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June
1, 2004
Gannett News Service
Software helps parents track kids' Web activity
By Deborah Porterfield
eBlaster
- rated 4.5
out of 5
stars
"The
big question used to be: Do you know where your
children are? In todays tech-centered world,
the more pressing question is 'Do you know what
your children are doing online?'
Unfortunately,
even the most diligent parents cant always
be there to see everything their children do online.
But the all-knowing eBlaster can. Once you install
SpectorSofts program on your childs
computer, it can record and e-mail you exact copies
of all their e-mail, instant messages and chat
conversations.
The
easy-to-use program provides comprehensive, personalized
reports. Because not all parents have the same
concerns, eBlaster lets you choose what you want
to see and when. For example, you can choose to
receive hourly or daily e-mail reports of incoming
and outgoing e-mail messages and both sides of
chat conversations and instant messages. You also
can have the software forward attachments.
If
you need immediate feedback, you can set the program
to instantly forward copies of all incoming and
outgoing e-mails, chat conversations and instant
messaging sessions. You also can have the program
send an instant alert should a certain word or
phrase youve deemed unacceptable be typed
on the keyboard or appear in a message or chat
conversation."
Read
the Full Review Online
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May
10, 2004
USA Today
TECH REVIEW - Software keeps tabs on computer
use
By Deborah Porterfield
"Find
out what the children are doing online with SpectorSoft's
eBlaster software. Once you install the easy-to-use
program on a computer, it'll record incoming and
outgoing email messages, chat conversations and
instant messages. You can have these reports emailed
to you every hour, once a day or..."
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July
9, 2003
Canada Computes
Lab Test: Stealth, smoke, and steel
By Dave Chappelle
"There
are no signs anywhere that eBlaster is installed
on a computer. It doesn't appear in the program
files or uninstall software. Few users are aware
of the existence of the Windows Registry; but
we looked thoroughly and found nothing. It has
to be in there somewhere, but eBlaster hides very
well. Reports are sent to you with a bogus reply
address, preventing a report from returning to
the subject computer and possibly alerting the
user.
Shouldn't
your anti-virus program block an eBlaster installation?
SpectorSoft says McAfee and Norton anti-virus
programs won't stop even a remote installation
of eBlaster, because the file is not a virus.
Grisoft AVG was installed on our test system,
yet eBlaster breezed right past it. Two separate
spyware detection applications couldn't detect
eBlaster."
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May
9, 2003
InfoWorld
SpectorSoft Simplifies Snooping
Every word they type, every link they click, SpectorSoft
Professional and eBlaster 3.0 will be watching.
By Curtis Franklin Jr.
"Being
nosy can be good for business. Although workplace
privacy has become a hot-button issue for many unions
and employee-rights groups, there are many legitimate
reasons for an organization to want to know whats
happening on its computers. From industrial espionage,
to sabotage, and workplace harassment suits, its
not hard to understand the strong financial incentives
that may exist for keeping tabs on employees' workstations.
SpectorSoft
offers a pair of products that allow an IT department
to observe virtually all activity on individual
workstations. Spector Professional Edition and e-Blaster
3.0 are separate solutions to a common problem.
Each offers an inexpensive way to monitor the actions
and data running through a computers keyboard
and screen."
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May 2003
Kick Start News
Review: eBlaster 3.0
By Jeff Matthews
Pros:
eBlaster is a powerful, comparatively inexpensive
package which allows you to not only record keystrokes
but also monitor many things such as all web sites
visited and all incoming and outgoing e-mail. eBlaster
will always keep you notified at predetermined intervals
about what is going on.
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April 25, 2003
The Washington Times
Suspicious mates on e-mail trail
By Lara Naaman
"If
all is fair in love and war, cyberspace is becoming
a new battleground. People aren't using the Internet
just to find love anymore; they're using it to catch
wayward lovers.
With
a little bit of creativity and, on occasion, some
moderately priced software, suspicious partners
can become their own private investigators or, more
simply put, e-mail spies."
The
Washington Times examines how Spector Pro and eBlaster
are helping spouses take control of their relationships
by learning the truth... "They find e-mails;
they find an adulterous relationship. People are
getting really good at searching where people have
been on the Internet."
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March 11, 2003
AM Canada
Cyber Spying On Your Teen
"Ever
wonder what your teenager is doing online? New software
allows you to monitor their email and Internet activities
without their knowledge. Meet a mother and the teenage
daughter she electronically spied on."
