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HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!

 
El Matador
User ID: 243632
Netherlands
09/30/2007 06:35 PM
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HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
From a Govt.Watch post

Date: September 27, 2007 4:11:54 AM PDT

Subject: If You Enjoy Having a GPS in Your Cell Phone, You'll Love THIS ...

THE GOVERNMENT AND COMPUTER MANUFACTURERS HAVE INSTALLED
HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS
IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!

Devices capturing everything you ever type can send it via your ethernet card to the Dept. of Homeland Security without your knowledge, consent or a search
warrant, each time you log onto the internet!

Freedom of Information Act Requests for Explanation refused.

I was opening up my almost brand new laptop, to replace a broken PCMCIA slot riser on the motherboard. As soon as I got the keyboard off, I noticed a small cable running from the keyboard connection underneath a piece of metal
protecting the motherboard.

I figured "No Big Deal", and continued with the dissasembly. But when I got the metal panels off, I saw a small white heatshink-wrapped package. Being ever-curious, I sliced the heatshrink open. I found a little circuit board inside.

Being an EE by trade, this piqued my curiosity considerably. On one side of the board, one Atmel AT45D041A four megabit Flash memory chip.

On the other side, one Microchip Technology PIC16F876 Programmable Interrupt Controller, along with a little Fairchild Semiconductor CD4066BCM quad bilateral
switch.

Looking further, I saw that the other end of the cable was connected to the integrated ethernet board.

What could this mean? I called the manufacturer's tech support about it, and they said, and I quote, "The intregrated service tag identifier is there for
assisting customers in the event of lost or misplaced personal information."

He then hung up.

A little more research, and I found that that board spliced in between the
keyboard and the ethernet chip is little more than a Keyghost hardware keylogger. The reasons a computer manufacturer would put this in their laptops can only
be left up to your imagination. It would be very impractical to hand-anylze the logs, and very CPU-intensive to do so on a computer for every person that purchased a laptop. Why are these keyloggers here? I recently almost found out.

I called the police, as having a keylogger unknown to me in my laptop is a serious offense. They told me to call the Department of Homeland Security. At this point, I am in disbelief. Why would the DHS have a keylogger in my laptop?

It was surreal.

So I called them, and they told me to submit a Freedom of Information Act request. This is what I got back:

Under the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) the only items exempt from public disclosure are items relating to "law enforcement tools and techniques" and "items relating to national security."

The real life implications of this are plain: Computer manufacturers appear to be cooperating with the Department of Homeland Security to make every person who
buys a new computer subject to immediate, unrestricted government recording of everything they do on those computers! EVERYTHING !


This information can be sent to DHS, online, without your knowledge or consent, without a search warrant or even probable cause! That's why this device is hard-wired directly into the ethernet card, which communicates over the internet!

I am not certain how long this information will be permitted to remain online for all the world to see before the government takes some type of action to attempt to have it removed from public view. I URGE you to take copy of this page immediately and spread this information to everyone you know immediately! The more people who find out about this, the more can protect themselves and raise a HUGE outcry to force government and computer manufacturers to immediately CEASE installing these devices in new computers!
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 254879
United States
09/30/2007 06:37 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
interesting
Dan
User ID: 305805
United Kingdom
09/30/2007 06:40 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
I just got a new laptop.... hope this isn't inside mine!

(UK resident at the minute, hope its just a uSA laptop thing!)
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 305592
United Kingdom
09/30/2007 06:42 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
Um, link? Otherwise you stinky.
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 305846
United States
09/30/2007 06:43 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
please post images of the hardware described above
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 297306
Canada
09/30/2007 06:45 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
Um, link? Otherwise you stinky.
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 305592



..why would he need a link? Crack open a new laptop and find out.
Anonymous Coward (OP)
User ID: 243632
Netherlands
09/30/2007 06:48 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
please post images of the hardware described above
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 305846

Go to hell! Check it out for yourself. angryface
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 305741
Portugal
09/30/2007 06:48 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
Um, link? Otherwise you stinky.



..why would he need a link? Crack open a new laptop and find out.
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 297306

tantrum
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 305803
United States
09/30/2007 06:49 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
This story is around one year old, interesting none-the-less.
Anonymous Coward
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09/30/2007 06:51 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
this bears further investigation.
Anonymous Coward
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09/30/2007 06:54 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
Check this out:

[link to www.snopes.com]

Ok, this is BS, however this doesn't rule out other keyboard loggers. Don't forget about the RSA keys in Windows, and that the Antivirus people know of tracing software that the government uses, and will ignore it.....

It almost makes me want to go back to some OS from the late 70's or 80's.
Anonymous Coward
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United States
09/30/2007 06:57 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
please post images of the hardware described above

Go to hell! Check it out for yourself. angryface
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 243632

No images?



bsflag
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 304793
United States
09/30/2007 07:19 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
Check this out:

[link to www.snopes.com]

Ok, this is BS, however this doesn't rule out other keyboard loggers. Don't forget about the RSA keys in Windows, and that the Antivirus people know of tracing software that the government uses, and will ignore it.....

