Re: log all activity of a special user?

From: Mark J. Nenadov (mark_at_freelance-developer.com)
Date: 05/04/04

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    Date: Tue, 04 May 2004 09:50:28 -0400

    On Mon, 03 May 2004 22:48:43 +0000, Bill Unruh wrote:

    > "Florian Wolters" <flo.wolters@gmx.net> writes:
    >
    > ]hi!
    >
    > ]is there any possibility to log all activity on the console of a special
    > ]user?
    > ]i just want to see averything th euser does on the console...
    > ]tnx for any hints
    >
    > Why? This sounds like phone tapping which is illegal except with a
    > warrent.

    Whether or not this is equivalent to phone tapping is highly disputable. I
    agree that there would have to be some MAJOR ethical considerations, but
    let us consider a few things...

    1. Phone tapping is usually defined as an outsider intruding on the
    private phone line of a person on a NEUTRAL phone network (ie. not
    controlled/owned by the person doing the tapping). This is significantly
    different than an administrator watching users on HIS/HER own system.

    2. The administrator already has access to thorough logs of commands that
    the user runs anyways. This situation is not different in principle than
    look at logs, just different in degree (with a screen capture program they
    can see more). Would you consider looking at logs to be equivalent to
    phone tapping?

    3. It has already been shown repeatedly that the standards/laws used in
    relation to phone tapping are almost never applied to the Computer world
    (for proof look at the way e-mail monitoring is handled). 

    --
Mark J. Nenadov
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