A
SpectorSoft customer discusses how she uses Spector
Pro to monitor her teenage daughters online activity.
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February
12, 2003
The
Wall Street Journal
For Some Married People, Internet Dating Has Draw
By JENNIFER SARANOW
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January 14, 2003
NBC Today Show
Keeping Your Child Safe Online
Spectorsoft
products eBlaster and Spector Pro are discussed
on the Today Show as Internet Monitoring products
that help parents protect their children online.
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January 6, 2003
MSNBC
Workers' Web Habits Are No Secret
By MICHELLE SWAFFORD
"Your
employer probably knows if you make a bid on eBay,
check your bank account, book airline tickets, e-mail
a friend or send instant messages to co-workers.
They probably know how often and for how long you
surf the Internet and what keys you type in Microsoft
Word and other software programs.
That's
right, employers are increasingly monitoring employees
with a handful of "spyware" programs.
Vero
Beach, Fla.-based SpectorSoft Corp. has two software
programs - eBlaster and Spector Pro - available
for companies to monitor employees or parents to
monitor their children's computer activities.
Spector
Pro records everything for viewing later while eBlaster
tracks everything and then e-mails a report of the
computer's activity to a designated person. Both
programs can monitor e-mails, Internet use, instant
messaging and word processing programs.
"It
really gives you a very complete picture of what's
going on because it's like you were sitting there,"
said Kasey Sellati, SpectorSoft's spokeswoman.
Sellati
said SpectorSoft's customers use the software to
make sure employees aren't wasting time, saying
inappropriate things or giving out confidential
information.
"Our
goal overall is not to really block, but to arm
people with the information about what's going on
in the computer and to let people be able to monitor
themselves," she said.
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January 9, 2003
The Wall Street Journal
New Tools Let Parents Become Keystroke-by-Keystroke
Spys
by Michelle Higgins
"Public-relations
executive Robbie Vorhaus arrives at his New York
office, fires up the computer and opens one of his
most important e-mails of the day: Not a client
crisis or big new account -- it is a report on what
his eight-year-old son Connor has been doing online.
The
report, which lands in Mr. Vorhaus's e-mail once
a week, tells him everything he wants to know about
his son's activities on the Web, including who he's
been chatting with and what sites he visited. "It's
kind of creepy," says Connor.
In
the age-old battle between independence-seeking
kids and Type A parents, the older generation is
packing some new weapons. A slew of powerful new
software tools are available, including some that
make it possible for you to track online chats and
instant messages practically in real time, even
if you are in a different city or using a BlackBerry.
The
result is a wave of clever products that enable
parents to monitor more of what their kids are doing
online. The latest version of SpectorSoft Corporations'
eBlaster software, for instance, can capture a child's
incoming and outgoing e-mails and can immediately
forward some or all of the text to a parent."
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September 2002
On Computers (Syndicated
Technology Newspaper Column)
Spy, CounterSpy
By Bob Schwabach
"The
latest snooping software from SpectorSoft is "eBlaster,"
a hidden program that not only watches every keystroke
on someone else's computer but automatically records
and forwards their email to the watcher.
SpectorSoft
is one of a handful of companies that make what
might be called surveillance software. The target
market is business and the stated objective is for
a manager to see what the employees actually do
when they are at the company computers. Are they
working or are they playing dungeons and dragons.
(Lest you think this is too paranoid, it's worth
noting that a study of Internet use by the U.S.
Treasury Department found that over half of all
Internet use by employees of the Internal Revenue
Service was for personal, not job-related, reasons.)
Once
installed, "eBlaster" records all keystrokes,
emails (received and sent), chat room conversations,
instant messaging and web sites visited. Within
seconds it sends this information to an email address
of your choosing. If you don't want to spend your
time pouring over all this stuff -- and who does?
-- an activity summary is sent once an hour or once
a day."
Read
the Full Story Online
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August
29, 2002
MSNBC.com
Whos spying on my Hotmail?
With new spyware, even your private Yahoo, Hotmail
e-mails can be seen
by Bob Sullivan
Think
using Yahoo or Hotmail e-mail at work protects you
from your boss prying eyes? Think again. New
spy software essentially lets employers or parents
co-pilot virtually any kind of e-mail account, including
private Web-based e-mail accounts like Yahoo and
Hotmail. A new version of eBlaster spyware will
secretly forward all e-mail coming and going through
such Web-based accounts to a spys e-mail,
allowing anyone to ride-along even the
supposedly private e-mail.
