Monday, January 25, 2010

PC Surveilance Software: How to spy on your computer using free software

There may be certain cases where one may want to limit the type of activity that takes place on their PC for a variety of reasons. Many solutions, both free and for a cost, exist for these kinds of problem. One approach may be to limit the websites that can be accessed on the network by using an alternative Domain Name Server like opendns.org. Also, limiting administrative privileges to only users that can be trusted with them is a good way to prevent your PC from being infected by malicious software. But such solutions are not perfect and do not always guarantee that your PC will be safe from any undesired behavior.

Async Monitor is a free utility that can be used to monitor activity on your PC asynchronously from any web browser. It's a low-overhead utility meaning it does not use very much of the system's resources when it is running. It also runs in the background, so it won't be seen by users of the PC when it's running.

How it works

Async Monitor can be downloaded for free here:

http://asm.pixelhat.com/

Sign up for a free account using your e-mail address. An account is required in order to use the software since your account will be used to upload screen captures to the web. After downloading and installing AsycMonitor, you will need to set it up by providing the e-mail address and password that was used to create your free on-line account. From this point, AsyncMonitor will run in the background, and it will automatically upload screen grabs to the web whenever anything on the screen changes. You can then log-in to your account at asm.pixelhat.com from any web browser on any other PC or web-enabled device and view images of what programs are being run on your PC.

In summary, Async Monitor offers a free solution to monitor activity on your PC in almost real-time. It could be a handy utility for security minded people.

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