Late one evening, about 15 years ago, we were wondering why we were seeing several hits per second from a single IP address on our company's search page. It didn't follow any of the patterns of the (admittedly simple) bot detection we had in place. It wasn't bad enough to be a problem, but we were trying to watch some real-time metrics and it was a distraction.
We had a monitor on the wall showing the most popular search terms over the past hour. A few minutes into the event, we saw a search term steadily move to the top of the list. It was something like `'[]`. After thinking about it for a few minutes, we concluded a user left their browser on our search page, a cat stepped on their keyboard in just the right pattern, and then sat down on the F5-key (i.e., refresh key).
No way to know if we got it right, but it was the best we came up with in the 20-ish minutes before it stopped. Oh the things you'll diagnose...
Some internal Skype versions had cat detection. When the client discovered cat-like key presses, the other side would see a cat walking animation instead of typing animation. Don’t think this feature ever made it to a public release.
A: PawSense detects the paws of even deaf cats. Even if a cat is deaf, PawSense blocks cat typing once detected. This makes it harder for the cat to mess up your programs, data files, and operating system.
However, PawSense does not include a miracle cure for deafness.
This is timely. Out of my five cats, my primary boy has been really needy or making a game out of hop on table, walk on keyboards, get picked up, scritched and tossed down. Repeat. Even cat tv on youtube hasn't been helping.
All five of the 4 legged a-holes I have here, plus the one my wife has with her (we split / travel between houses) are completely spoiled. He's my primary - my wife brought a couple of cats to the relationship while I had my old ginger. During covid my ginger passed and the other cats were sorta hers - the two sisters she adopted from a homeless person, the boy who hitched a ride on her gas tank (special, but great cat), and then the cat she adopted form a homeless woman after covid.
My ginger passed and I adopted a cat who was named "Tank" because he was a little box of a pre 4week cat. Got him at 5-6 weeks, his name is Tiny Jerk because even at a young age - tooth brush, toilet paper, socks got carried off.
It was a bond. So while primary and secondary are not the best terms "my cat" and the others isn't either.
He is a great cat, he's also dealing with moving from the place he was raised to a new home (mover ~1yr ago, but moved him up - and the rest - 6mo ago). He gets all the attention he demands, but it's hard with the typing.
Highly hit or miss strategy, my cat didn't care at all about foil, he even rolled around on it.
I personally recommend motion-detecting air spray cans, I didn't want the cat to feel punished by me, he just needs to be redirected. Therefore I opt for these as a deterrent, since it is both effective and an action I undertake from the cat's view. I think he hates it because of the hiss, but the air spray itself might play a role.
Noice! I use xtrlock on Linux [1], but it requires preparation. It doesn't play the annoying noise it just locks the keyboard. You can set it to trigger after a few minutes of inactivity which is nice. But you'll still find cats warming their bellies on your keyboard.
Oh, I really believed this was some strange keylogger spyware. Maybe it is? I really can't tell.
Either this was the hook to get people to install it, or the front to make it seem like a real thing when people find it and google "why is pawsense installed on my computer".
> Even while you use your other software, PawSense constantly monitors keyboard activity. PawSense analyzes keypress timings and combinations to distinguish cat typing from human typing.
On an OS like Windows, which does not have a granular permissions model for something like prompting the user to allow a program to hook keyboard input when not focused, literally any binary you run could be a keylogger. One that openly says it analyzes keypresses is not especially more of a security risk than any other binary, which can do all the same things even if they do not announce on their webpage that they do.
Late one evening, about 15 years ago, we were wondering why we were seeing several hits per second from a single IP address on our company's search page. It didn't follow any of the patterns of the (admittedly simple) bot detection we had in place. It wasn't bad enough to be a problem, but we were trying to watch some real-time metrics and it was a distraction.
We had a monitor on the wall showing the most popular search terms over the past hour. A few minutes into the event, we saw a search term steadily move to the top of the list. It was something like `'[]`. After thinking about it for a few minutes, we concluded a user left their browser on our search page, a cat stepped on their keyboard in just the right pattern, and then sat down on the F5-key (i.e., refresh key).
No way to know if we got it right, but it was the best we came up with in the 20-ish minutes before it stopped. Oh the things you'll diagnose...
this is the best HN thread of this year so far, loving all the comments
Some internal Skype versions had cat detection. When the client discovered cat-like key presses, the other side would see a cat walking animation instead of typing animation. Don’t think this feature ever made it to a public release.
