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Keystroke Logger Faces Federal Wiretap Charges
securitas writes "In what prosecutors say is the first case of its kind, a former insurance claims manager was indicted on federal wiretapping charges for allegedly installing a keystroke logger on another employee's computer. The device was secretly installed 'on a PC used by a secretary to senior executives at Bristol West Insurance Group.' Reuters reports that the man, who had been fired, was gathering information for a class action lawsuit against his former employer. SecurityFocus interviews would-be keystroke logger user Larry Lee Ropp who reportedly installed the KEYKatcher device on the PC."
From http://www.keykatcher.com/testimonials/index.html
"I must thank you for this great invention. Early this year, I discovered my 14-year-old daughter was on the ICQ with a person with a name of "P****". I was shocked and did not know what to do. I then e-mailed the editor of Parent and Child and they reccommended me to do a search on the internet. I was very fortunate to have purchased a KEYKatcher. The ability to read my daughter's e-mail has helped us to make the right decision about the school she would attend last September..."
I mean, is there any useful use for this device at all?
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
When is the last time you remember hearing about an indictment for actual wiretapping? Doesn't it seem like people get away with wiretapping regularly? I'm thinking about things like the illegally recorded phone conversations with Monica Lewinsky. Or does the law specify exemption if it is done for a good cause?
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This is why you should always check your keyboard cable on your work-PC.
Not only does it keep you secure, but you might score a brand-new keylogger for free.
According to this politech posting by bernieS, it appears that the feds are going to be doing a little bit of double backing.
It raises an important question, I think: are keyloggers wiretapping devices? They don't involve telecommunications lines directly, so can they be considered in the same class?
Some food for thought.
Read all about it here.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
The EU convention on cybercrime, which is law in most (all?) EU countries since 2000 prohibits the interception of private electronic communications. A key logger would certainly fall into this category.
However, there have been very few convictions under these laws, only a couple of "hacking" cases in the UK afaiaa.
It's not only about domestic/workplace espionage. Spyware vendors (a species that rates somewhere between slimemolds and spammers) use similar techniques to spy on and report back on people's use of their computer.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
....He got busted when he call the company to get the device back!
Not the smartest thing to do. He deservse whatever he gets.
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
They were to apply federal wiretapping laws to spyware? If an unauthorized piece of software transmits information about my activities to a third party without my knowledge... that sounds like wiretapping to me.
We had a consultant (former employee) work at a branch office. The owner said to keep an eye on them. I want to the branch office and told every employee that I was installing a keyboard logger and why. When the consultant (former employee) logged on, they had no idea they were being tracked. I discovered they had a back door account and were logging into a supervisor account. Good or bad, I discovered the holes in my system.
I have to agree that this sort of behaviour is absolutely inevitable in nowadays everyday life. In the past it was called "social control" where small communities monitored each other's behaviour to see if somebody wasn't stepping out of line. If they would, due psychological force could be executed to get them in line again ("gossip"). Now this practice has mainly gone away simply because there are less and less small communities, and thus we need to monitor other people by different means. Ofcourse, in due time virtual communities will take over the "social control" thing in a comparable way, but it's not there yet.
In the meantime, we shall have to rely on the usual methods of camera's, microphones, keyloggers and traitors. I think we can learn a lot from former Soviet-Russia and sortlike countries that have executed this behaviour in great practical ways...
so when is the disclaimer going up at thinkgeek?
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/5a05/
disclaimer: please do not buy this product and use it for what you think you were going to use it for, thank you... same with that x10 camera you were thinking about too, while we're at it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
As adults, they may be presented with similar policies. Only this time, they have the "choice" of consenting or losing their job.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I was working for the President of a company who seemed to have information about others that left me wondering. So, I ran a program, (I believe it was Spycop), to scan for anything nefarious on my computer. Nothing found, fortunately.
However I shared this program with a colleague and she ran it and found a keylogger that would send emails from her company laptop, to a blind email account. He apparently had a thing for her roomate, a former employee, and was using this to spy.
My colleague was shocked that this would happen, but as it appeared to have been non-functional for a while due to internet login issues, she didn't say anything, and I told her what to delete to kill the program from running.
That way, any deletion of the software could at least appear to be accidental.
Should keylogging a co-worked be illegal? Yes (though if it is done by your employer and you signed consent then no, just like phone monitoring ... free will works both ways).
... VNC not included :).
... idiots), their credit card # (amazon), or their root password. Keylogging is far more invasive.
Should keylogging be considered wiretapping? NO. It is a distinctly different technology and all lumping things together does is make it easier to confuse the issue the next time someone wants a warrant to do something -similar-.
Keylogging, network interception and a whole host of other things are still quite different from basic phone taps. They should be given a distinct category that can be properly defined.
If anything, the expectation of privacy on the line between your computer and your keyboard is MUCH higher than any expectation people have today for phones (when was the last time you started typing and realized someone else was typing on your computer as well
Plus, you can't expect that by listening in on a phone you are going to regularly hear someone's social security # (my bank uses it for my login id
In the end I think the guy should be penalized more than wiretapping, but not -as- a wiretapper.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Seems like the feds are contradicting themselves (I guess that's not a huge surprise). In the Scarfo case, the FBI claimed they didn't need a wiretap approval to put a keystroke logger on Scarfo's computer because they were only monitoring internal communications between the keyboard and the computer. Thus it wasn't a wiretap.
Now the government is prosecuting someone for doing the exact same thing. Has anyone else noticed this contradiction, or am I missing some important distinction?