It almost makes me want to go back to some OS from the late 70's or 80's.
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 304053




LINUX
Shocktaught
User ID: 291728
United States
09/30/2007 07:25 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
Here it is from the web archive with photos.

[link to web.archive.org]

You can tell from the sloppy soldering alone this thing was homemade.
Megadeth
User ID: 305838
United Kingdom
09/30/2007 07:28 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
My computer has a motherboard entirely made out of alien technology, i tested one part which is uranium, and theres also a weird green fluid being pumped round a slab of platinum, i think theres small people inside it.

I've got no pictures though!! :)
Anonymous Coward
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Puerto Rico
09/30/2007 07:31 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
spock
Megadeth
User ID: 305838
United Kingdom
09/30/2007 07:31 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
Ok you got pictures now, doh!.

Erm must admit iv'e not seem anything like that under a keyboard before.
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 215191
United States
09/30/2007 07:32 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
In all probability this is a hoax....
Megadeth
User ID: 305838
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09/30/2007 07:41 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
They really dont need to bother with all that, if they need information about a certain individual there are easier more concise ways of getting it, like bugging you up, mini cameras and using pro-hackers to check you on your internet connection.

The internet is mostly full of shit, full of shit flavoured spam, in fact it's 90% shit flavoured spam, hardly see the government wadding through all this crap to get to individuals.
Anonymous Coward
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09/30/2007 07:42 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
In all probability this is a hoax....
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 215191

Don't count on it......
Shady
User ID: 291287
United States
09/30/2007 08:06 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
LINUX
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 304793


Linux could not circumvent a HARDWARE based keylogger, as that is in a layer independent of the OS (like BIOS). However, there are other ways. Firstly, I would think this onlt records keystrokes. I doubt it could really determine what the mouse clicked on unless it snapped a screenshot of your screen with every click. So a simply program to emulate a "software" keyboard should do the trick of bypassing the keylogger, if it DID exist.
Mark In NYC

User ID: 295445
United States
09/30/2007 08:19 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
Since the new Mac OS X is a beautiful GUI on top of BSD Unix as the core, is it also immune or can the Macs also be set up to have this crap in them? How do you know if there is or is not such a beast installed in your system? And if you find it, how can you disable it without trashing your warranty, etc.???

The new Macs with the Intel processors are faster and frankly great machines. We own a couple of dozen at the office and I have three or four here at home. Hell, when we upgrade at the office, we have employees begging to be allowed to buy their old company machines to take home. We encourage it and will finance the purchase of it allowing them to pay it off over six months with no interest via a deduction from their paycheck every two weeks. The cost is usually under a grand and they're thrilled to be able to get a 1 or 2 year old Mac that cheaply. The other thing about Apple products is that they're useful far longer than a Windows based machine is. Macs that are four and five years old stilll surf the we, write email, print, do graphics and allow database access. Maybe not as fast as the newest and greatest machines do - but they still function quite well for ordinary users.

I want to know if they're prey for this hardware keystrok sender units or not? Seems like Apple Corporate would NOT be the typical company willing to cooperate with Homelland Security to do this to unsuspecting users - but who knows?

M

Life really is a banquet - and truly - most poor sucker are starving! Enjoy the ride baby.
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 305835
Hong Kong
09/30/2007 08:28 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
Big Brother Britain - Government and Councils to spy on All our phones.
[link to www.dailymail.co.uk]

It's hard to believe this shit
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 305835
Hong Kong
09/30/2007 08:30 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
Big Brother Britain - Government and Councils to spy on All our phones.
[link to www.dailymail.co.uk]

It's hard to believe this shit
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 305835


That's 'hard' in the sense of 'unpleasant', not 'difficult.'
Anonymous Coward
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United Kingdom
09/30/2007 08:38 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
I can well believe it. Did you try to disconnect the hardware, or would that disable the whole computer? Have any pictures?
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 303804
United States
09/30/2007 08:52 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
Big Brother Britain - Government and Councils to spy on All our phones.
[link to www.dailymail.co.uk]

It's hard to believe this shit
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 305835



I built the Sprint PCS network of towers across OHIO KENTUCKY and INDIANA, and was told some amazing info by a switch installer.

Every call made thru a cell phone s relayed to a switch. simple enuff but the amazing info is thus . THEY scan a Majority of calls via machines that pick upon keywords spoken like "KILO" "COCAINE" "MURDER" ect and then if the call has a certain number of keywords in it , it is passed to a human for further investigation..

The gentleman and me spent several hours that day as I had finished running the new coax offa the tower, an was helping him finish tieing it all togather inside.

Its scary as hell and I never will own a cell Phone.
They monitor your calls and search for key words... have no doubt, debunk it if ya like I know what i Know and I bet there is others who know more....
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 304053
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09/30/2007 09:07 PM
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Re: HARD-WIRED KEYSTROKE LOGGERS IN ALL NEW LAPTOP COMPUTERS!
Remember that thing where google was going to use the toolbar and your *MICROPHONE* to listen and try to figure out what you were doing, and what was around you to target ads?

Some nonsnese about dog barks, and dog food..

Yeah a mic in every home. wonderfull.

Let me check my gmail acct.





GLP