Three Ways to Remotely Monitor Someone Else’s Computer

Spying on someone else’s computer is bad. How to “go to jail” is bad. However, there are a few very narrow exceptions, such as monitoring your children or employees. If you fall into this category (or just want to know how someone might be spying on you), here’s how.

This post is part of our Evil Week series on Lifehacker where we take a look at the dark side of goal achievement. Sometimes evil is justified, and sometimes knowing evil means knowing how to defeat it. I want more? Visit our wicked week tags page .

First, the big, big disclaimer: watching another person’s computer without their permission isn’t just wrong, it can be a federal crime . There are only a few very specific conditions under which you are allowed to control a computer that someone else is using. For example, an employer may be allowed to control certain things, but only on equipment that the company owns. Parents can track their child’s activities because they are legally responsible for their children. Outside of this situation, however, there isn’t much room to maneuver, and probably shouldn’t be.

Even where it might be legal, you can still discover privacy lawsuits if you’re not careful. You may end up writing down a Facebook employee’s password with logging software, but if you then use it to access their private messages, it will go overboard.

Finally, tracking someone without their knowledge (even if it’s legal) will almost certainly undermine their trust. If you are a parent of a teenager, observing their online activities may be acceptable, but you can put them off. Legal and ethical excuses do not mend broken trust. Also think about the social costs of tracking before proceeding.

First, determine what (and whether) to track

Finding out what someone else is doing is not as easy as saying, “Computer! Watch them and report to me! »You really need to know what you are looking for. If you’re a parent, you might want to give your child privacy, but make sure they don’t visit the more seedy parts of the Internet. If you are an employer who needs to track an employee to keep track of misconduct, you can register everything in a journal. Typically, monitoring is divided into three categories:

• Watch for specific activity. This is ideal when you usually don’t care what someone does with the device as long as they follow the rules. For example, you can find out when an employee is using Facebook or a child is watching porn. Sometimes this can be achieved through filtering rather than observation, so try to consider all options.
• Track all activity in specific apps. Employers may want to track certain apps but don’t want to track their Facebook. Perhaps you only care about what they do with corporate email, chat apps, or proprietary software. In this case, more selective monitoring may be better.
• Monitor all activity in every application. In this case, you may want to see everything someone else is doing. This could include monitoring the child’s chat logs if you are worried they might be involved in something questionable, or spying on an employee who you think might be stealing from the company.

It’s important to decide very specifically what you want to track because tracking too much can cause legal problems. If you need to keep employees away from certain websites, don’t use a keylogger. If you want to keep kids safe from pornography, you probably don’t need to track every Facebook post. Keep tracking to a minimum to avoid any complications in the future.

Choose the right software

Once you have decided how and why you want to control someone’s computer, you need to purchase the right software. While there are tons of monitoring tools out there, we have a few suggestions from a reputable organization. Keep in mind that you are dealing with surveillance software. You can find a free keylogger on a random developer’s website, but you may not always know if this tool will secretly call home. In this case, it is best to use reputable companies that you can trust.

Tracking Child Activity: Parental Controls (Windows / OS X)

Both Windows and OS X have built-in tools that allow adults to follow a child’s activities. You can use them to track and filter your child’s activity. There are a few key differences, but some features are common to both platforms. This is how functions are broken down:

• Block or control the use of the website and application (both)
• Set time limits for computer use (both)
• Filter apps and games by age rating (both)
• Hide profanity in dictionaries (OS X)
• Block specific hardware such as cameras (OS X)
• Block communication with specific people using select apps like messaging and email (OS X)

To use these features, both platforms require you to create a child account. You can find information on how to create a new child account in OS X here or in Windows 10 here . You can also find information on how to manage the settings for each platform using these links.

Track Employee Performance: ActivTrak (Windows / OS X)

If you are an employer looking to learn more about what your employees are doing, ActivTrak is the solution. It allows you to monitor the computers of several employees at once and provides detailed reports on user activity. Some of the key features are:

• Records statistics about when and how often applications are used.
• Take screenshots of user activity periodically.
• Creates charts showing time spent in various applications.
• Sends warning messages when the user begins certain unwanted actions.
• Remote installation is possible if the company uses ActiveDirectory (paid version only).

As an administrator, you can log into the web control panel to view usage statistics within minutes of setting up computers in your office. You can set your own categories based on what is productive and unproductive in your office. For example, your social media trainee using Facebook might be “productive,” but your curator might not. You can also use the Reports tab to see which applications and websites are most prevalent among one or all of your employees.

The free tier of this service allows you to track three users (called “agents”) with one administrator and limited storage. You can pay to add more agents or new features like a remote installer. Paid tiers start at $ 336 per year for 5 agents and go up to $ 1920 per year for 50 agents. Obviously, higher tiers are not what you want unless you know your business will need it.

Investigate an employee for possible misconduct: Spector

If you have a serious suspicion that an employee may be doing something illegal or contrary to company policy, SpectorSoft has a huge suite of software that you can use for both short-term and long-term investigations. Basic Spector CNE Investigator is designed for short-term investigations and comes with a variety of tools:

• Takes screenshots every 30 seconds.
• Trigger screenshots after using keywords or opening certain apps.
• Track website usage, time spent on sites, and last visit.
• Store and archive corporate email.
• Record instant messaging chat logs from almost all messaging platforms.
• Keeps track of the name, file type and time of documents downloaded or uploaded to your computer.
• Records all keystrokes on the user’s computer. If you wish, you do not have to write down passwords.

SpectorSoft also offers Spector 360, which includes advanced reports to analyze user activity, global keyword searches to find specific suspicious words or phrases across all platforms, and web filtering. The company says the Spector 360 is designed for longer term investigations and monitoring, so most employers are likely to agree with CNE Investigator.

All SpectorSoft programs are paid, and you can find out the price only by calling and asking for a price offer. Naturally, this means it is probably quite expensive and not what your average person would want. However, if you run one of those big studios that have trailers all the time , this might be the thing that interests you.

Depending on your needs, you may need other monitoring software and there is a lot more. These are our suggestions for several common types of monitoring. Keep in mind that in almost all cases, you will need physical access to the computer on which you want to install any of these programs.

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