PureBasic Forums - English

These programs aren't illegal at least in the USA and Canada, and I see no problems with them. Just my 2 cents.

What I'm trying to make possible with the program is that the bits which *may* be illegal in some countries will have an optional "tick" against them - that way its upto the user to risk breaking the law, but the programs defaults are okay for the majority of places.

The program can be really very useful, a place that was testing it for me found that most of the time a few employees were playing the built-in microsoft games from 10am to 4pm!!!

Anyhow, for them there is a command to simply delete all the shortcuts to the games (it does not delete the games themselves).

Interesting use. I hope those employers contracts with thier employees state they are allowed to spy like that.

They weren't working, so why should they have workers rights??? *joke*

Actually there is mention in the contracts of surveillance through the use of cameras/other etc... for quality control and security.

In the last place I worked at they even had it in their contracts that they could search your car!

-Anthony

actually you should completely remove the feature from countrys where it is illegal, and post both binaries stating this one is legal here, and this one is not, then it's completely up to the user to break the law in his/her own country.

> [...] then it's completely up to the user to break the law in his/her own country

Don't forget that you can use the system locale details to determine which
country the OS is running on... so your app could refuse to run if Windows
is set to a country where the app is illegal. This might be a safer way to
avoid any legal hassles as far as the app is concerned.

The system local settings cannot be used because laws are different even with the same general locality - such as England and Scotland. Good idea though.

But what if the DataSneak (the client) is in one country and SpyMon (server) in another? Check both system locals and apply via a table - it would get quite complicated.

In any event, I don't believe in censorship; and although its not strickly the case (stoping someone from running a program because of what the government allows them to do) - it does seem quite close.

Basically, I don't think I should only allow people from certain countries to be allowed to run the program, to disable features if your from other countries. It seems kind of country'ist (??) if you look at it from that point of view... It just seems like a very predudice and unfair situation.

I don't think that any of the other commercial monitoring systems have this kind of predudice, they just appear to have warnings. I will take another look at what the competition does however - just in case.

The program can be really very useful, a place that was testing it for me found that most of the time a few employees were playing the built-in microsoft games from 10am to 4pm!!!

Hi, I haven't tried the program, so I'm not sure about this: can Spymon tell if the employees are actually playing all that time or if they just have the game window around for playing now and then?

Good luck with Spymon. Regards,

If the client presses a key and the window has changed - the new window info is passed to SpyMon.

Because of the nature of their work keys have to be pressed - they were not working. Various screengrabs were done at various times to confirm this, the top most window was always the games. They could have been sleeping or browsing (not pressing keys).

Deleting the games shortcuts worked & the problem appears to have gone.

Good luck with Spymon. Regards,

Thanks

DoubleDutch wrote:I don't think that any of the other commercial monitoring systems have this kind of predudice, they just appear to have warnings.

Yes, they popup a warning message on the client side everytime the application
starts IIRC. "You will be observed. Resistance is futile!"

This is at least the case in germany. The employer is not allowed to use
cams, spy-software or personal search on employees when there's no
real reason, ie suspicion.

Of course I'm no lawyer so don't quote me on that - there may be exceptions.
I'm sure it's quite easy to find out about the regulations in different countries.

I think it got lost among ather posts during the forum breakdown and subsequent move.

By the way, I downloaded the game, but runs way too fast on my PC

> It seems kind of country'ist (??) if you look at it from that point of view

You mean "racist", not "country'ist".

> It just seems like a very predudice and unfair situation

Maybe, but it's better than getting yourself into trouble with the government.
Even if the user has to "break the law" to use it, you still could get into a lot
of trouble for not taking good steps to prevent it... remember the whole
"Grand Theft Auto III" issue where RockStar had to censor the game just
for the Australian market? That could be considered racist too, but legally
the game had to modified. Something to consider. I am not a lawyer.

As far as i can see, this app isnt illegal in germany!!

It would be interesting to see if its illegal to use or illegal to buy or sell?

Its would be illegal to use it to supervise your employees or, but not selling or buying it here!