Security Information Vulnerability Research Security Blog

WARNING: Word Processor Keeps Keyboard Data

April 23rd, 2011 by , Filed under: Commentary, Funny, OT

This is totally serious.  You should be aware that, for years now, just about every commercial word processing program on the market [1], and a number of the open source ones as well, have been intercepting your keystrokes, storing them, and even displaying them *on the screen*!

Email programs are even worse, since a number of them will actually send your keystrokes to someone else, *over the Internet*! [2]

[3]!!!!!

[1] Except for Word, which simply collates random data.
[2] Except for Outlook, which regularly deletes all stored data.
[3] Yes, I am, of course, poking fun at the furor over the iPhone location data file.

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  • http://www.officeforlawyers.com Ben M. Schorr

    I got a chuckle out of your post, though in all seriousness it sort of misses the point…

    Word Processing and e-mail programs are INTENDED to track the keystrokes you put into them. Whether they do that well or not is a different matter.

    Your iPhone may be intended to show you where you are at the moment (if you’re using a GPS Navigation app for example) but I don’t think there are many users that intended, expected or desired for it to keep a historical record of where you’ve been (and a record that is effectively hidden from the average user).

  • Bleh

    Stupid. Doesn’t address the problem at all.

  • Scott

    When freedoms are infringed upon in any way you most make a big deal about it and nip it in the bud. Its not simply the iphone, its the principle. Worries me that this needs to be explained. No government, private company, organization or person should track an individuals location. Taken lightly and soon people are wearing 6 pointed stars on their lapels and need to account for their day to day activities.

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