Spying on your users -
I have heard many requests for a security feature that would allow the IT manager to "see" where their employees are going while online. Some are clever about erasing their history, but I have heard some real good stories about users finding those "special" sites on one of the workstations in their agency.

What is the legality of monitoring a users activity? So far, only phone conversations cannot be recorded unless both parties are aware. We all know that email sent from the office is not private and can be viewed at any time by the owners- the same goes for employees' desks.

If your agency uses a proxy server, then you can monitor all traffic that goes through the server. But if you are using a dialup connection, how can you eavesdrop? There is now a capture sleuth program called Spector.

Spector installs easily and captures keystrokes as well as user defined interval screen shots. It can be run in a "visible" mode in which the user knows that it is present, or in the ultra-hidden mode. Because it stores the log files (which are completely invisible to the user) on the local computer, it requires being able to read the files while no one is around to see.

You can checkout the Spector program ($100) at  www.spectorsoft.com