Is there any kind of software that can tell a third party exactly what kind of files are opened on a

[rockymountaindem]

public computer? Like, is there a kind of software that will allow administrators to look on a computer and tell if someone opened, say, firefox at a particular date and time? Or if someone opened a couple of word documents?

I'm kind of curious about the way someplace at school polices the use of one of its computer labs. Does anybody know about anything like that?

[triguy46]

1. In a word, yes. the forensic capabilities are quite high if there is a reason to look.

I had an employee who was basically running a business from work. She denied it, but we had 18 months of data showing when and for how long she logged in to her business website. 36,000 times, or basically every 15 minutes or so for that period of time. She resigned the next day before I had the chance to show her that little report.

[merh]

2. They can tell you what sites have been visited and how many and

what keystrokes have been typed.

There is nothing private about a computer or the internet.

Here is just one such software program available on the market.
http://www.spectorsoft.com/keylogger.asp?refer=12051

Capture every single Keystroke they type,
(including user names and passwords)


Keylogger captures date and time
Get the exact time and date when everything is typed

Record all ChatsCapture & review all Chats and Instant Messages (
both sides)

Record all EmailRead every Email Sent & Received
(including web-based emails)

Records all Web Sites Visited

Review every Web Site they visit
and see what they do while on the web site)

Records MySpace Activity
See everything they do on MySpace
(including all the profiles they visit)

See Every Picture
See every picture they post

See Every File Downloaded
See every file they download

Records Search Activity
Quickly find what they are searching for on Google,Yahoo, AOL ...

Instant Alerts
You can even tell if your teenagers are visiting dating sites or being approached by strangers


Instant Notification
Even be notified when they use inappropriate language or visit sites you deem harmful


Web Site and Chat Blocking
Block them from visiting any web site or chatting with anyone you want

And, best of all, with the world’s best Screen Snapshot Surveillance recorder, you can see EVERYTHING they do, in the EXACT order they do it, Step-by-Step.

[rockymountaindem]

4. What about if someone just opened a word document from their own flash drive?

[merh]

5. If you opened the document, you would have to have accessed

the software on the computer that allowed you to open it unless you have the software loaded on your flash drive.

They might not be able to access your document, but they would know you had opened and worked on it. I'm not sure they could recover it (unless the software on the computer is set to automatically back up to the computer).
I think there is software that could tell them what you typed while on the computer.

[quakerboy]

7. Which is where this becomes more appealing

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/thumb-drives-storage/99f1/

At least to the properly paranoid.


On edit, just because things are possible does not make them likely. Most companies and organizations that I have encountered aren't quite motivated enough to check you via a keystroker. Keep in mind the time it would take to go through however many records for however many employees, the need to either hide it from employees or keep them from finding a way to bypass it, etc. Its easier to monitor network traffic. That way you can can relatively easily, without software on each individual computer, see every website that anyone went to.

[merh]

9. That is neat.

Can you answer the OP's question. Can they see the document that is accessed from the thumbdrive after the user has closed it and left?

[quakerboy]

11. It probably depends on what they are using to monitor, time, etc

I wouldn't know how to do it, but I am certain i know people who could figure out how to create monitoring software that would copy anything and everything, including any files accessed (or even just present) on a thumb drive that you plugged into the computer. That said, that seems like it would get pretty intense and slow the computer to a point of oblivion, as well as resulting in a whole lot of data someone would then have to look through or ignore.

I dont know exactly how ram works either, to be honest. If you open a file, i presume it holds a decent portion of it in the RAM while its open. Does it stay there until it is overwritten, or does it get zapped right away? Are you using some HD to provide extra RAM space, as I have noticed computers doing on occasion? If so, I would think anything there would stay there until actively overwritten. Then there are the "ghost files" that appear when you(or at least when I) open a word document. Where are those, and how are they regulated?

