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Thread ID: 29343 2003-01-17 06:29:00 ATTN: Hewlett Packard owners & others Steve Askew (119) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
114596 2003-01-17 06:29:00 Hi All, I found some more interesting stuff about the megabyte stealing keyboard driver that comes with Hewlett Packard computers. see following URL
www.stuff.co.nz


For those that don't know,this keyboard driver was using aproximately 20mb of international traffic per hour on my 128k paradise cable connection.
I was lucky & found the culprit before it cost me any extra monies.

cheers Steve
Steve Askew (119)
114597 2003-01-17 07:50:00 Pretty scary stuff really -- things like that going on behind our backs. They can't blame us for getting paranoid. Good on you for detecting it and thanks for sharing. Susan B (19)
114598 2003-01-17 09:17:00 20MB/hour is a HUGE amount. I hope my Compaq Internet Keyboard is not doing this. flyer590 (2523)
114599 2003-01-17 09:32:00 how i found out,I left my pc idle for a few hours & when i checked my usage at paradise homepage I noticed that each hour there was about 20mb being used to this IP 207.26.131.137
I hooked my NON HP 2nd pc up to the cable & left it on for a few hours & it used no megabytes at all.
Next step was to install zone alarm & it alerted me when mmkeybd.exe tryed to access that IP number.
Note the the last digits in this IP are different to the IP metioned in that article.

cheers Steve
Steve Askew (119)
114600 2003-01-17 19:17:00 I suppose it's not too bad though - considering HP have released a patch for this - however, when you first setup your HP Computer aren't you asked to do online Registration with HP where you provide your Email address and stuff like that? - I remember doing something like that, and WinME doesn't have Online Registration ?:| - anyway, the point is, couldn't HP mail all it's customers in regards to this problem and tell them to get the patch?



CyberChuck
cyberchuck (173)
114601 2003-01-17 19:23:00 I have to wonder what HP gain from 20Mb/hour/unpatched customer. How many Gb/hour are HPs servers having to deal with?
Its almost as if they wanted to set up a DOS attack on themselves?

Stange behaviour!

.Clueless
Clueless (181)
114602 2003-01-17 20:04:00 I've just done a search at HP for my model number 6701 & found some info about keyboard drivers
h20015.www2.hp.com

Here is a list of the affected models:
6700 6701 6726 6735 6751 7700 7702 8705A 8705I 8750 8770
9700 9702 9705 9706 9707 9721 9722 9723 9731 9732 9733 9743

The question At their site is Why do you need it? No where in the answer does it mention the problem the old driver causes.

Cheers Steve

Cheers Steve
Steve Askew (119)
114603 2003-01-17 22:38:00 Please disregard my last post as ive just noticed that it refers to USB keyboards :o

cheers Steve
Steve Askew (119)
114604 2003-01-17 22:58:00 ****, I think i may have it, supposedly I have downloaded 434mb on Jan 08 03' and thats not local traffic, what is the link for that keyboard fix I am running winxp home. fiveonefive (1019)
114605 2003-01-17 23:40:00 Easiest way to check is to download zonealarm (I used zone alarm pro 30 day trial) & see what programs are trying to access the net when your computer boots.
If the file mmkeybd.exe (or similar name)trys to connect to the IP I mentioned in previos post or the IP mentioned in that article. Then I would say you are affected.
the link for that file they mentioned is h20015.www2.hp.com

as it is designed for 98 or ME you may have to run the compatibility wizard to get it to run on XP.
I just went into add/remove programs & uninstalled the multimedia keyboard,I havent bothered to install it myself yet as my volume control still works ok & I never used the other buttons any way.

cheers Steve
Steve Askew (119)
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