Warning about wireless keyboards

Heard a news article about a guy in Germany that was using wireless keyboard for his PC. Turns out he was transmitting and his neighbor was getting everything he typed on his screen. They stated that they were 150yds apart (?).

WOW!! I wonder what kind of keyboards THEY were using. I use a Logitech wireless mouse, uses the exact same 27 Mhz technology as their keyboards. The range isn't that great though, I rean relative to everything else. It's about 10-15 feet...great for the office, but that's nowhere near 150 Yards!

Also, we have 4 computers in this house, all of them use Logitech Wireless mice. So far we've had no problems.

Sure you didn't read this in a tabloid seems as impossible as a car balanced on a phone wire that is to say, I suppose it could really happen...

Imagine ordering something off the web, or doing web banking, and having all your account information popping up on other peoples computers.

Very disturbing.

It came from a radio report, of course it could be inaccurate, but something to think about. Yep, all kinds of funny possibilities!

My Logitech wireless keyboard has a secure link feature that encrypts communications between the keyboard and the receiver, but it isn't on by default. First thing I did was turn it on.

The 150 yds might be fabricated but the rest is more than plausible.
I've seen many of those investigavtive reporting-type shows where they do stuff like pass Glocks through metal detectors (no bullets and no clip) and use $20 Radio Shack scanners to listen-in on baby monitors from outside the homes.
One segment I distinctly remember was about those old Atari/Texas Instruments/Apple computers that used RF connections to connect to a regular TV.
Those were hard-wired connections directly from computer to TV and they could still be intercepted at minimal distances (I think on the show they were something like 3 offices away).
Wireless keyboards that are actually designed to broadcast through the air would be a piece of cake.

Just another fabricated story to scare off the 'dumb' majority and ensure things like online retailing never take off. eg. antivirus software are among the best sellers in any given year. Despite the fact that free ones do just as well a job as any $100 package.

I agree with the car balancing on phone wire with this one. Not entirely impossible, but extremely improbable.

perfectly plausable with the right ant or ant effect. A standard 802.11b wireless network will only work about 150 yards line of sight. Stick a couple of parabolic directional ant on them and there can be 5 + miles between them, same power output. If the enviroment where the keyboard was at somehow acted to focus the signal 150 yards from a conventional 20 foot range isn't impossible.