Okay, that’s weird, no text, let’s try again…
This maybe isn’t the typical kind of question that gets asked here but this message board still has the highest concentration of smart people that I know of, so here goes. (BTW, I already tried a board Search for this using the words “key log,” in case this has already been answered, but the rather asinine search refuses to accept words shorter than 4 letters, and the words “logging” and “logger” have no hits, sooo…)
My father is in a union. He does have a laptop which he mainly uses for union business, but he’s worried about the possibility that there might be key logging software installed on his computers at work, which could compromise their lawsuit by allowing the people they are sueing access to private correspondence. He wants to know how he can determine whether such software is in place.
I’m at a loss. I know that these programs frequently can hide themselves from the Ctrl-Alt-Del task manager and from the Alt-Tab process list. I have considered telling him how to use the built-in windows utility msconfig to look at the programs the computer is loading up at startup, but…
A) He’s not computer literate generally, other than stuff that makes the news. I’m not sure he’d fully comprehend the list of what he was seeing and understand what could be safely disabled.
B) I’m not sure if this utility would be considered illicit hacking or the like, and so whether it would be a good idea to use it at all.
On the other hand, it’s preferable to going directly into the Registry.
Likewise, I am trying to avoid programs that would have to be downloaded and installed, especially those that have to be purchased. I just need to know if there is some simple way to detect the presence of these programs; or if not, if msconfig is okay to use to check for this stuff. (If it matters, it’s a government agency - a state Department of Corrections.)
If anyone can give any advice here, it’d definitely be appreciated.