So, I can see how it could be possible to spy on that data, but I would assume that unless someone went to pretty good lengths to spy on you, or just happened to check it relatively soon after you had opened it, that your documents privacy would likely remain intact.

[Sebastian Doyle]

12. Of course this assumes you can actually run a thumb drive on the computer.

Some companies have "user rights" so restricted that they disable the USB ports or any installation of drivers of any sort. Which of course also rules out any software that "cleans up your tracks", or any sort of spyware detector that might find the keylogger or whatever they're using against you.

Of course you can always set yourself up with administrator access on your own PC, if you know what you're doing. :evilgrin:

[quakerboy]

14. This is true

Also, I suspect that a key stroke logger would still prove effective against that thing. you still have to hit the keys to enter the password or tell the embedded firefox where to go and what to do.

I have no use for that device myself, but I do find it interesting. I also note its false security. Its mainly useful on a physical level. If you can hack, I imagine it would probably would prove relatively simple to hack whatever server its routing through. I don't imagine a onetime payment of 60 bucks gets you all that much security.

[femmocrat]

3. There must be.

We have been advised by our union more than once to restrict our computer use to school business ONLY.

I am sure our toady little tech guy spies on our usage during school hours.

Question: If I use my school laptop at home (not on their server), can they track which sites I've visited? I have my history set at 0.

[quakerboy]

6. Depends on how they are tracking.

At my college, they just tracked via control of the network. In that case, you are fine at home, because you are going through a different service provider. That provider may also track what you view, but assuming its a commercial venture providing you home internet service, they probably don't care much what you do on the net. Though everything you send still probably ends up being run through the special room over at AT&T so the govt can spy on it if they ever care too.

If its software spy on your computer, that's totally different, and yes they could, no matter where you go.

Like the difference between checking the addresses that a Jailbirds mail goes to, vs installing a spycam in his pen that records what he is writing.

[femmocrat]

8. Thank you. Is there any way to find out if they have a software spy?

I'm not using it for porn or anything, just wondering!

[quakerboy]

10. I am sure there are

I don't know anywhere near enough about this topic to provide expert advice. I can say that the answer all depends on what version of OS, what other programs are installed, how the computers are set up, and any number of other things I may not have thought of.

Someone with more knowledge, feel free to correct me. I forgot domain login for windows, where even if you go from home they might just be able to see where you go, because you are still logging into their system. In those situations, I don't know a lot other than it makes for problems when you mess things up because you don't know enough about it.

On a regular pc setup, you can just pop open the task manager, and look at what processes are running. To do that, though, you need to know what should be running, to be able to determine if there is anything "extra". And in modern windows, there are lots of oddly named processes. And even after that, A crafty software developer could conceivably find a way to mask monitoring software under the name and description of something that should be there.

Though I doubt it is anywhere near foolproof,a quick web search revealed:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4778072_rid-keylogger.html

[Sebastian Doyle]

15. Task manager is a good way to know what's running on your computer

....unfortuantely it also is subject to whatever policies are set up. Access to the task manager can be disabled to end users, and the reason for doing so would probably be exactly that - preventing you from seeing what exactly is running. Same with the access to Windows services and any other tools of that nature. From an IT perspective, there are also valid reasons for these restrictions that have nothing to do with micromanaging and spying, and that is the sad fact that some end users would simply fuck up their computer beyond all point of redemption, if they had access to everything.

Even I screw up my machine once in a while, and I've been doing this since the early 80's!

[quakerboy]

16. Yup.

If I could get away with it, there are any number of functions I would disable on our office computers. And I don't care what anyone looks at or does. I just dislike it when people(read "the boss") f with my systems and make unwanted work for me fixing things.

[Yavin4]

13. Anything That You Do On A Computer Can Be Tracked

There is an industry set up to do forensic analysis on computers. In addition, network admins can track whatever you do on your computer.

Now, does that mean that they're always doing that? Well, it would take a lot of dedicated/wasted manpower to track everyone all of the time. However, there is software that can do that as well.