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Debunking Dell keylogger-built-into-laptop hoax [priv]
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 09:20:41 -0400
A number of folks have sent the Dell story along. It had the smell of a hoax from the beginning (would random local police be in on the conspiracy?), and these articles debunk it quite nicely:
http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/dellbug.asp http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/news/the-dell-keylogger-conspiracy-hoax.asp -Declan -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Declan, can you verify this is for real?? Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 11:53:59 -0700 (PDT) From: hypatia popol <heartofhearts2001 () yahoo com> To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com> Dear Declan. This was forwarded to me and as I am not a techkie I cannot tell if this is by someone who is pretending to know this stuff. Can you or any of your co-hearts verify this ???? Thanks! */Steve Bartholomew <barticle () chargedbarticle org>/* wrote: Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:37:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Steve Bartholomew <barticle () chargedbarticle org> Subject: Fwd: You must see this! To: "John Arnold \(Jack\)" <j1j11j () yahoo com>This from a friend in Washington State. I feel safer already, don't you?
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 21:38:06 -0700 Subject: You must see this! http://c0x2.de/lol/lol.html chromance.de dell keylogger 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. thingy0240.jpg 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. thingy1320.jpg Being an EE by trade, this piqued my curiosity considerably. On one side of the board, one Atmel AT45D041A four megabit Flash memory chip. thingy3320.jpg On the other side, one Microchip Technology PIC16F876 Programmable Interrupt Controller, along with a little Fairchild Semiconductor CD4066BCM quad bilateral switch. thingy2160.jpg 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: homelandletter.png eXTReMe Tracker Bob Alexander http://www.superbeans.com <http://www.superbeans.com/>
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- Debunking Dell keylogger-built-into-laptop hoax [priv] Declan McCullagh (Jun 27)