The KeyCarbon USB is an excellent way to exacerbate the trust issues between you and your spouse. This miniature device is used to record typing from a USB keyboard. Reminiscent of a normal thumb drive, this little adaptor can be hooked up in seconds to any PC or Macintosh computer. All you have to do is unplug the USB keyboard from the computer and plug the KeyCarbon back into the computer with the keyboard cord attached; and no, the computer doesn’t need to be turned on. What’s more, is that when you install the KeyCarbon with the computer off, the system tray will not display any new found hardware; perfect for you sneaky paranoid stalkers.
*A little extra money will buy higher capacity, encryption, and a date/time stamp; all models come with an optional white case.
Once the KeyCarbon is plugged in, it will record all key strokes on any USB keyboard until the key stroke log is full. At this point either the oldest key strokes are discarded, or the recording halts. You can choose which option you prefer under options of the configuration menu.
The key strokes can be retrieved on any operating system of any computer, using a standard text editor such as Microsoft Word or Notebook, you just type in a secret code and your KeyCarbon options will appear.
The KeyCarbon USB won’t work with the built-in keyboard of a laptop, but KeyCarbon does make products for the laptop as well as other key stoke recording equipment for internal use on a desktop. This can prove handy if your system crashes while your working on an important document.
One option I would have liked to see is control over the non-printable keystrokes such as Alt, Ctrl, F1, etc. These non-printable characters are converted into a series of printable characters such as <alt> or <F1>. This is all fine and dandy, but when it comes to <bks> which denotes the backspace button, which I happen to use a few thousand times per day, the key stoke log can become fairly cumbersome. Of course, if just the backspace was discarded, the log would be even more difficult to decipher, as all the mistyped keys would be visible with no reference to the backspace button; at least the space button is displayed as an empty space and not <spc>.
If your keyboard has a PS/2 connector opposed to the USB you should look into the KeyKatcher.
