an apple spy?

i've had this imac, os 7.5, for about 6 months. all this time it keeps track of what i'm doing. there's this little box that says "all messages" on top. then a list of stuff. like this:

7:39:52 pm (0x0-0x2a) . com. apple.Safari : info: check decoder..... and so on.
seems to be mostly kernelspeak, but still

so my question is do they need to monitor every least keystroke? if so, why? and who are they sending it to? the cia? the white house? which keystrokes will prompt a visit from the authorities? and can i turn it off?

thanks

zwazo said:

i've had this imac, os 7.5, for about 6 months.

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I'm assuming you mean Mac OS 10.7.5??…since there actually was an OS version "7.5" back in the 1990's.

- Nick

Sounds like you have Console open in the Dock. If so just drag it off and it should vanish in a puff of smoke.

console in dock

harryb2448 said:

Sounds like you have Console open in the Dock. If so just drag it off and it should vanish in a puff of smoke.

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console is indeed in dock. dragging it out does make a puff of smoke, but then it jumps right back,

also i got terminal in dock

Open Console from utilities and then go to the Menu bar and hit the 'Quit' button. Same with Terminal. Hitting the little red button merely closes the window, and does not quit the application.

Also, what you're seeing are system logs, which are generally kept for troubleshooting. They are purged systematically over time, but can be useful if something goes awry with your machine. They are roughly akin to the Event Log in Windows. All major Operating Systems log system activity for these purposes and it shouldn't be cause for concern.