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Thread ID: 28428 2002-12-19 03:53:00 Paradise 128k Broadband Steve Askew (119) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
107502 2002-12-20 05:06:00 > is there anyone here who can sniffed the packets and
> tell us what infomation is being sent??

I had a quick look a while ago when I was fixing someones HP. I didn't find anything readable but I only want as far as looking for plain text.
bmason (508)
107503 2002-12-20 20:28:00 Thankyou Steve,

Not just for pointing out the keyboard that phones home, but also for pointing out that we could use paradises traffic monitor in this way. I never realised till now that i could click on the data/month > day > hour to get a display of what IPs i communicated with.
Theres another tool on my belt now!

.Clueless
Clueless (181)
107504 2002-12-20 20:40:00 I hate to say this, but another resource hog is Windows. agent (30)
107505 2002-12-20 20:50:00 Is ther any way of blocking the IP using something like a host file entry?

.Clueless
Clueless (181)
107506 2002-12-20 21:11:00 There is a small chance that, by altering the hosts.sam file, you could fool your computer into thinking that IP address refers to "localhost", but I'm not sure how good this would be for your computer, sending itself all that traffic. Most hosts.sam files are located in C:\WINDOWS (depending on what version of Windows, your customisation, and what drive it's actually installed on.
# Copyright (c) 1998 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP stack for Windows98
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

127.0.0.1 localhost

You could ad in the IP address the keyboard program sends data to and put "localhost" after that too.
agent (30)
107507 2002-12-20 21:19:00 wouldn't that just mean that ones computer would look for
localhost at 207.26.131.137????????

.Clueless
Clueless (181)
107508 2002-12-20 22:55:00 Hi Steve,

You can download the Drivers for the netropa keyboard directly from them, the ones that come from them do not include all the BS that comes with the HP's.

I have an HP multimedia keyboard (the only HP thing on my computer) using the netropa drivers and nothing is "Phoning Home" on mine.

If you email the guy's at netropa they will supply you with a link to a downloads page that contains pics of the HP keyboards ... then you can select the corresponding driver, this page is seperate from the normal downloads page.

As for the spyware issue this is a well known issue and has been discussed quiet well previously:

bizforums.itrc.hp.com

I think if you have a rummage around there you will find the links to the proper drivers (spyware free)
TazzieNZ (463)
107509 2002-12-20 23:49:00 Hey Tazzie, that link seems to be dead?.
I have sent an email to Netropa asking for drivers without spyware :-)
Be interesting to see what they have to say.
cheers Steve
Steve Askew (119)
107510 2002-12-21 01:17:00 > I hate to say this, but another resource hog is
> Windows.

No ****, SHERLOCK!!! Stating the obvious now are we?!
Bambi (1486)
107511 2002-12-21 01:27:00 The hosts file is used to map an alphanumeric URL to the IP address. If the spyware is sending information to http://imthespywareking.com then you would have the entry.

0.0.0.0 imthespywareking.com

The file to edit is HOSTS located in the windows directory or windows/system32/drivers/etc.

HOSTS.sam is a sample hosts file.
-=JM=- (16)
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