Yeah. And they just said, yes. What's interesting is that it's a guy who was in the IT department who said he was, like, they took all these depositions as part of this. And he said, yes, Ms. Mascoe told me leave it on. And Ms. Matzko was like, I didn't say anything. So they all have sort of like plausible deniability. And we get into that.

It's like everybody was trying to place the blame somewhere else. Because at the end of the day, this essentially could have easily be turned into child pornography. And I still believe to this day that they somehow got rid of images from their hard drives. because I know I used the computer in the bathroom and, sure. And, you know, while taking the shower. And, you know, at the time I was afraid to say it, but now I don't mind.

I'm sure to, you know, masturbate. So someone definitely knew what they were facing. Yeah. And I don't want to, you know, have the blame placed on them. And I don't want to put words in Ms. Masco's mouth again. But I could definitely see her saying that because, circling back to what we spoke about earlier, she was definitely bias of me. And not for any great reason. I was in her office for more of doing things how I want to do them, being a little late to class, coming to school late, things of that nature, not actually being known for being a drug dealer by any means, because I wasn't.

you were a Mike and Ike aficionado that's terrifying and I'm sorry that's I was I would still like to be but trying to stay away from sure you and me both

yeah I'm struck by the competing motivations of like it seemed as though IT felt confident and comfortable having this kind of software in the world and quite committed to the software being usable to its fullest they wanted we can't inform anyone about these cameras

because then they could block the cameras. And running in parallel to that, there were these motivations that felt a lot more personal from some of the administration, to your point about your relationship with Ms. Matzko. And just the strange way that those two, maybe not great motivations, kind of wove into one another

in this very strange messed up situation where suddenly this tech was in your home because of the IT folks and could be used to maybe realize something a little more personal on behalf of the teachers. It's a strange aligning of planets in a weird way. Yeah.

I think the world of the high school is like kind of key to the series. And part of what happens is that like people who are in charge of a high school, it's kind of like their own little kingdom. And so they sort of feel like they have like immense power. So you had somebody like Ms. Matzka who knew Blake, but then you had these IT guys who didn't know. Blake at all, but we're kind of like, you know, these are our laptops, like, yeah, I can go through all the photos. Like, it's, it's kind of unclear how they found this photo they found troubling

of Blake with the Mike and Ike. But, you know, they were comfortable just being like, yeah, I can scroll through his photos. And they're sort of like, you know, just feeling like you have full authority over those kids in any way. even if you're just like an IT guy there. It's disturbing, you know? I mean, I could, look, I'm not saying I agree with what I'm about to say, but as a human being, I could see how a principal could think that that's their own little kingdom and go on a power trip because that's natural for humans to have, you know,

to have a little bit of power over someone or a group of people and start, to abuse that power. But when you think of someone in the IT room and in my head I like to think of like, you know, this dark room where they're staring at computers all day long. No, I don't even know where this office was, I'm assuming,

at the administration. But, you know, what were they looking for? They didn't know Blake Robbins. They didn't, you know, they weren't bias of me. So what were they looking for? So obviously I can't agree with Ms. Mathsco, but I know how the human brain works, and I know how, you know, she could think that that is her own little kingdom.

Of course. She's completely in the wrong. But, you know, someone in the IT department, it's like, what was your motivation for looking through those photos? I want to zoom back in to this moment in the story where it's quite startling. It's this moment where your friends come up to you and say, like, you need to Google yourself right now. And this story had gone from being, you know, in Ms. Matsco's office and in living rooms and in high school corridors. It had gone big. What was that moment like when you realize this is a much bigger story now?

Well, like I said, I like to do things my way, kind of. Probably the reason why I'm an entrepreneur now, like yourself. I was taking a very long extended bathroom break from our class, who was a very liberal teacher and didn't mind me doing this. So I was actually at, we had like a bagel counter where parents would come in and sell bagels and other items. And, you know, me being a young Ashkenazi Jewish boy, I loved bagels and would have to find time every day to go get one. and I was sitting down and joining my bagel and one of my best friends still to this day, text me and was like, Google yourself. And I was like, why I already have before.

It looks like there might be an actor with my name. Nothing exciting. No, you have to Google yourself right now. And I remember my lawyer saying that there might be some, you know local media attention nothing on the scale of what it became but I wasn't expecting it

it's not like I knew that was going to happen this day I mean I do remember maybe a few weeks before or sometime before him saying look it's we're filing the lawsuit now I mean it could gardener a little

bit of local media attention. But at that point in time, I had no idea. So I was a little dumbfounded to see, wow, this is everywhere. And it's spread across the school like wildfire. Definitely several news crews in front of my house when I got back. But what I was saying was it's spread across the school like wildfire so quickly that the main principal, because Ms. Mattsville was just an assistant principal, the main principal actually had to get on the loudspeaker at the very end of the day and address these alleged allegations,

and he straight up said, these allegations are false. Hmm. Completely denied it. Hmm. And I don't even know how much of it in the loop he was because it's more focused on Miss Matzko. But he definitely knew that these computers had that software on it. Yeah.

