On Monday 20 June 2005 12:43 am, Chris Zakelj wrote: > Dave Feustel wrote: > > >The device is obviously not new. What *is* new is that it is being installed > >as oem equipment inside of keyboards for HP and Dell systems and also inside > >of 'used keyboards which can be unobtrusively switched in for older > >keyboards. > >Then the companies doing the switching can secretly monitor all the > >keystrokes > >of the user, picking up everything the user types. There is no way to > >detect the > >keylogger short of opening up the keyboard. Shortly I predict the keylogging > >functiion will be incorporated into the keyboard cpu so that even opening up > >the > >keyboard will not permit the presence of the logger to be detected. > > > >What's new is that this functionality now comes builtin to new systems, > >possibly at the > >behest of Homeland Security, which would in that case know the password > >needed > >to retrieve the logged keystrokes. So far I see no defense against this > >spying > >technique of password capture. > > > If you haven't noticed, companies (probably driven by lawyer paranoia) > have been becoming more and more aware of the problems associated with > employees misusing email. While as a person I find this rather > intrusive and annoying, as an employee and (I shudder to think) > potential PHB in 40 years, I find nothing wrong with it. My continued > employment depends, in part, on the positive public image my > predecessors have spent years building up, and to have it destroyed by a > couple of people using company resources in inappropriate ways would > really tick me off. Do they have a right to see what I do at home? > Hell no, it's not their resources I'm using. But when I'm at the > office, they've got every right, because it's their equipment, and their > bandwidth.
I agree. > As for the "homeland security" argument, do you have any idea how much > raw data they'd have to sift through before coming to something > appearing to be a password? This really wanders into the realm of "only > the criminals have something to fear", simply because monitoring every > computer user in the country would be a task only HAL could perform... > and we all know how well that turned out. You are making fact out of fiction and also dealing with the wrong scenario. If everyone's keystrokes are monitored by a builtin keylogger in each computer, then the computer of any 'person of interest' is an open book to any 3-letter agency that decides to find out what that person has on his/her computer. This power will be widely used illegally no matter what safeguards are proposed.