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July
2002
PC Magazine - Editors'
Choice
Watching You, Watching Me - July Cover Story
by Karen J. Bannan
It
started at General Dynamics Corp. with a customer
complaint. About a year ago, Chauncey Morris, a
regional supervisor with the government contractor,
got a call from a client. Apparently, one of General
Dynamics' field technicians wasn't spending his
days fixing problems. "The customer complained
that the tech wasn't working," says Morris.
"Instead, he was sitting in a cubicle, messing
around with chat programs."
Morris
had already noticed the employee's cellular-phone
and pager bills skyrocketing a few months earlier.
Given that training a new technician would cost
$10,000 to $15,000, however, Morris decided to see
for himself what the putative loafer was up to before
making any rash decisions. Morris asked the technician
to send his laptop to the main office, claiming
that it needed a software update. Once Morris had
the computer, he installed SpectorSoft's eBlasteran
application that records every keystroke, Web site,
and chat session, then e-mails detailed reports
back to a remote e-mail address.
Within
a day, Morris received his first set of e-mailed
logs. "He was having an affair. He was spending
hours in chat rooms and sending e-mails," says
Morris, who reminded the employee of the company's
acceptable-use policy.
If
you think this scenario is unique, think again.
More than 14 million Americans are under continual
electronic surveillance by their employers, who
not only watch e-mail, chats, and Web traffic but
also look into employee files, according to a July
2001 report issued by the Privacy Foundation, a
Denver-based advocacy group.
Read
the Full Review at PCMag.com
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January, 2002
SmartComputing
Whose Shoulder Are You Looking Over?
by Michael Sweet
SpectorSoft
has two products for spying on your loved ones:
Spector and eBlaster. You can use these products
to monitor employees in a small business. These
programs record all activity, such as keystrokes,
Web sites visited, e-mails, instant messages, and
chat room conversations, on the computer in which
theyre installed. Spector takes screen shots
of the image on the computer screen and stores them
so you can view them later. You can adjust the interval
between screen shots, which can be as frequent as
once every second. Once you type the password, Spector
is disabled so you can access the stored data.
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December 17, 2001
TechTV.com
Review: SpectorSoft eBlaster
By Ray Weigel
If
keeping an eye on things from a remote location
is of paramount importance, SpectorSoft's eBlaster
should be at the top of your list. This software
goes into deep hiding on the computer on which it's
installed. It secretly monitors such information
as which programs have been running, how long they've
been actively in use, and which keystrokes were
typed. The biggest plus to this electronic snooping
is that once a full report has been compiled, it's
sent via email from the suspect computer without
the user's knowledge.
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November 26, 2001
Washingon
Post
eBlaster, The V-Chip's Tougher Big Brother
By Laura Sessions Stepp
Now
we can add one more weapon to our arsenal, a next
generation of the software known as spyware. eBlaster,
as it's called, enables parents to check the Web
sites young Caitlin and Caleb visit, whom they talk
to online and what they say -- from any remote location.
Worried at work -- or on a business trip out of
town -- when your kid's at home after school? No
problem. Once eBlaster is installed on a home computer,
it records all Web sites visited, all applications
launched, all keystrokes typed and sends an activity
report to a specified e-mail address as frequently
as every 30 minutes.
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July
2, 2001
Time
Internet Insecurity
By Adam Cohen
What
can you expect if someone puts SpectorSoft's Spector
2.2 on your computer? It will secretly take hundreds
of snapshots an hour of every website, chat group
and e-mail that appears on your screen, and store
them so that the special someone who is spying on
you can review them later. A new product, SpectorSoft's
eBlaster, will send the spy detailed e-mail reports
updating your computer activities as often as every
30 minutes. These products work in stealth mode,
so the people being spied on are totally unaware.
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March 19, 2001
Fortune
Top 10 Tech Trends to Bet On
By Eric Nee & Peter H. Lewis
The
End of Privacy:
A man in Memphis secretly installed a spyware program
called Spector on his 13- year-old stepdaughter's
personal computer last fall and discovered, by reading
her private e-mail, that she was having sex with
her 37-year-old schoolteacher.
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March 17, 2001
NBC Nightly News
On
March 17, NBC aired an article which showed various
ways that parents keep track of where their children
are and what they are up to.