It did! I remember seeing this.
[dead]
Unfortunately the program can be bypassed by typing “human”
Ultimately all this does is incentivize cats to type more accurately when inputting malicious commands
It’s being used to train CatGPT.
> When cats walk or climb on your keyboard, they can enter random commands and data, damage your files, and even crash your computer.
And they might turn you into the Freakazoid
That you Dexter?
Q: My cat is deaf. Can you help me?
A: PawSense detects the paws of even deaf cats. Even if a cat is deaf, PawSense blocks cat typing once detected. This makes it harder for the cat to mess up your programs, data files, and operating system.
However, PawSense does not include a miracle cure for deafness.
I work in IT and I've seen it all.
Well until my family was adopted (and enslaved) by a cat who walked in one day and never left.
Windows 11 having a full screen countdown I've never heard about? Check
A key combination that disables the keyboard? Check
The disabled magnifier that shows up anyway, but now with a setting that forces to to hard boot because you see nothing? Check
I do not mention the 90 or 180° rotation of the screen, a switch of the keyboard and display to Turkish and others.
This cat is an IT desease.
This is timely. Out of my five cats, my primary boy has been really needy or making a game out of hop on table, walk on keyboards, get picked up, scritched and tossed down. Repeat. Even cat tv on youtube hasn't been helping.
Maybe he's spoiled 'cause you call him your "primary" kitty!
Just be glad the "secondary" cats haven't decided to vent their frustration.
All five of the 4 legged a-holes I have here, plus the one my wife has with her (we split / travel between houses) are completely spoiled. He's my primary - my wife brought a couple of cats to the relationship while I had my old ginger. During covid my ginger passed and the other cats were sorta hers - the two sisters she adopted from a homeless person, the boy who hitched a ride on her gas tank (special, but great cat), and then the cat she adopted form a homeless woman after covid.
My ginger passed and I adopted a cat who was named "Tank" because he was a little box of a pre 4week cat. Got him at 5-6 weeks, his name is Tiny Jerk because even at a young age - tooth brush, toilet paper, socks got carried off.
It was a bond. So while primary and secondary are not the best terms "my cat" and the others isn't either.
He is a great cat, he's also dealing with moving from the place he was raised to a new home (mover ~1yr ago, but moved him up - and the rest - 6mo ago). He gets all the attention he demands, but it's hard with the typing.
The other 4 cats are eat-only replicas? Is the primary predetermined or voted?
> Except when playing a sound (when a cat is detected) PawSense occupies less than 120K of RAM.
Maybe add a 1999 or 2000 datestamp to this (it won the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners... Ig Nobel prize in Computer Science in 2000...)
I give it One Star: It keeps locking me out of my computer whenever I rage at video games, which makes me rage further.
It keeps you from turning into a cat!
Aluminium foil on flat surfaces works very well.
After the cat has been trained to avoid the shelf or desk, you can remove the foil.
Highly hit or miss strategy, my cat didn't care at all about foil, he even rolled around on it.
I personally recommend motion-detecting air spray cans, I didn't want the cat to feel punished by me, he just needs to be redirected. Therefore I opt for these as a deterrent, since it is both effective and an action I undertake from the cat's view. I think he hates it because of the hiss, but the air spray itself might play a role.
Noice! I use xtrlock on Linux [1], but it requires preparation. It doesn't play the annoying noise it just locks the keyboard. You can set it to trigger after a few minutes of inactivity which is nice. But you'll still find cats warming their bellies on your keyboard.
[1] For Wayland there's this: https://github.com/Kuze2571/Kaylock
Is there a Mac version of this? I could honestly use it
Oh, I really believed this was some strange keylogger spyware. Maybe it is? I really can't tell. Either this was the hook to get people to install it, or the front to make it seem like a real thing when people find it and google "why is pawsense installed on my computer".
> Even while you use your other software, PawSense constantly monitors keyboard activity. PawSense analyzes keypress timings and combinations to distinguish cat typing from human typing.
On an OS like Windows, which does not have a granular permissions model for something like prompting the user to allow a program to hook keyboard input when not focused, literally any binary you run could be a keylogger. One that openly says it analyzes keypresses is not especially more of a security risk than any other binary, which can do all the same things even if they do not announce on their webpage that they do.
How good! Just need the cat to try it.