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Keyloggers...

J

JYeager11

Gawd
Joined
Nov 15, 2006
Messages
563
Hi there,

I'm a parent who will be purchasing his 13 yr-old daughter's first computer in the coming days. She's used the internet before, but always on my computer. This will be her first time going online without supervision.

I've considered limiting what sites she has access to, but I'd rather not do that until she's proven to me that it's required. As a parent, I'd like to adopt the "observe from behind the curtain" approach for a while, as long as I'm able to access everything she has access to. If she wants to create an account somewhere, I want her to do it -- but I also want to be able to access that account and make sure everything's fine. At least the first few weeks.

Is there a keylogger software I can install on her machine? I don't need screenshots or anything like that. Keylogging the average session is enough to put my fatherly paranoia to rest.

I'll be installing it myself, with administrator privileges. So it doesn't need to "trick" its way into the machine or anything like that. In fact, I'm even considering letting her know I'm doing it (haven't decided yet) but for now it needs to be invisible to the user.

Anything simple like that out there?
 
Spector soft makes a pretty spiffy product, I'd go with that. Although it gives you quite a bit more than you are asking for.

Other than that, you can just buy a simple keyboard shim that logs keystrokes. It's a physical device, so it has no presence on the local system.
 
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Knowing where this thread will head with no intervention, I'm going to post this now:

If you want to make a recommendation for the OP that's great, but leave your parenting and personal advice out of it. It's considered off-topic for this forum, and will be removed.
 
So you know, JYeager, my advice wasn't in any way negative.

I just wanted to make sure that's clear.
 
Well, I didn't read it until it was edited, so no harm done. ;)

I will look into the product suggested! As for the shim (whatever that is), will that work with a laptop? Because I'm considering getting her one (she may be too young to be carrying one around now, but in a couple of years I can see her taking it out of the house).
 
JYeager said:
Well, I didn't read it until it was edited, so no harm done. ;)

I will look into the product suggested! As for the shim (whatever that is), will that work with a laptop? Because I'm considering getting her one (she may be too young to be carrying one around now, but in a couple of years I can see her taking it out of the house).
Click to expand...
It's a physical device that goes between the keyboard and the computer, so it's less effective when we're talking portable computers.
 
I know you are specifically looking for a keyloggers, but you may consider something like openDNS as well.. Accidents could happen to visit certain sites, so it might of some value to prevent them ahead of the time.

With that said take it for what its worth. Might be a little further than you want to go, but something to think about.
 
I use OpenDNS as well. Does a GREAT job of filtering out all the really bad sites and malware sites too. If you really don't want to filter anything at all it will still log what sites have been visited over the past two weeks.
 
I like Perfect Keylogger. It works fantastic and can be hidden easily. It can be setup to email you the logs every XX minutes.

Make sure you exclude the executable and folder from your antivirus/antispyware.
 
I would use k9webprotection.com

You can turn on reporting as well, and it will show you what sites she has went to.

OpenDNS only works on your home network... k9 will work whereever she uses her laptop.
 
I recommend Cybersitter. I used it with my daughter and it's a great program. You can log stuff as well as block what you want to block.
 
QwertyJuan said:
I would use k9webprotection.com

You can turn on reporting as well, and it will show you what sites she has went to.

OpenDNS only works on your home network... k9 will work whereever she uses her laptop.
Click to expand...
Another vote for OpenDNS!

I haven't tried k9 before, but you can apply OpenDNS to the machine (do it on the ethernet and wireless adapters).
 
czhao said:
Will it be easier for you to just check History in the browser?
Click to expand...

Most kids 13 years old can very easily delete the history... heck most browsers have a shortcut to erase history and cookies with 1-2 clicks.
 
pwrusr said:
Most kids 13 years old can very easily delete the history... heck most browsers have a shortcut to erase history and cookies with 1-2 clicks.
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I'm sure there's a way to disable that since the HS I went to disabled even the viewing of history, although I think it only applied to IE.

Anyone know much about "Windows Live Family Safety"?
 
I use perfect key logger on my daughters computer she's 12 and has a habit of deleting all IM's history and website history.
 
kirtar said:
I'm sure there's a way to disable that since the HS I went to disabled even the viewing of history, although I think it only applied to IE.

Anyone know much about "Windows Live Family Safety"?
Click to expand...

Indeed, but that could be very limiting what she could do. As the OP said he wants to watch from the sidelines so to speak: "As a parent, I'd like to adopt the "observe from behind the curtain" approach for a while, as long as I'm able to access everything she has access to."

http://download.live.com/familysafety looks like a decent program. I'm not sure how transparent it is though.
 
From what I can tell, if it's anything like the vista parental controls (which it replaced for Win7), I think it can be made fairly transparent by turning off blocks/software restrictions. It is supposed to log sites visited, although I haven't checked if it's a "only works with IE" deal or not. The other issue is that I doubt it works for logging IM other than Windows Live Messenger. I'll try putting it on my computer for now along with the rest of Windows Live Essentials and use it to "spy" on my other user account which I only use when somebody needs my computer.

UPDATE: Probably skip the MS program. It seems buggy at least on Win7 Ultimate x64. Other users have also reported bugs when attempting to set up the program (error code when adding member to the system). Tried rebooting and reinstalling and still got error codes.
 
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I've have a http://www.keycobra.com/ and it's pretty simple to use. plug it in inline and hit 3 keys for it to detect in Windows. The keystrokes are configurable. Once detected you have access to the logs. I mainly used it to determine our end to end encryption was working on our cc terminals.
 
pwrusr said:
Most kids 13 years old can very easily delete the history... heck most browsers have a shortcut to erase history and cookies with 1-2 clicks.
Click to expand...



ctrl shit + N in google and there is no history to delete, not well known yet.

I use open DNS some and have good luck with it at times.
 
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