The
segment discussed how parents are using monitoring
tools to find out exactly what their children are
doing on the Internet. A parent who uses Spector
talked about how he uses the software.
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March 17-18, 2001
CNNdotCOM
"Is your computer being monitored?"
By Kristyn Martin
It's
called snoopware and it allows snooping into someone's
computer to monitor their every movement -- including
read their e-mail and watching their chat rooms
sessions.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/tools.snoopware/index.html
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March 13, 2001
SmartMoney
Working: Spies Like Us
By Anne Kadet and Noah Rothbaum
Suspect
that someone's been burrowing through your hard
drive at night? Install Spector 2.1 ($69.95; www.spectorsoft.com)
to find out for sure.
http://www.smartmoney.com/consumer/index.cfm?story=spies
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March 8, 2001
Family PC
Tools That Tame the Net
By Samuel Greengard and Edward Mendelson
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February 19, 2001
Maclean's
"Do You Know Who's Watching You?"
By Chris Wood with Brenda Branswell
It
could be your boss, your government, your spouse,
or a sexual creep. As technology explodes, the law
can't keep up.
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February 9, 2001 (Originally
aired December 15, 2000)
TechTV
- CyberCrimes Show
"Using Computers to Catch a Cheat "
If
you suspected your spouse or significant other was
cheating on you, what lengths would you go to learn
the truth?
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November 20, 2000
Business Week
"A Nightmare for E-Adulterers"
Featured
in the e.biz section of Business Week.
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November 6, 2000
Wall Street Journal
The
Wall Street Journal had a page one feature on various
ways parents monitor their children's whereabouts
and activities.
Spector
software was discussed as a way for parents to monitor
their children's Internet activities.
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October 4, 2000
Ricki Lake
"CYBERSEX ADDICTS.COM."
Featured on the
syndicated television talk show Ricki Lake (airing
on Wednesday, October 4).
On
today's "Ricki," family members confront
loved ones they say are addicted to cybersex. A
mother of four is accused of being online for more
than 20 hours a day! Her son says her kids are being
neglected because of her obsession with the web.
Another guest is surprised to learn that his web
room "chat" partner is only 17 years old!
The girl's mother is less than pleased with her
daughter's web friend, and both the mother and the
daughter demand that he leave her alone! Ricki gets
web friendly and tries to determine who is using
the web for innocent fun, and who is an addict.
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September 29, 2000
NewsWeek Online
"Suspicions Confirmed"
By Diane Anderson
Products:
Corporate snooping software finds an unintended
market spouses in search of cheaters...
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September 18, 2000
The Industry Standard
"Suspicious Minds"
By Diane Anderson
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September 13, 2000
Los Angeles Times
"Big Brother Is Tapping Your Cheating eHeart"
By Libby Copeland
Featured
on Page 2 of the Style section.
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September 12, 2000
The Dr. Laura Show
"When is an Affair an Affair?"
Spector
and Spectorsoft president Doug Fowler featured on
the syndicated television talk show "Dr. Laura".
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August 21, 2000
ABC World News Tonight
with Peter Jennings
ABC Television Network
A
Spector user is filmed talking about how she discovered
that her husband was cheating on her.
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August 9, 2000
Good Morning America
ABC Television Network
SpectorSoft
user Greg Young talks about how he discovered his
wife engaging in online affairs.
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August 8, 2000
Washington Post
"Cyber-Snooping Into A Cheating Heart"
By Libby Copeland
Featured
on Page 1 of the Style section. Read the article
online at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5Aug7.html
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July 5, 2000
Boston Globe
"THE SPIES AMONG US ARE A KEYBOARD AWAY"
By Alex Pham
Feature
Article on Cyber Cheating.
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July 3, 2000
San Francisco Examiner
"Spector software lets parents, employers,
spouses monitoreverything happening on a host computer."
By Alan T. Saracevic
Read
the article online at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/archive/2000/07/03/
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June 22, 2000
New York Times
"Spy Software Puts Home PC's Under Surveillance"
By Peter Lewis
The
New York Times features Spector in its weekly Technology
column called "Circuits".
In
this article, a woman who used Spector to prove
that her husband was cheating attributed Spector
to "saving her life".
"I
have no sympathy for people who would try to claim
that two wrongs don't make a right," said the
woman in Nashville who spied on her husband. "Spector
helped save my life. How dare anyone say to me that
what I did was wrong? When you're searching for
truth and your spouse is doing everything he can
to cover up, you depend on programs like Spector."
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