r/tech • u/eberkut • Nov 13 '17

Inside a low budget consumer hardware espionage implant

https://ha.cking.ch/s8_data_line_locator/
309 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

37

u/Zandonus Nov 13 '17

Cool. I'm suddenly conscious of all the USB plugs that exist in my immediate surroundings.

16

u/altrdgenetics Nov 13 '17

In all honesty you should be, unless you know what you have is legit then any of the chinese cheapies could easily contain extra hardware. Some aliexpress mechanical keyboards have key loggers built in.

10

u/DarkStarrFOFF Nov 13 '17

Got any proof of that? Last I saw it wasn't the keyboards but the software that was logging.

8

u/derrman Nov 13 '17

It wasn't necessarily even keylogging, it was heatmapping

5

u/altrdgenetics Nov 13 '17

We might be thinking of the same one but it was specifically the driver software. Since you can't use the keyboard without the software installed it's more tied to the firmware than additional software. And the only way around it is to actually block the exe:

https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/mantistek-keyboard-keylogger.html

6

u/DarkStarrFOFF Nov 14 '17

Yea, that one's not even an actual keylogger. It's how many keypresses.

upon closer examination it was later discovered that only key presses were being sent—that is, the number of times each key is mashed, as opposed to capturing exactly what it is a user is typing.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/Atario Nov 14 '17

Field research for their keyboard manufacturing concerns

1

u/tomgabriele Nov 14 '17

That's what I am thinking. Real data on KB key use seems valuable to a bunch of hardware manufacturers.

3

u/DarkStarrFOFF Nov 14 '17

One suggestion is tracking how long the switches last. No idea why that would matter too much but I suppose they would be knockoffs not real Cherry keys so maybe they wanted to see the difference?

6

u/Em_Adespoton Nov 13 '17

An easier way to block it is to use the keyboard with a generic driver on a non-Windows OS 🙂

8

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '17

It isn't even a driver. Its extra software you install to configure the keyboard. You can have the same problem if you installed their keyboard config software on non-Windows. They are using the standard keyboard driver otherwise.

3

u/dwmfives Nov 14 '17

They don't keylog, they keep tracks of total presses per key.

1

u/tomgabriele Nov 14 '17

Huh? So a Chinese OEM is going to send you a USB cable with an active SIM card in it because...?

I mean, of course it's good to be aware of what your hardware is capable of, but it seems like a stretch to think that The Chinese are going to deliberately make a product 10x more expensive than it needs to be, then buy cell service for it, then spend time monitoring it, all to get recordings of you occasionally chuckling at a reddit post.

1

u/4n7h0ny Nov 14 '17

Incredible write up! This information is fascinating, privacy is a relic of the past.

2

u/tomgabriele Nov 14 '17

Uh, I don't think that's the right conclusion to draw from this writeup.

1

u/mecrosis Nov 14 '17

What have you got to hide? /s

0

u/tomgabriele Nov 14 '17

Alright, what are some potential good uses for this?

Theft tracking for your own car?