Phantom Keystroker prank device
From ThinkGeek, this $25 tormentor:
LinkThe Phantom Keystroker may look like a harmless circuit board, but it's actually a devious contraption of unlimited office-based torture. Simply discreetly attach the Phantom Keystroker to any extra USB port on your victim's computer, no drivers needed. The Keystroker emulates a keyboard and mouse and periodically makes random mouse movements and types out odd garbage text and phrases.
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Earlier today we discussed using this on folks' machines at my office for haz... er, tortu... er, humor purposes. We decided that since we're in IT one of the first things they'd check was for the presence of something plugged in.
Of course, I figured if we could find a board that had just a single internal USB port then we could always use that. That'd leave them scratching their heads for a while. (We could use a USB header, but I don't know if Dell Optiplexes have connectors on the motherboards for those or not.)
Bah, my work computer already does this without any attachment. Nothing like having the mouse freak out every 5 minutes.
$25 for this? Hmmm...I made one last year. Here's a video of the prototype: http://blip.tv/file/205627/
I could make an almost invisible version designed to fit on the standard internal USB headers provided on most motherboards. And change the firmware to do random stuff once in a while, instead of continuous circles. I have Chinese manufacturer hookups and could get them assembled and shipped for under $3 each. I'd charge about $10.
There needs to be an accompanying website, where you could, say, convince someone that the problem was not with the machine, but, say, them 'giving off to much electrical energy, picked up by the keyboard or mouse. " Oh yes, I have heard of this before, You have (give it some esoteric name) and its rare, you need to expel your extra electricity, (or whatever ailment you think up) and the problem should go away..." Send them to the website, which then sends them off to expel their demons, then you remove the device. Replace as needed. Use sparingly. And often...
And sharing this makes the world a better place how?
And sharing this makes the world a better place how?
Here's how: if your computer starts behaving like this, you'll check your USB ports. If you find one one of these attached to your computer you'll think -- I'm glad I knew about this dastardly device.
Now if this could give a severe electrical shock to the computer user at the same time it would be perfect... ;-)
It's all fun and games until the "random" keystrokes are "sudo rm -rf *"...
Actually, you could probably charge triple for that device.
This is hilarious!....if you're in the 6th grade
"harmless circuit board" ?
Like someone is going to go "Oh golly gee there is this random circuit board plugged in, that isn't mine, but that must be harmless..."
Good god, in today's paranoid culture you'd be lucky if someone didn't call the bomb squad.
I had a very annoying boss who was also completely computer illiterate. I rejiggered his Windows so that, every time he made a selection, it made the 'you fucked up' sound. Since we shared an office, I could just sit back and watch him get sweatier and sweatier. I love technology.
Well I'm in 7th grade and I think it's Hi-larious!!
I'm waiting for the version of this that accepts input from a nearby Bluetooth device.
The best that can be said for this is that it's better than the shock camera.
I still miss that old DOS program that made your screen shake after a designated number of keystrokes. That was great for tormenting people. And if that wasn't enough, there was that one which caused letters to "fall" off the screen randomly. This stuff is still funny. Maybe not $25 funny, but funny none-the-less.
can you reprogram it so instead of random text it types out eerily personal information? That would be the real trick.
I once did something like this purely in software using the xtest interface...
It was rigged up so that I could turn on a co-worker's caps-lock remotely. He was very anti-caps-lock, to the point where he had removed the key from his keyboard. We filled him in on the joke *after* he had disassembled his keyboard the *second* time.
And sharing this makes the world a better place how?
As a service to the Boing Boing community, this post served to successfully out a humorless dolt.
One of my coworkers used a "low-tech" version of this; he plugged a spare mouse into an unused USB port of the guy in the next cube and ran it under the cube wall. The cord was just long enough so the mouse could move about on the ground. Every so often--once, maybe twice a week--he would jostle the mouse with his foot. Then the rest of the office did their best to remain straight-faced while listening the rants about "It did it again! The mouse just went crazy!"
Unfortunately, the jig was up when the victim acquired a new ergonomic keyboard. When he went behind the computer to make the swap, he noticed the extra USB cord and traced it.
WELCOME DATACOMP
/You're probably all to young to get that.
Mark @6, good point! I came here right after getting a notice from Zazzle saying essentially, "It's the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, and whether you're pro-war or anti-war, we don't care—we're just here to make a buck!" So my ability to laugh about the funny things people spend their money on had taken a major hit.
icky2000 @ 18, takes one to know one. (Ah, the joys of civilized discourse on the web.)
Will. I don't know if it helps but I watched the kid's school project video about the war, felt depressed and disgusted, and had the same reaction to an otherwise cool little toy.
I don't know what else to say.
I saw this same evil perpetrated back in the mid 70s on a RSTS time sharing system. A devious friend of mine created a routine that, about once every 30 seconds or so, would add a random character to the keyboard input stream.
The hapless victim, a fellow high school student trying to type in a computer program, would type a line, get a SYNTAX ERROR, curse, retype the line, lather, rinse, repeat, for hours on end. He never noticed the extra characters appearing and couldn't understand why he kept making typos. He also couldn't understand why certain people looking over his shoulder kept dissolving into giggling fits every 30 seconds or so.
I guess some uses of technology never go out of style.
I think this device is incredibly utilitarian. Think your boss has spyware that logs every keystroke? Plug this in every time you step away from your desk, and set it to the maximum frequency. Voila! Your keystroke log is so big that your boss can't be bothered to find the real data buried in the useless data! (Assuming, of course, that your boss is lazy, and/or doesn't freak out about the entire thing. Both of which seem like fair assumptions to me.)
Frank @22, thank you. I'm thinking it's a good day for reflection, and I'm hoping tomorrow will be a good one for action. Five years is enough.
Cool concept, but the device is too darned big. It needs to be the size of a USB drive.
Reminds me of a sweet little morsel dubbed "wiggle and squeak" that one of my college house mates installed on another house mate's machine. When the mouse pointer hovered over a desktop icon, the icon would wiggle and squeak out from under it. If you followed it with the pointer, it would wiggle and squeak away again. However if you kept the pointer in position and simply clicked, the respective program or app would open up.
types out odd garbage text and phrases
$25 is pretty cheap for a cat.
I've ordered one. Next time I go to my folks house I'll install it, it will drive them mental. Then they'll call me insist the computer has gone crazy and get me to provide them with tech support for hours.
Oh wait. That's a terrible idea.
I might get one to play pranks on my housemate though. She deserves it on account of being a terrible person.