Keyloggers and your children
It is a tough call for any parent. Does one install a keylogger on their child’s computer or don’t they. Well with the never ending parade of horror stories concerning kids and social networking sites, one has to wonder. Furthermore, if you install one, do you tell your children or don’t you? With WiFi being as prevalent as it is, your kids could be upstairs out of eye site surfing on sites that you don’t approve of. There is no easy solution outside of unplugging the modem and taking it to bed with you. Installing a keylogger as distateful as it seems, is for many the only solution to protecting their children. Personally speaking, I will be purchasing a PC and putting it in on the kitchen counter. That is where my kids will do their surfing. I would just as soon not take any chances.
Technorati Tags: Keylogger, Monitoring software, Computer
Mark Says:
July 25th, 2007 at 8:44 am
It seems like the best solution is to do both. Put the computer in the kitchen and install a Keylogger. It isn’t distasteful to protect your kids from predators!
nytstryk Says:
July 25th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Any child under the age of 18 living with their parents at home should not have any reasonable expectation of privacy contrary to their understanding. I will install a keylogger and put the computer in the kitchen and dare them to modify the computer’s configuration or attempt to bypass the logger if it is discovered.
Considering the Feds can monitor me (NSA spy case) the kids will be monitored and like it.
John O'Brien Says:
July 25th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
I’ve used a keylogger for a few years now. My daughter is turning 14. About a year ago I bought Spectorsoft Pro, the ultimate window to her online world. She doesn’t know it’s there. I randomly go through the snapshots and IMs about once a week. A couple of years ago I busted her for visiting a porn site, but printed out the results as if from Yahoo Parental Control to me.
Her PC is in her bedroom. If I did it over I’d put the PC in a public room of the house. As it is, she is keeping safe in her surfing. Zone Alarm Security Suite with parental control helps some too, as does her limited user account (no download installs without my permission).
Don Parker Says:
July 25th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Hi guys,
Well I am glad to see that I am not the only parent who is taking an active role in their children’s online activities. It is a sad statement on the state of the Internet that we have to, but it is one that must be taken.
Steve Says:
July 29th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
To protect my family, I used an old Pentium 3 computer and installed Astaro Security Gateway on it. For home users (under 10 protected IP addresses) it’s free in version 7. They used to charge a subscription fee for version 6, but now you get a three-year license to web-filtering (SurfControl) and 2 AV engines (they don’t tell you which ones, but presumably one is ClamAV). There’s also a super easy wizard that lets you choose which IM programs and P2P clients to block, using Snort signatures. It’s basically just a nicely packaged GUI that combines IPTables, Snort, Squid, and tons of other features. Sorry to be a shill, but it’s free, so it can’t hurt to try it out so that you can see exactly where your loved ones have been going. The application-layer firewall with attachment blocking and full logging is alone with the install . . .