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Comment by poopsintub | Hacker News Reader

Windows beeps when you're pressing keys at the same time or just holding them down. I don't know the exact situations but I remember a "hot keys" notification popping up.

Let's consider the article is true and words were being deleted as he wrote them. How ridiculous is that? A. disconnect from the internet. B. The whole manuscript could be deleted with a few keystrokes if wanted. Why would someone sit there and delete out the "bad" parts while they know the writer is actually working and typing in the document? This makes absolutely no sense. PR stunt imo.

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So here is something I found by typing 'internet keyboard spy hardware' into google: http://www.spyemporium.com/key-stroke-logger-keygrabber-spy-... - it's a tiny little usb gizmo that intercepts keyboard input and barfs it to wifi via its own radio. This one dumps a huge log when its controller asks for it; it's not hard to imagine there might be similar devices that might do a constant broadcast of keystrokes, and insert keystrokes as well.

If we accept the thesis that he is being watched by Someone, then it's definitely not a stretch to imagine that something like this has been installed in his computer(s). I mean, he left his laptop in a hotel safe that didn't lock all day long, while he felt like he was being stalked. And left it there all the next day while hanging out with someone he suspected was a spy. What got put on it, in terms of hardware or software?

> Let's consider the article is true and words were being deleted as he wrote them. How ridiculous is that?

Some surveillers do that type of thing because they not only want the target to know they're being watched but also to make it appear the surveillers have far more control than they really do. They'll intricately set up a single incident like that, and leave the target thinking it's just an easily pulled of run-of-the-mill prank. The target then paranoidly thinks the next 10 or 100 coincidences are also part of the surveillance. Chances are that that particular incident was just a stuck key or something, but the chances are also that there was some similar incident weeks or months before caused by a surveiller that made the writer paranoid.

The most difficult situations are when there's more than one surveiller out there, which is quite common if you're worth surveilling. It can take years to disentangle roughly what's going on, and in the meantime if you say something plenty of people will call you names from a psychiatry textbook.

The Windows beep is usually from a speaker connected to your motherboard. There is no speaker located on the majority of keyboards, meaning no beeps.

It's not ridiculous to think words would begin to get deleted, but it is ridiculous to say some government organization would sit there and watch him type to remove some content. Why would any organization spying on him make it so obvious, and pointless. If he wanted to hide it from them he would just go to another computer.

I run into this self'deleting in words once a month. I have no idea how I activate it, but when i type it deletes what's in front of it. It's a frustrating feature that I haven't defeated, but I don't think the government is watching my computer, seeing what I type on Hacker News.

Pretty sure that's the Insert key that turns on "overtype".

(I have no idea what your technical expertise is like; please don't take offense to this.)

Have you noticed whether the blinking cursor has changed from a vertical line to a block? If it has (or, maybe, even if it hasn't, depending on OS + other factors), it's possible you've accidentally hit the "Insert" key on your keyboard, which toggles whether text is inserted or overwrites other text.

It's an ancient feature that very few people consciously use any more and still results in the occasional call in to our shop from a bewildered client.

Hitting the "Insert" key again should fix the problem next time.

I'm pretty sure the government is watching your computer (internet traffic, and maybe your webcam). They probably don't have you targeted for surveillance by an agent, which is what I think you meant.

We haven't yet been marketed a reason to constantly steam our webcams to the cloud. For this reason remote activation would be required in many cases, and that would be expensive on a mass scale.

Steps toward cloud services like this might include the Kinect, or face recognition login services. We'll see how it plays out. :^)

True. I was being maybe a little pedantic.

Accidentally toggling Sticky Keys is fairly common, and also causes beeping on keypresses.

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