No prob, I am just a little concerned as I can tell you that at least
some versions of Back Orifice are considered like viruses and are picked
up by Virus detection programs.  Also you have to be careful who gives
you BO.  As I said it can allow exclusive control to the wielder who may
not always be who the user things he is.

-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Feduke [mailto:webmaster@r...]
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 2:25 PM
To: professional vb
Subject: [pro_vb] RE: trapping for system HotKeys


> Uh, chuck not to be picky but back orifice is considered a bad
program.
> It allows a person to take over your computer without your permission
> and short of shutting the power off you can do nothing.  It is a tool
> that hackers used to take over a computer remotely for illegal
purposes.

	I understand your concern, and respect it.  However, Back
Orifice is a
remote administration tool along the lines of Microsoft SMS.  In fact MS
got
mad because BO is actually better than SMS, doesn't require SQL Server
(or a
license for it), smaller memory footprint, and more user resistant.
Additionally Back Orifice is open source and free, whereas MS SMS is
not.

	Back Orifice is no more a tool for malicious crackers to take
over a
computer remotely than Microsoft IIS.  Oh wait, actually I think there
is
more risk involved when you use IIS in your network
(http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/111677 among hundreds of others).

	More importantly is that Back Orifice is open source and
implements system
wide hooks using C++.  These hooks are much more frugal as far as memory
and
processory requirements go compared to using VB with a timer.  You can
utilize this C++ source code to write your own DLL to help your VB
program
more efficiently capture system-wide key presses.  If you do not have MS
Visual C++ or Borland C++ (or Builder), you can compile a DLL with the
freeware DJGPP (http://www.djgpp.com/).

Some very interesting topics from creditable news sources on the topic:

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9909/29/back.orifice.idg/

http://www.zdnet.com/eweek/stories/general/0,11011,2347748,00.html

	Not trying to raise an argument here, just increasing everyone's
knowledge
base.

- Chuck