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ForumsI’ve seen a lot of talk recently about using key loggers. For those not familiar with the term, these are programs or pieces of hardware which record all of the keystrokes entered by a user at a computer, storing them for later retrieval.
Clearly these devices have uses such as obtaining passwords, bank login details, credit card numbers, and so forth, but also they can be used to monitor activities on a computer. This is the kind of use I wish to discuss today.
Some people think that sticking a key logger onto a computer is warranted because they need to know what their kids are doing online, or what their staff are spending their time doing. Excuses such as these just don’t cut it. There is no legitimate reason for running such software.
I am not a parent, but I have seen enough discussions to know that parents are not, in general, happy about leaving their kids unattended on the Internet. Well, there’s a simple solution there, don’t leave them unattended. As they’re introduced to the online world, stay by them, help them explore and learn. Take an active role in your child’s development. Far too many people rely on computers and the Internet as the next step for the TV babysitter. Instead of actually being with their kids, they dump them in front of the TV, or the computer, and let them entertain themselves.
If you’re worried that your child is visiting sites you do not wish them to (and by this I don’t just mean pornographic sites, there are worse things out there!) then sit with them while they use the Internet, and gently steer them in the right direction.
Key loggers are not the answer here, nor are content filters. Spying on your kids, or locking them down, is not a good way to build a healthy trusting relationship, nor is it a good way to prepare them for the real world. Sure, sometimes they’ll stray from the track, but this is where you have to just put it to trust that your parenting skills were good enough, and that they’ll come back to the right side of the line. More often than not, restricting or spying on them just pushes them further; they try to find out how to disable the content filter because it won’t let them view a page on reproductive cycles that they need for their Biology assignment, and suddenly they stumble into the underground world of malicious hackers.
Furthermore, at a certain point in their lives, kids are entitled to privacy, just as you would expect for yourself. Certainly, conversations with their friends, by e-mail or instant messengers, may be confidential – and that may mean their friends are talking about their own personal issues, not that your child has some problem, but that they’re trying to help a friend. In such cases, key loggers just abuse trust and force kids into going to great length to hide their lives from their parents.
If you trust your children, they will grow to be well-adjusted individuals, who are capable of trusting others, but have a reasonable scepticism required to get them through life.
Similarly, in business, watched workers may go to extreme lengths to hide or encrypt the weeks joke e-mail because they think the powers that be are watching. Granted, sending a joke around by e-mail isn’t exactly a constructive use of their time, or the company systems, but they’re entitled to breaks, and a lot more time and resources would be wasted if all the employees started to encrypt the joke e-mails so that management couldn’t prove they existed.
In the end a balance has to be found. Where that balance lies depends on the individuals, and on the circumstances, but software or hardware key loggers should never enter into this balance.
Great article! This is such a difficult topic to look at both sides of the issue. As an employee you feel like your privacy is encroached. As a parent, you are protecting your children. I’m sure a huge law suit will come about in the near future that will lay out the future of keyloggers for all of us.
On most issues I agree with you Bryce. On this one however I strongly disagree on many points. You start by saying you are not a parent. I say this in the most respectful way I can, but if you don’t have kids you have no business advising others on how the should raise theirs.
“If you’re worried that your child is visiting sites you do not wish them to (and by this I don’t just mean pornographic sites, there are worse things out there!) then sit with them while they use the Internet, and gently steer them in the right direction.”
This sounds great but try it while holding down a full time job and having three kids. There is no way you can sit right with your kids all the time while they are online.
Next you said: “Of course, there will come a time when they want their privacy, and fully deserve to receive that privacy.”
They always want their privacy. They absolutely do not have a right to it nor do they deserve it. As a parent my responsibility is to keep them safe and out of trouble, even if that means spying on them on the net, reading there text messages, reading notes from friends, whatever it takes. My responsibility to keep them safe overrides their privacy period.
Let me tell you two true and very personal stories about how having a key logger on my kids computer saved the day a few times.
When my step daughter was 14 she was spending a lot of time on the computer doing “homework”. Her mom trusted her because they had already had the safe internet talk. I told my wife that I thought she was up to no good . We say her down and asked her if she was doing anything she was not supposed to be doing on the computer and she said no. I asked my wife if I could install a key logger on the system for just one week, and she agreed just to prove me wrong. Turns out when we viewed the logs she was having cybersex with some 28 year old guy, and planning to meet a 23 year old.
My daughter is a good girl, she makes good grades in school and her mom and I have tried to raise her up right. But that is the scary thing. She is a normal girl. Thats the problem, kids cannot make those kinda of choices for themselves at that age. Its the job of the parent to make sure they don’t have to until they are older and can make better choices.
My step son is no longer allowed on the computer at all because of downloading porn. He has to use the school computer.
As far as other means of spying on the kids, I check their call records regularly. This has also saved the day a few times. When my daughter now 17 dates she does so only with her 14 year old brother and 11 year old sister go with her.
In a perfect world without porn, pedophiles, or drugs maybe you could blindly trust kids to make the right choices. Its not and far from it.
I’ll go one step further and say if your not keeping up with what your kids do and who they are seeing and talking with both in person and online then you are not fit to be a parent. Maybe if more parents would know what their kids are doing we would have less school shootings, less drug abuse , and less kis having kids.
I stand behind gunslinger’s reply 100%. Can you show me a 15 year old kid capable of making the right decisions? Even us adults have a hard time with that.
I wrote a keylogger for a project in my Social Implications of Computing class, and came across your site when I searched “keylogger ethics”. There are legitimate, ethical, legal uses for keyloggers, but they can easily be used for malicious purposes.
As far as parenting goes, I will go any lengths to make sure my daughter stays safe.
My house, my computer, my daughter, my rules.