Keystroke Logger Faces Federal Wiretap Charges

securitas writes "In what prosecutors say is the first case of its kind, a former insurance claims manager was indicted on federal wiretapping charges for allegedly installing a keystroke logger on another employee's computer. The device was secretly installed 'on a PC used by a secretary to senior executives at Bristol West Insurance Group.' Reuters reports that the man, who had been fired, was gathering information for a class action lawsuit against his former employer. SecurityFocus interviews would-be keystroke logger user Larry Lee Ropp who reportedly installed the KEYKatcher device on the PC."

Wiretap law - 18 USC Section 2511

[sczimme]

Read all about it here [cornell.edu].

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Certainly contravenes EU law

[heironymouscoward]

The EU convention on cybercrime, which is law in most (all?) EU countries since 2000 prohibits the interception of private electronic communications. A key logger would certainly fall into this category.

However, there have been very few convictions under these laws, only a couple of "hacking" cases in the UK afaiaa.

It's not only about domestic/workplace espionage. Spyware vendors (a species that rates somewhere between slimemolds and spammers) use similar techniques to spy on and report back on people's use of their computer.

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Re:Federal wiretapping charges?

[eclectro]

How can "federal" wiretapping laws vary from state to state? Either the laws he broke are federal laws and the so the charges are federal or they were state laws and the article should read "California wiretapping charges."

Wiretapping laws vary state to state [rcfp.org].

There are also federal wiretapping laws covering much the same thing. They are not mutually exclusive. It just happens that some states extend federal law.

This guy was investigated by a federal grand jury, hence federal law applies to him.

But so does state law, and he could be charged under that too. Like Linda Tripp was for recording Monica Lewinsky's calls.

Re:Just slightly OT

[viking099]

You're assuming they allow booting off a device that isn't the primary hard drive.
How many people who know anything about computer security actually continue to allow non-internal hard drive booting on a system that is intended for general use after it's set up and installed?

Not many, I'd hope. :-)

Does this contradict the Scarfo case?

[Dr. Blue]

Seems like the feds are contradicting themselves (I guess that's not a huge surprise). In the Scarfo case, the FBI claimed they didn't need a wiretap approval to put a keystroke logger on Scarfo's computer because they were only monitoring internal communications between the keyboard and the computer. Thus it wasn't a wiretap.

Now the government is prosecuting someone for doing the exact same thing. Has anyone else noticed this contradiction, or am I missing some important distinction?