I hope you enjoy reverse-engineering the three-way handshake through vendor/product-IDs in the QMK firmware to activate the HID.

Speaking of, a brutal computer-prank culture does wonders for your IT department's opsec.

In which case you bring another computer, and if necessary another monitor and replace the real one. There's always a way if you truly want to.

Of course, I guess this is how you do end up with a paranoid IT department.

> Isn't the kb-layout handled by the OS, and not the keyboard itself?

The OS can remap a traditional layout for you, but a lot of keyboards can store a configured layout that is used when determining which keycodes to send. Chances are pretty good, given the described setup, that they were probably using a keyboard that managed its own layout.

Could be, yeah. I know that his kb had some tiny switches on the underside to configure some things, so you're probably right.

Isn't the kb-layout handled by the OS, and not the keyboard itself?

But you'd be able to bring one with the proper layout and without blank keycaps. Or one able to remap in the keyboard.