keystrokestat ⌨️

A tool for silent keystroke logging in the background using xinput

Screenshot

at localhost:8050

Terminal gif

The table is updated every 5 seconds. Take a look at SCHEDULER_INTERVAL in script.py

Motivation

I wanted to know how much typing I do and what keys I'm using more

Security implications

All the keystrokes are recorded! including the passwords and username that you type. Use at your own risk.

Requirements

• xinput (installation for xinput depends on the distro)

How this works

The device ID from the xinput for the keyboard being used is needed to log the keystrokes. To get the device ID run xinput from terminal. In my case the device ID is 19 for my keyboard

[blue@linux] ~ xinput
⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	    id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech M720 Triathlon                 	id=11	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech K850                           	id=18	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   	    id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard             	id=5	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=6	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                               	id=7	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=8	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                            	id=9	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Logitech M720 Triathlon                 	id=13	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Logitech K850                           	id=19	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Mi TV soundbar (AVRCP)                  	id=10	[slave  keyboard (3)]

The xinput test command with the device ID will print key release and key press to the stdout. The python script uses the subprocess module to call the command and record stdout which is read from the buffer every few seconds for storing the data in SQLite post processing of stdout buffer.

[blue@linux] ~ xinput test 19
xinput test 11
key release 36
key press   57
nkey press   31
ikey press   54
ckey release 57
key press   26
key release 31
ekey release 54
key release 26
key press   42
gkey press   27
rkey release 42
key press   26
ekey release 27
key press   38
akey release 26

How to run this?

# once you have cloned this repo
cd keystrokestat
pip3 install -r script/requirements.txt

python3 script/keystroke.py --help
Usage: keystroke.py [OPTIONS]

  run workflow and log the keystrokes

Options:
  --view TEXT  displays top frequently used keys
  --pkill      kill all instances of xinput
  --help       Show this message and exit.

To start the Dash sever for live view

cd server
docker-compose up

Tested on Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS

Take a look at my personal stats

The reason why you see high frequency for j, k, l, h are because of vi usage I was quite suprised myself to see the stat 😊

Finally

Let you me know what you think about this. You can share your thoughts with me on twitter