And, you know, what else could he say? Like, you know, I mean, I guess you could say nothing at all instead of just lying to everyone. thinking, you know, maybe that'll help the lawsuit. Not that I'm sure it heard it. It was no big deal. But, I mean, he just straight up denied him. But it did spread so quick that, you know, it even got to his ears or eyes by the end of the day. And this was like halfway through the school day.

Well, like you said, there's layers of reputation at play here. There's the reputation of him as a principal and of the school and of the community and of housing prices and a school district. a lot of competing forces. A community that people tried protecting. Of course, exactly. After the lawsuit went public, I guess take me through the experience of the lawsuit. And to start, was there a moment during that where you kind of thought, I just want to shut all of this down and walk away.

This is too much. Or did it feel, nope, I'm on a path now I want to see this through to the end. Certainly the latter. I never once felt like I want to shut this off, even. when you know we started getting bad media press speaking about completely irrelevant monetary reasons why we would go ahead with a lawsuit that was embarrassing but i never felt i wish this could all just stop i was a bull with thorns like let's keep going let's get this done, you know, justice needs to be served.

As an adult, I wish I knew what I know now as a kid and knew the process of a lawsuit from the discovery to the depositions. And, you know, I've been through lawsuits since. I wish I knew then what I know now, and I still definitely would have felt the same way. I just would have been more in the loop and probably more helpful. But I definitely never felt like, oh, my God,

I wish I never did this or this could just end now. I'm curious about that moment at the end of this when the school district pays out. Did that feel like, did this feel like, okay, I have gotten justice? Did it feel, was it more skeptical? This is just damage control. What was your experience of sort of the end of all of this? I feel like the justice was served via the media and bad press that they got. I don't think $610,000 plus their legal.

fees really hurt their coffers all that much. It probably was a drop in the bucket of their budget. They had built two new schools. There was a rumor that there were $100 million each. Now, I know what $100 million could get you. And at that time, I'd be a little surprised if they were each that much. Sure. Maybe it was correct. I don't know the value of those schools. But I'm sure it was a drop in the bucket. didn't feel like, oh, the money you had given me is the justice served. No, you being caught in lies and, you know, defamation, just breaking the law is the justice served. As far as the settlement went, I just felt like I always knew I would be successful in this was an expedited process to help with that. Jody,

what's the biggest misconception you think people have about this story? Especially kind of looking back on it now through a 2025 lens with like, just our relationship with tech has changed so much. What do people get wrong about this story? Yeah, well, I mean, one thing is that Blake, as a 15-year-old,

like, had to shoulder all of this, media attention. And, you know, one other student joined his lawsuit, but there are dozens of kids. So he talked to a bunch of people and other kids who also had the software misused, who said, you know, we let Blake know that this kid, Karan Williams, who originally was student Doe, but was now going public with us, also had been monitored and had images taken of him. And also said, I did not lose or have my laptop stolen. Like, this was specifically done because they thought I had stolen a bracelet from another student.

Right. Had accused me of it. He said falsely accused him. And so they were misusing this software in multiple ways. And there was dozens of kids, like, victimized by this. And I think that story has not really been. told around this that it was like it was a lot of different kids and there was also this racial aspect to it where a disproportionate amount of um you know students of color it seems were swept up

in this yeah that's like a whole like you get into these things that are like ripped from the headlines but you start to like you know go down the rabbit hole and you're like oh there's a whole element of this that really no one's talking about and then the other piece is to me me, you know, the big thing was like, how does this affect today? And what we did is we ended up talking to students who went to high school during the pandemic. And they were like, oh, this has morphed, but now it's so much more powerful the surveillance is going on. So right now, students are getting, you know, school-issued laptops all the time. It's really prevalent. And And a lot of those laptops have monitoring software on it where you log into your school account

and then everything you type is being like hoovered up into this AI software that is then pulling out keywords and trying to use AI, often employees who are like literally going through things that are flagged. And they're sending that to your principal. They're even sending that directly to law enforcement sometimes. And what happens is there's all these false positives because they're trying to protect kids. They don't want a school shooter. They don't want a suicide.

All really, really like, you know, noble aims. We want to protect kids. But what ends up happening is less stopping that and more like disciplining kids for things that, like the principal or law enforcement do not need to be involved in, like writing poetry. you know, that has lots of emotion in it. Or like kids, you know, we talk to some kids who were using the word gay in a private chat. And the school was like, well, that's a bullying term. And this kid, this kid who was brought into the principal's office with his dad had to come out to his dad in the principal's office. Because he was like, I'm using that word as a descriptor.

because I'm gay and like surprise dad like I you know it's really awful and the unintended consequences on all of this stuff

is like so dangerous and so you know we just need to like be thinking about what are the possible you know negative repercussions

I mean Blake's the repercussions were very obvious they were trying to discipline him for something he obviously obviously didn't do because it was a mic and Ike. But there are a lot of negative repercussions. You know, got to bring it back to the mic and Ix.

Yeah, right? It's insane. Blake, Jody, I really appreciate you both taking the time to chat with me about this story. It's a very remarkable story. Where can people find the series? So it's a four-part series coming out on April 8th, which is Tuesday, on Amazon Prime Video. Yeah, you can binge them all at once if you want. Guys, appreciate you taking the time.

Thanks, man. Appreciate you. Thank you.