Customer Reviews

Cyber Spying Tracking Your Family's (Sometimes) Secret Online Lives

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is not a book about security and defending yourself from spying but the basics of why one might consider spying on other members of their family. Whether because they suspect infidelity, criminal activity or some other concern there are a lot of reasons why people might want to find out what others are doing on their computer. A very important point made in the beginning of the book is the question of the ethics of spying including the effect it has on the trust of a relationship. The authors also point out that sometimes spying is much less of an ethical consideration. Sometimes it might be part of protecting your children from online predators or other real dangers.

The book covers the basics of spying including creating a plan, getting the right software or hardware to implement the plan and actual implementation. The authors do a good job of pointing out how we leave tracks behind and how to get rid of those tracks as well as how to exploit them.

Written for the novice user it starts at the very beginning with things like how to open the command prompt and running explorer. From there it goes on to look at more basic as well as intermediate level techniques. The authors even include information on some rather advanced software such as ethereal (one of my personal favorites). It does give you a solid understanding of what the different software is capable of doing but really doesn't provide a thorough treatment of any of them. In the case of Ethereal and Snort both have complete books written about how to use them effectively so obviously part of a chapter barely scratches the surface of what can be done.

For the most part it teaches the easier ways of finding out information without using difficult advanced tools. It includes how to access areas where passwords, usernames, etc. are stored as well as directories and files that do not show up in explorer unless you know how to hand-enter the path to them.

Whether you are spying on someone's web browsing, e-mail, internet chat, or instant messaging the basics are all here. They even include information on how to remove evidence of your activities and ways to tell if you are being watched.

These techniques are mainly for local network spying and not for use over the Internet. Although still subject to many ethical and other considerations, for the purpose of finding out what is going on within your local network Cyber Spying is highly recommended.

Cyber Spying - Tracking Your Family's (Sometimes) Secret Online Lives by Ted Fair, Michael Nordfelt, and Sandra Ring (Syngress) is one of those books that evokes some strong emotional reactions to the content...

Chapter List: Why Spy?; Spying Basics; Technology Overview: Computer Basics; Network Basics; Taking Control; Spying On The PC; Spying On Web Browsing; Spying On E-mail; Spying On Chat And Instant Messages; Advanced Techniques; Counterspy: Are You Being Watched?; Index

The authors cover a subject that may be controversial to some... how to spy on people's computer activities. Depending on when and how this is practiced, it could be construed as illegal or as a responsible parental activity. They start out explaining why spying might be necessary as well as the legal and ethical implications. There is also discussion about how overt and covert spying can be effectively utilized to get the results you're after. After that, there is coverage of the basics of computer technology for those who don't know much more than how to turn on the computer and read email. The rest of the book gets into techniques, software, and case studies of surveillance to explain how it all fits together.

From a technical perspective, the book is very interesting. If you need to find out more about the activities of your kids, this book will most definitely help you get there. But as with all information, it would be very easy to use this same information to spy on other people (like at work). The information on computer basics also seems to be somewhat unnecessary, but I need to remember that I'm probably not the target audience for some of this information. And even if you've been working with computer technology for some time, I'm sure you'll pick up some tips on how you can find out what's going on with your computer (or figure out how to cover your tracks more effectively).

With all the continuing publicity in the general media about nefarious activities on the Internet, and the possibility of crackers tunnelling into your computers, the average person might be bewildered at what to believe. This book tries to provide a rational and non-sensationalistic basis for protecting your home computers. Plus, and perhaps more to the point, to safeguard you and your family from online predation.

There is necessary but mundane background on the basics of computer hardware and software and networking. But the book quickly moves into numerous spying methods. For surveilling a PC, browser, email, IRC and Instant Messages. Basically, for all the common modes of usage of a computer. The authors show that there are some disturbingly powerful programs and hardware devices floating around out there, available to anyone. Like the Best Free Keylogger, which is available from sourceforge, no less. Scarcely a suss website, eh? BFK captures keystrokes and screen captures, and can periodically email this data to any address on the Internet. A bloke could have some fun with this.

A utility of the book is simply alerting you to the existence of programs like this, even if you never avail yourself of it. Which leads into the last section of the book - countermeasures to various methods described earlier in the text. Parse it carefully.

Most people in the computer field have been asked once or twice to "help me find out what my kids are doing" or "help me see who my spouse is chatting with at night". I bought this book mostly out of curiosity to see what tricks the authors might have since they all used to work for the CIA. Besides just the technical side, it is pretty funny. I think everyone has known a "Dirty Larry" before. I think this is the first nerd book I bought that actually had me rolling on the floor laughing in parts. The quote for chapter 9 is classic.

Chapters1/2 were good thought provokers and kind of get you into the spying mindset.

I personally found Chapters 3/4/5 to be a little introductory, but I am certain that anyone that is not a computer professional will need them.

Chapter 6 was great; I had no idea that you could get passwords out of microsoft's protected storage like that. It was neat because you could actually step through every example. The Google desktop information was muy cool too. That for sure is the perfect spy tool, you can even use the nice google interface to search chat/email/AND webpages. All the VNC info was great. I showed my girlfriend how you can remotely "watch" someone and access their desktop and she was amazed.

Chapters 7/8/9 very cool and just as they described, you learn how to spy on web traffic, email, and chat messages. The cell phone location spying in chapter 10 was neat. I had never thought about doing that, and the best part of 11 was the iPod trick on page 380. Thank you for that one.

