I’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.

Of course, there will come a time when they want their privacy, and fully deserve to receive that privacy. This is the time when you back away, and hope that you spent enough time with them to teach them right from wrong, and that they will take that knowledge with them as they go. Inevitably, though, you can’t stop them if they’re determined to find something. If you won’t let them, they’ll just go to their friends, whose parents are always out, and go look at it there instead.

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.

On to Part 2 ….