Is Big Brother logging your keystrokes?

http://c0x2.de/lol/lol.html ^

[Budgie]

chromance.de dell keylogger

Mirrored by iBabes.org - Babevoting

 

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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.

The reasons Dell would put this in thier 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 dell 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:

[sauropod]

Our next 'pooter will NOT be a Dell.

[Lazamataz]

It's prolly a hoax.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

VFW....Very Weird.

I now love my Micron PIII built in 1999....just a little bit more.

[IBIAFR]

This story is not based in reality. Human interface devices (keyboards, touchpads, mouse pointers) in laptops connect to the system board via a ribbon cables not 4 wire phone cable. Everyone take off your foil hats.

[two23]

it is; see post #40

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I now feel that this is probably a hoax.

They got to you. Didn't they?

[Lazamataz]

Zankoo.

[Doohickey]

Um. Yeah. Okay. I guess since it's wired directly to the "integrated ethernet controller", which I never use (I use wireless), then I'm safe...

[Lazamataz]

They got to you. Didn't they?

He was blackmailed.

Me, I was bought.

[Constitution Day]

*snicker*

[HEY4QDEMS]

Hoax??
http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=dell+keylogger&sp-a=00062d45-sp00000000&sp-advanced=1&sp-p=all&sp-w-control=1&sp-w=alike&sp-date-range=-1&sp-x=any&sp-c=100&sp-m=1&sp-s=0

[Right Angler]

Dude, you're getting a federal wire tap!

[Gorzaloon]

Good tips. You remember what the names of all of the .exe files were?

support.exe was the principle one I recall...it was two years ago. I was running the Norton firewall at the time, and my Linksys router was logging the connections. It was probably something innocuous that logged program installations so if the system had trouble (e.g.someone installed AOL) they could tell what crashed it, but it was the refusal to disclose what they were doing that put them on my ...errrr...Poop list.

I bought the thing, it is my property, and the seller needs to tell me why they are so interested....Which is why there is no Windows Media Player on my machine, either.

I feel that if I buy a car, the dealer cannot rummage around my garage every day thereafter, and paw though my toolbox whenever they feel like it.

Without being shot dead, that is.

[68 grunt]

Assuming the letter is real, what do you make of that, regardless of the chip debunking. Precisely, what do you think of 'homeland security' exempting information of a device you own? Bad juju, man, bad juju. Thats what I think!

[68 grunt]

Did you not receive and post that letter? Is that letter a hoax?

[68 grunt]

Apologies. I followed the links. Regardless, that letter 'put me off'.

[cyborg]

amazing

[Tijeras_Slim]

I'm not worried about big brother, but if my boss finds out how much FReepin' I do at work I'm doomed!

[Cagey]

LOL!

[sauropod]

Got it (finally).