There are a variety of reasons that you might want to track what somebody is doing on a computer such as wanting to track what your children are doing online, what your staff are doing during work hours or even suspicion of a spouse's internet habits. Regardless of the reason, the good news is that there are several easy ways to monitor what goes on with your computer including easy to use applications that can track everything that happens on a computer.
One of the simplest ways to monitor internet use is to check the history of the browser which shows what sites were visited and which pages were viewed. The problem with this though is it is easy for a user to delete this history and even though there are other methods to get a surface snapshot of where an internet user has been, such as data in the cache and temporary files as well as the cookies section of a computer, these really only provide references to where the user was and not to the specific intent of the session. In addition, a savvy computer user can pretty well delete any tracks the may have created through a manual process and even with a history scrubber which completely deletes all surfing tracks.
It is possible though to still monitor a computer users history regardless of the steps they may take to hide their usage. For example, a popular software title called " I Am Big Brother " is an example of a program that monitors all aspects of computer use including chat rooms, sites visited, emails read and even key strokes and passwords. The bottom line is that once the program is installed, it operates in what is called stealth mode in the background which means that the program is not possible to detect by someone who doesn't know it was installed and is password protected, so it can't be turned off by anyone but the administrator.
I Am Big Brother has the ability to track just about anything that goes on with your computer by using a combination of techniques. It captures all images shown on the screen much like a security camera does, and it also records all incoming and out going chat conversations for all major chat clients such as Yahoo or MSN Chat. ( most programs of this nature only record the outgoing conversation ) It also records any emails received or sent so that you can see what was said between the two parties. In addition, it will monitor any programs run on the computer. The user interface is extremely easy to use and likely is the best program of its kind on the internet.
There is a running debate regarding the use of this type of software because of concerns of a person's right to privacy. The other side of the argument is the knowledge that can be provided by having an understanding of what is happening behind your back. For example, how much privacy should your teenage daughter have if it means that she could be putting herself in danger online. Either way, it really comes down to it being a choice each of us needs to make on an individual basis.
Resources
To visit the I Am Big Bother Software website, please click here.
