I know i know, sounds dodgey already...

My Boss is sick of people using social networking sites etc... while at work and has asked me to find some monitoring software. We decided on keyloggers the send the log to our webserver. I have heard of software that will monitor the screen in real time, but i honestly don't think he will sit there all day watching the screen...

Here comes the best bit - He is tight and doesn't want to pay for it if he doesn't have to... i've seen on other forums how to make one in C++ but i know nothing about C++... i have downloaded a few free ones, but they don't really work that well...

So i have resorted to the forum... What do i do? Learn C++ and make one or try really really hard to convince him to buy one and if so which one?


Thanks in advance...

P.S. I know it sounds dodgey but it is in a document or something that the staff signed that they aren't to be using such sites... it's for a legitimate use...

If in the document that they signed there is nothing that says they agree to be monitored, then your boss can be sued. Even though the computers may be company property, there is an expectation of privacy. However, if the employees expect that they will be monitored, then there are any number of steps that can be taken; specific sites can be blocked by IP at the router level or at the machine level, software to monitor, or software to block.

If he wants to pay you to write a logger, then great. I expect in 5 or 6 months you may have something usable. It would be cheaper to buy a ready-made solution. Keyloggers work at the kernel level, and are not trivial to write. Alternatively, it wouldn't be too hard to write a program that parses logs looking for the IP addresses of banned sites.

There are tons of ready made solutions; instead of looking for keyloggers, look for free computer monitoring software.

I have had a look for free computer monitoring software, but the stuff i found was crap... Not even worth the download.

I will have a look into the contract again, just to be safe.

Keylogger is bad idea as you would have to install it on all the computers and can be easily bypassed.
Better way is rearrange your network so all computer access internet through a main server and block sites on that server using firewall.