Some computer learning is going on that's not quite what this thread had in mind.
There is an interesting article in today's NYT. The headline in the paper is "Spy Software Puts Home PC's Under Surveillance."
Excerpts pasted from the online NYT:
Spector, a $49.95 Windows
program from SpectorSoft,
is snoopware. It's the
computer equivalent of a
VCR that secretly records
everything that shows up on
a computer screen -- every piece of e-mail,
every Web page, every instant message, every
program and file opened, every keystroke and
every password or credit card number...
...So snoopware makes possible the computer
equivalent of reading other people's private
diaries, opening their mail, going through their
garbage, scanning their bank statements and
portfolios, cracking their safes, tapping their
phones and peeping through their windows, all
at once...
...SpectorSoft, the company that created
Spector, said the software had originally been
designed to allow parents to spy on their
children to make sure that they were not
visiting inappropriate Web sites, engaging in
dangerous conversations in chat rooms or
otherwise doing things they ought not be
doing...
... in the short time the software has been on
the market, parents have not turned out to be
the main customers. Instead, according to the
company, the program has found an
enthusiastic audience among tens of thousands
of suspicious spouses, distrustful bosses and
private investigators...
In the program's "stealth" mode, only the
person who installed the program knows that it
is running in the background. Later, when the
target of the surveillance is not around, the
Spector recordings can be played back by
entering a secret combination of keys and then
a password. The program does not show up in
any directory and does not impede the normal
operation of the computer. Spectorsoft says
the program is undetectable...
BTW, the company has a new product that permits this sort of snooping on someone else's computer. Remote snooping.
Scary.
nytimes.com
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