Re: Programmer prosecuted for selling key-logger
This is where you need a bit of instruction on the noble art of "talking to authorities". In the TV detective show there's usually a point at the end of the show where our hero gets everyone together in the library and expounds on their theory of the crime, eventually fingering someone other than the butler. The person then blurts out "OK, it was me, but (insert name of victim here) had it coming to him". Tantamount to helping Mr. Pierrepoint adjust the noose around their neck.
Keyloggers do have legitimate uses. I think I might have made one years ago, although it wasn't covert and it didn't report the information to an external device, it was actually intended to go the other way and imitate a keyboard. If some random cop had turned up and tried to allege that I had criminal intent then I would have initially issued a curt denial and then told them to talk to my lawyer (....anything more -- and I mean *anything* -- is asking for trouble; cops are not your friends and they're not interested in how civic minded you are, if you're in their sights then anything will be used against you for any reason).
I feel sorry for this guy who's really guilty of being terminally stupid (after all, he made a device driver -- hardly Rocket Science -- but then did something extremely sill with it). A word to the wise would have been as effective as a prosecution and far less damaging.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
