Noe spellll; checkking

[tlarson58]

All,

My computer is gradually not spell checking my typing on different programs. It happend with a work program and is now refuzzing (get it) to do it on this site.

I went into settings -> typing -> highlight misspelled words -> on.

No luk (sp) but the maddening auto-suggest typing function works.

I'm checking with you guys before I contact an IT person who I will have to pay.

- Tommy

[andrewsrea]

I am more computer literate with each passing day! Hope you get that fixed, Tommy!

[BatUtilityBelt]

First, I've been retired for over 5 years and haven't kept up on cybersecurity very much. Having said so, here are some random thoughts leaning toward security.

Autocorrect and spell checkers grab your keystrokes in a similar fashion to keyloggers. The difference only lies in what they do with them. Autocorrect and spell checkers are trying to help you. On the other hand, a keylogger tends to be employed against you (for things like capturing passwords, pin codes, and such). So I hope you don't have a keylogger infecting your system. It might also be something innocuous like a bad driver.

Unfortunately, the next question would be "how do I tell?". That gets too complicated to describe, and is better answered with running an up-to-date antivirus. I don't advocate any particular one, because I've worked with a lot of them and there's more smoke 'n mirrors than actual protection across the industry. Knowing the difference is a matter of which companies currently own which other companies, and again... retired 5 years so I don't know anymore.

Bottom line, I'd just make sure you're keeping your OS current and applying all security updates as soon as they're available, and never clicking links in emails or 1000 other actions that let malware in.

[golem]

The whole is a spell checker a keylogger isn't quite accurate. There are a number of ways to make a spell checker work, and even if it isn't a key logger, you might still have concerns about whether it sends your text unencrypted and whether they store your data (in this case text) So companies that consider it a security risk certainly have a point. There was a diagraming tool people like to use that one of the developers who wanted to self host it quickly realized sent all the data it was looking at over the network.

Postman, a popular tool for testing APIs, stores all your data in the cloud and there's a very real risk of exposing your company secrets (e.g., tokens) this way.

At this point I'd probably use an LLM rather than a spelling and grammar checker

[BatUtilityBelt]

The whole is a spell checker a keylogger isn't quite accurate.

I never said they were the same. I said they overlap in implementation.

There are a number of ways to make a spell checker work, and even if it isn't a key logger, you might still have concerns about whether it sends your text unencrypted and whether they store your data (in this case text) So companies that consider it a security risk certainly have a point.

That's fair regarding keyloggers with a purpose for the device owner. But note there are also keyloggers that do nothing for the device owner, and are completely nefarious. They tend to get installed through viruses. Those were the keyloggers I was more concerned about, not the ones lazily leaking data by not being secure.