Do you want to know what someone gets up to while using your PC? Do you want to keep an eye on the computer use of your employees? Do you need to find out what your kids are up to on the web?

There are lots of legitimate reasons why you might want to monitor your own PC or PC's that you are responsible for. Big companies routinely monitor computer activity; particularly activity related to Internet use. These companies spend lots of cash on specialist software and skilled technicians to carry out this monitoring but there's no reason why a small business or home user shouldn't be able to do the same thing on their own PC's for free. In this article I'm going to show you one easy way to begin monitoring PC activity.

The methods shown on this page are only to be used for legitimate monitoring purposes. You should be aware that these methods may result in the disclosure of all sorts of personal information including such things as Hotmail passwords, Yahoo passwords and credit card details. You are responsible for ensuring that you use the information on this page responsibly. This is not a guide to hacking Hotmail passwords or hacking Yahoo passwords. Nor is it a guide to stealing credit card details.

A keylogger is a program that records everything that is typed at the keyboard. As you can imagine, a tool like this will go a long way to telling you what is happening on your PC. As well as recording keys that are pressed, many keyloggers can also record programs that are opened and websites that are visited. Some can even take screenshots at regular intervals so you get a visual record of what the PC has been used for.

Keyloggers are sometimes associated with ‘hackers' and are seen as ‘black hat' tools that have no legitimate use. However there are many circumstances where you can use keyloggers perfectly legitimately. In most countries it is perfectly legal for companies to monitor their employees' computer activity. There may be an obligation to tell people they are being monitored and this is often done with a notice that pops up when people log on.

Home users can also use keyloggers legally. Some people may wish to tell their children that the family PC is monitored, others may not. This is a moral and ethical decision for each individual to make.

Best Free Keylogger (BFK) is a free keylogger program. It's free because it's ‘Open Source'. That means the ‘code' of the program is freely available for anyone to use but it also guarantees that you are not installing anything nasty like viruses or spyware. Well, it is ‘spyware' in a way, but it's you who's doing the spying! You can download BFK from SourceForge.net. SourceForge is a highly respected site for obtaining open source software - if you have any doubts just Google it.

OK, so you've decided to install a keylogger. To make it easy for you I will give you a step-by-step guide to installing BFK...

First thing you need to do is download BFK. Start by clicking this link to go to the BFK download page...

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bfk/

Next, click the link that says ‘Download Best Free Keylogger (BFK)'. You are now at the download page. Towards the bottom of this page there is a section titled ‘File Releases'. Under this section are three links to download the following three files...

bfk.exe

logger.zip

setup.exe

Make a new folder (E.g. in your ‘My Documents' folder) and call it ‘bfk'. Now download all three of the files listed above into this folder.

Advanced Users: If you are familiar with installing software just run setup.exe and install BFK. Most people will just need the default settings. You can then go straight to Step 3.

Browse to the folder where you downloaded the files and double click ‘setup.exe' (depending on your PC settings it might just say ‘setup'). You may get a security warning saying ‘the publisher could not be verified'. This is normal, just click ‘run'. A window will open saying ‘Welcome to the BFK Setup Wizard'; here you should click ‘Next'. On the next page (License Agreement) click the button next to ‘I accept the agreement' and then click ‘Next'. The next screen allows you to select the location for the installed files. For most people this can be left on the default location - just click ‘Next' again. You should now be at the ‘Select Start Menu Folder' screen - once again you can just click ‘Next'. The next screen allows you to install a desktop icon. Most people will not want to do this so just click ‘Next' again. The final page confirms the settings you have selected. Click ‘Install'. Click ‘Finish' when the installation is complete to run the BFK program.

Once BFK is installed you should see this screen:

If you just want to monitor your PC for a single session then you can simply click ‘Start Logging'. The BFK screen will disappear and that's that. On the other hand, most people will probably want to set their PC up for constant monitoring. By that I mean that the PC will still be monitored even if it is rebooted. To do this you need to click on the ‘Settings' tab and tick the box that says ‘start at runtime' as shown below (if you've lost the BFK screen see Step 4)...

You can now click ‘start logging' and your PC will be constantly monitored even if it is rebooted.

Once you have clicked ‘start logging' BFK disappears and it's not so easy to get back to the settings page. This is deliberate; after all you don't want anyone else to know how to get to your monitoring program. If you want to get your settings screen back you need to type a secret key combination. Simply hold down these keys in order: [Ctrl], [Shift], [b]. You need to press them down in order until you have all three pressed down together. Your settings screen should then pop up. Once you have changed your settings you can click ‘Hide' and BFK will disappear again.

Once BFK has been running for a while you will want to check on your results. The first step is to bring up the FSK control panel by pressing [Ctrl], [Shift], [b] as described in Step 4. To see the screen shots that BFK has taken click on the ‘screen shots' tab. You can then click ‘view report' to see all the screen shots that BFK has recorded. Pressing this will open a page in your browser that contains a series of images with a time and date for each one. You can click on any of the images to see exactly what was on the screen at the time the screen shot was taken. This is particularly useful as it can show exactly what a web page was displaying or even both sides of a Yahoo or MSN chat session.

Although the screen shots may be interesting, the real information is often contained in what was typed at the keyboard. To see what was typed, load the FSK control panel as described above then click the ‘logging' tab. From here you can click ‘view report' to see a full list of all programs that have been loaded and what was typed into each one. Each entry in the report consists of three items. The first is ‘Title' - this shows the name of the program and the name of the file that the program has opened. For example the name of the program might be ‘Microsoft Word' and the name of the file might be ‘PC Spy.doc'. The second item is the date and time of the log entry. The third item is called ‘Keylogg'. This records everything that was typed on the keyboard during the time that the program was open.

The logging report can get quite long and complicated as a lot of programs get loaded that are not really relevant. This can particularly happen when the PC reboots. You just need to pay attention to the ‘Keylogg' sections to see what was really going on.

Although BFK hides itself quite well it is not particularly hard to detect for an experienced computer user. If you have particularly savvy users on your PC, or someone who might suspect that they are being spied on, then you should think twice before employing this solution. I intend to provide some future articles that will explain how to conduct more covert monitoring. Watch this space!

As I said earlier, keyloggers have illegitimate uses as well a legitimate uses. If you happen to capture someone's Yahoo password or their Hotmail password DO NOT be tempted to use them! This would be a breach of the sites terms of service and in most countries it would be illegal. If you don't want to go to jail then don't do it! You have been warned!!

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