Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Hardware or Software?

Techdirt links to a story about a guy getting charged for putting a keystroke logger on a computer where he worked. Mike at Techdirt says this:

The interesting thing, though, is the only way they caught him was because he was fired from the company and asked another employee to remove the keystroke logger. In other words, it wasn't any real detective work, but him telling someone. This means, if he hadn't mentioned it, it's likely this would have continued and no one would have noticed. It seems likely that things like keystroke loggers are becoming increasingly popular for those involved with corporate espionage - but it doesn't seem like most companies do much to check if their computers are clean from such programs.

Mike's making an assumption, though. Here's the text from the story:

A California man who prosecutors say planted an electronic bugging device on a computer at an insurance company was indicted on Tuesday on federal wiretapping charges in what prosecutors said was the first case of its kind.

Larry Lee Ropp, a 46-year-old former insurance claims manager, is the first defendant charged with a federal crime for using a "keystroke logger," which tracks the activities on a computer and feeds the information back to its owner, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles said.

Sounds like a hardware keystroke logger to me. What, you don't know what a hardware keystroke logger is? Of course not, you're not the Shidoshi of Paranoia. A hardware keystroke logger plugs in between the keyboard and the keyboard socket on the back of the PC. It looks like an adapter, but it's got memory on it. Whatever you type goes into the memory and then to the computer, too. Bad guy comes along later, unplugs it, plugs it in on his computer, uses an escape key sequence, and copies the log onto his computer. You don't have to break into the 'hacked' system to get it, and there are no software gotchas to deal with.

Also, it would explain why he needed someone to remove it from the PC, wot? Hey, buddy, just unplug my adapter I loaned to the secretary.

Learn your lesson, my students. Always look at the back of the PC before you start typing. I do.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:23 PM