Memoirs of a Developer

For all those who read Digital Fortress they will remember how Greg Hale had managed to get hold of Susan Fletcher’s terminal password. This device would have allowed her to read the text that Hale had typed at her terminal. I have had the opportunity to read about a lot of devices which will do the same and they can be made to look a lot less conspicuous than this one, but ThinkGeek trying to market them was something that i was not expecting.

I think this item is reserved for either the more paranoid of us or for what ever use they can possbile imagine (check if keyboard is working, check if typing password properly …). On the other hand imagine going to an internet cafe’ and the owner of the cafe placed one of these on their computers and an unsuspecting client happens to input their online store account details or their email details (there are neater ways of doing this but lets not delve into that topic because its unethical to say the least, so please dodn’t post comments and don’t expect any replies to emails regarding such hacks ).

I think that this product doesn’t really have a very profitable market, although technically it must have been fun to construct. I don’t see why they should not be marketing this product … but then again i don’t see why anyone would want to buy it.

Links:

• Key Katcher
• ThinkGeek
• Digital Fortress by Dan Brown