# Employer tracking of all laptop activity on a Mac

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employer-tracking-of-all-laptop-activity-on-a-mac/589862>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 21, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employer-tracking-of-all-laptop-activity-on-a-mac/589862 "2011-07-21T16:11:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employer-tracking-of-all-laptop-activity-on-a-mac/589862/1 "2011-07-21T16:11:14Z")

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Is the kind of Keyboard recording/ tracking software available on a Mac? And, if so, how do I find out if it’s on my company-issued laptop ?

Considering having my hard drive replaced, and using it "cleanly ", i.e. no more personal emails stored or written on it, etc.

Things are getting to be more evil at work. ☹

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**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employer-tracking-of-all-laptop-activity-on-a-mac/589862/2 "2011-07-21T16:34:05Z")

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There are [tons](http://www.google.com/search?q=mac+keystroke+logger&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a). No idea how to determine whether you’ve got one.

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**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2011, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employer-tracking-of-all-laptop-activity-on-a-mac/589862/3 "2011-07-21T17:52:27Z")

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The only thing I could think of to determine whether you have something running is to start up your computer afresh, go to Terminal, type “ps-e” or “top” and see if there are any odd processes running. I’m not sure whether keyloggers can hide themselves from the process list, although I know they can hide themselves from your list of running applications. [Here’s an example of one keylogger](http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/234434-smoke-process-making-cpu-run-overtime.html) that has a process called “smoke” that shows up in your process list, for example.