The only bad thing is that I wish the book came with a CD of all the tools they used. That would have been great. Maybe in the next release? Otherwise it is kind of a pain searching around for all of them.

This is an unusual book, it clearly lays out espionage technique, a bit of information security and information technology theory. Then they go into the how to do it.

If you have kids and computers, this is a must read. My wife and I really struggled with the idea of respecting our kids privacy and so we set up the minimum possible monitoring at our house and tried to ensure our kid was briefed on internet safety. Even so, our son was approached on the Internet at age 15 by a grown woman that wanted to meet him in real life. I am glad we detected that before anything really serious happened. Kids need a chance to grow up without that kind of help from adults.

Finally, it must be noted that anything this book teaches could be used in the workplace as well. Managers should read Cyber Spying to understand what is possible.

Let's see: I've been divorced many, many years, I really don't even know where my ex is living. My daughter is travelling with a touring theater group, LA last week, San Francisco this week. Do I really care to see what she's e-mailling to her fiance? No.

That let's out the paranoid half of this book. What about the remaining part of the book which is more on the mechanics of spying.

Here the book really begins to pay off. I never realized just how much stuff that is stored in various places. Thankfully you have to get in to touch the machine to be able to get at most of it.

Finally, in the next edition of this book I want one more chapter. PC's emit a lot of electronic noise. I understand that you can point an antenna at a machine from across the street and rip all the data you want out of it. How do you do that?

This is a great book for parents that have teenagers. I was worried about my daughter spending so much time on the Internet in her room alone so I bought it. This helped me to understand what I should worry about and what to look for. I highly recommend it even if you are not familiar with some of the technologies, the introduction chapters help to explain it clearly!

This book is a great overview and introduction to the topic. It covers the amterial in a clear and concise method, which is easy to read and follow. It is clear the book is written by professionals, who are experienced in the field of interest.

This is a must read for parents, system administrators and CEOs.

I'll be honest, this is kind of a weird book, but it's also fascinating to read and a must-have if you're serious about spying on a family member's internet activities. If you struggle with the ethics of spying, then don't even bother picking up this book. If you're past that and just want to find out what someone is doing online, or if you want a better understanding of what it takes to spy, then you're in for a treat.

After a brief introduction chapter, and even an ethics discussion, the book dives headfirst into the subject. You can really spy on someone through two different methods: 1) Login to their computer and see what they're doing or 2) Get onto their network and sniff their traffic. Both types of spying require different types of skills. Both types of skills are covered in some depth in this book.

Logging onto the victim's computer (usually a spouse) can usually be done. What is hard is covering your tracks. This book discusses ways to hide what you do, what to look for, how to spy on email, IM conversations, browser history, etc. There is also a very good discussion on keystroke capture devices and software.

My favorite part of the book was under the "Advanced Techniques" section, where the author shows how to perform an ARP spoofing attack. This is a type of attack where you can trick a switch into sending packets to you (from the person you're spying on) that you normally wouldn't see.

Deciding to spy on someone's internet activities is a pretty serious decision. If you're serious about doing it, and doing it right, then you must read this book. If you're not into spying on others, but want to know ways you could be spyed on, then you'll want to read this book too. It will open your eyes.

I have to admit, in the first chapter of "Cyber Spying" I found myself creeped out. But, unlike people who have had to deal with this sort of thing, I've never had to deal with a cheating spouse or, worse, someone preying on my kids. With that in mind, I forged ahead to have a look at Fair et al's book. I have to say that what I found wasn't great, but did a decent job.

Chapter 1, the creepy one, sets out the whole "Why Spy?" topic with anecdotes and some (at times) questionable stats. The three main authors are all ex-intelligence service and so they tend to have a lot of CIA-ish anecdotes. All in all, chapter 1 feels more like hype and scare than much of anything (the cheating spouse story and stats).

Chapter 2 covers spying basic, mainly principles that they'll be using throughout the rest of the book. Not much technical material here, and lots about the Robert Hanssen case.

Chapters 3 and 4 cover computer and network basics. I think they're included for completeness' sake, but sadly they don't really outline the audience very well (because you'll wind up installing hardware and very technical software in the coming chapters).

Chapter 5 covers the basics of "Taking control", namely how to navigate around your Windows PC. While there's a convoluted way to get to the Windows Explorer to browse files, there's a good list of various utilities (nice clarity here), and then a short Wireshark intro. This is what I mean about the varying levels of the intended audience: if they have to be told what a modem port looks like, chances are they wont get regedit and Wireshark all that much.

Chapter 6 covers "Spying on the PC" and all sorts of convoluted ways to recover passwords, accounts, etc (before they get to various tools to assist you). This convoluted approach sadly makes the utility of this chapter very low.

Chapters 7, 8 and 9 cover web browsing, email and IM spying, respectively. Sadly, many of the techniques given are complex and could be better done with a few pieces of (sometimes free) software. Never mind that if you actually try and alter your kid's computer, they'll probably figure it out, and the book's own excerpt about how a kid cleans up his own computer would defeat many of these methods.

Chapter 10 covers advanced techniques and does so fairly well. No major issues to note here. Chapter 11 covers how you can detect being spied on (ie by your spouse or parent) and thwart such measures.

"Cyber Spying" is unique in its topic and only executes it modestly well. The coverage itself is OK, but the methods are convoluted and better tools and techniques could have been used. This book is NOT for enterprise managers who want to learn how to monitor their employees, there are far better ways to do that. In short, this book is only OK.