There are numerous web sites that will tell you that Hewlett-Packard/Netropa keyboard software contains a spyware (mmkeybd.exe) which calls home to HP with all manner of information. I believe the record needs to be set straight on this. This is not spyware.
Some brilliant person at HP thought that it would be a good idea to have the keyboard continually ping an HP server so that the keyboard would know whether or not it needed to light up the LED "online" indicator.
The Pavilion Netropa Multimedia Keyboard with the
driver mmkeybd.exe has a regular ping to detect
internet connectivity. The detection of a live
internet connection was used to turn on the on-line
LED that is present on some keyboards. The ICMP ping does not contain any user information and is not tracked in any way by HP.
This driver is
no longer shipped with the key boards and there is a
patch that can be downloaded that will remove and
replace the driver for this ping this is available here.
Understandably, it is alarming to see your keyboard software set off your firewall with repeated attempts to connect to the internet. In this case, it is just a very inefficient way to let you know that you are online, not spyware.
We have enough trouble as it is trying to convince people that spyware is a problem that they should be worrying about. When people label perfectly innocent software as spyware, it diminishes any valid warning about true spyware. Such warnings are perceived as less credible if the term "spyware" is used indiscriminately.
This article is located at http://www.spywareinfoforum.info/articles/hp_netropa/
Link:
http://www.spywareinfoforum.info/rd/mmkeybd/ Replacement drivers for HP/Netropa keyboards
