[Clips] Urban Legends Reference Pages: Computers (Keyboard Loggers)

[R.A. Hettinga]

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 Delivered-To: clips at philodox.com
 Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:05:46 -0400
 To: Philodox Clips List <clips at philodox.com>
 From: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
 Subject: [Clips] Urban Legends Reference Pages: Computers (Keyboard Loggers)
 Reply-To: rah at philodox.com
 Sender: clips-bounces at philodox.com

 <http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/dellbug.asp?print=y>


 http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/dellbug.asp
 Keyboard Loggers

 Claim:   Account claims Dell is selling computers with keyboard loggers
 installed at the behest of the Department of Homeland Security.

 Status:   False.

 Example:   [Collected on the Internet, 2005]


 I was opening up my almost brand new Dell 600m 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 Dell 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.

  [Rest of article here].


 Origins:   Given the prevalent public fear of governmental snooping into
 private activity, the discovery that personal computers were being sold
 with devices that enabled the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to
 monitor keystrokes would have a rather chilling effect. Most of us now use
 computers in so many different facets of our lives, from personal
 correspondence to shopping, that recording and analyzing everything we
 typed on one would provide a great deal of information about us.

  Although furtive eavesdropping on computer activity is certainly possible,
 the specific tale presented above is nothing more than an example of
 "government conspiracy" type hoaxlore. It originally appeared on
 www.chromance.de (from which it has since been removed, although it remains
 mirrored elsewhere), a site which carried several other obvious hoaxes. The
 graphics for the article were lifted from another site's page about
 commercial keyboard loggers, and the purported letter from the Department
 of Homeland Security appears to be an altered version of someone else's
 example of correspondence from the DHS.

 Last updated:   17 June 2005



 --
 -----------------
 R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
 The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
 "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
 [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
 experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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