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Comment by jchw | Hacker News Reader

It's a debug log. On its own, this driver doesn't do anything malicious. A malicious piece of software could exploit it, but there's no evidence that any did. Even if it got flipped on accidentally, it would merely log information and not transmit it anywhere.

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Even if it got flipped on accidentally, it would merely log information and not transmit it anywhere.

Indeed, this is pretty benign compared to the "feature" in Windows 10 which does log and send that information if you enable it... and I believe this is enabled by default:

https://images.techhive.com/images/article/2015/08/0904-win1...

I really wish the "security" people would stop "crying wolf" constantly with things like this.

I dunno, I didn't get a sense of urgency or crying wolf from the blog post. it was interesting information and a good read but I don't see verbiage leaning towards these "security" people you are criticizing. to me it read as something he was curious about and ended up inquiring to the manufacturer who confirmed some details. keylogger is a pretty scary word, but is that not what is happening, despite it being benign to other software's behavior?

I personally appreciate the post, because i like to be aware of what could be potentially recorded or transmitted on machines i use. It doesn't have to "be worse than windows10" to be useful info to some users, and we certainly shouldn't expect all security-minded blog posts to be breaking news to be taken seriously.

Context aside i find it fun to watch things unravel or peer into how other people work!

I liked it too, myself. Personally I didn't find it over the top, but the title could've been more descriptive. It is technically a keylogger but keeping it vague just makes people assume it's malicious, when the code in question is obviously not, on its own.

Can it be weaponized? Yes? Then it's not "crying wolf".

This is how you get plausible deniability. Instead of one obvious backdoor you build a system of compromised parts that look innocent on their own.

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