A federal judge in Los Angeles has dismissed charges against a California man who used a keystroke logger to spy on his employer, ruling that use of such a device does not violate federal wiretap law.
Larry Ropp, a former claims adjuster for a U.S. insurance company, was caught last year using a "KEYKatcher" brand surveillance device on a secretary's computer while secretly helping consumer attorneys gather information against his employer, Bristol West Insurance Group. The KEYKatcher attaches inline with a keyboard connector, and stores every keystroke in an internal memory for later retrieval.
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Prosecutors maintained that the tapped PC was covered by the statute because it was connected to Bristol West's national computer network, and the secretary had composed electronic mail messages on it.
But district court judge Gary Feess disagreed, and last month granted a defense motion to dismiss the indictment. Feess ruled that the interception of keystrokes between the keyboard and the computer's CPU did not meet the "interstate or foreign commerce" clause in the federal Wiretap Act, even if some of those keystrokes were banging out e-mail. "
his court finds it difficult to conclude that the acquisition of internal computer signals that constitute part of the process of preparing a message for transmission would violate the Act."
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/9978
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