Posted on 11/27/2005 11:19:44 AM PST by mtbopfuyn
I'm looking to buy software to monitor computer useage by teens. I'm leaning toward Spector Pro but wanted to get feedback from y'all. Any recommendations or comments?
I'd recommend against this sort of thing. While it's good to know what your teenagers are up to, I daresay, (as someone who was a teenager not all that long ago) that there are probably a number of things you'd be better off not knowing.
Unfortunatly for him, they hacked it, made it irrelevent.
Ironically, they now hassle him over websites he goes to. (Not porn sites, but they still mock him).
If the kids are smart, its all a waste of time and money.
My sister uses one of these systems on her computer, not sure which one. Contrary to the previous poster's comment, when it comes to where your teenagers are going on the web, "Ignorance is not bliss."
"Ironically, they now hassle him over websites he goes to. (Not porn sites, but they still mock him)."
Like CNN.com? LOL.
They know I'm going to install a program so it's all out in the open.
True.
As a matter of fact, yea.
He always bashes CNN and the NY Times, but his kids found out he goes to those websites, so they bust his chops.
I find it all kind of funny.
Just stay one step ahead while still looking over their shoulder.
If it is not good for our kids maybe it isn't good for us either.
Here is some advice tho .. make yourself the ONLY Administrator on their computer and set a very complex password .. that would be easy for you to remember. For example: iH2Pc4lr .. I have 2 pork chops for later (the caps being before and after the 2). Of course you would make up your own and take care they don't learn your password. If they cannot log on as Admin, they can't disable your key logger.
I appreciate your good intentions, but I respectfully disagree with your approach.
I would talk to your teenager on a daily basis to understand where her/his head is at, and tell them you trust them to use good judgement, and then demonstrate that trust. That is far more powerful in building their character than a $10 spyware program that will teach your kids not to trust you.
Baloney. Trust, but verify.
Disrespect? Lock them out of the computers for a while until they learn some respect.
I'm kind of siding with the kids on this.
LOL.
He does (according to the kids) spend alot of time on the NY Times website while also blasting it all the time.
I told him to just dump the program, his kids aren't going to bad sites (as far as he can tell) and his kids hacked into it, so they know all of his sites he goes to.
When I saw them 2 days ago they nicknamed their dad "Uncle Joe" (as of Stalin) and were calling him a commie because he trolled a few left wing websites.
I agree with you, but have a conservative girl in my house. She knows darn well what is acceptable and not both online and in life. If it is questionable she brings it up to discuss. I told her no on the web cam and made her remove some info on some site that I saw when I googled her. I have to trust her as she is getting too old to constantly monitor.
Thanks all. FYI, we have basically good kids, but it's what else that's out there that causes concern. They know we're going to install a monitoring program and other than wrinkled noses there wasn't an outburst, so all's well on the homefront. Now, to think up a very complicated password.
Not entirely true. I'd pop in the windows CD, boot to the repair console, and delete/rename a critical DLL for the logger in under 3 minutes.
There are however a number of them that are stealthy, all however can be detected one way or another with programs like Rootkitrevealer, autoruns, and various trojan detectors.
personally, if I were concerned about it, I'd log outgoing traffic on my router and parse the log with some available tools.
Buddy of mine does exactly that and if the kid hits sites he objects too, he blocks traffic from the kid's machine for some period of time as punishment. It's worked well enough to stop the nonesense.
This won't log what the content of AIM/ICQ/Messenger/whatever or chatroom content, or site content but if you're got that much concern, the kid shouldn't be allowed to go on the net by themself.
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