Instant messenger logs? and email

[MrPhelps]

My kids are bugging me about getting AOL instant messenger and a email account. I have earthlink broadband and am wondering if there is a way to log what they "im " and email. I never used "im" so its greek to me. I don't want to pay for AOL, but would consider a seperate program to run in the back ground so they wouldn't know about it. I am not real tech person so it has to be easy and quick.

Thanks in advance.




btw I have Googled but value the opinions here mostly.

 

[Trashman]

I don't want to cross any parental lines here, but personally, i would avoid all IM programs for kids...if ya know what i mean here.
I would at least suggest searching google on "how you can protect your kids when on the computer"
take your time and research as much info as you can.
Just wanted to throw that out to you, again not tryin to "tell" you anything just "suggesting".
Base on my experience with a teen-age girl, (my niece) living in our house for 1-1/2 yrs...
Its a cruel and scary world out there, and freaks are out there.
Not sure on AOL instant messenger, i downloaded and checked settings and not find and way to save a copy of messeages....I do know that MSN and Yahoo have those options.
They also have options to only IM people on your list and block and incoming chat requests from people not on your list, but if kids are savoy enough or have friends that are savoy on th pc, then they can change settings without you knowing.
Yahoo, is not good though because of chat rooms, yahoo chat are worse than aol.
I realize your a concerned parent and looking for best options for your kids.

 

[n0cmonkey]

GAIM can keep logs (not sure if it's a defaulted option or not). That's what I use.

 

[TheVrolok]

Originally posted by: Trashman
I don't want to cross any parental lines here, but personally, i would avoid all IM programs for kids...if ya know what i mean here.
I would at least suggest searching google on "how you can protect your kids when on the computer"
take your time and research as much info as you can.
Just wanted to throw that out to you, again not tryin to "tell" you anything just "suggesting".
Base on my experience with a teen-age girl, (my niece) living in our house for 1-1/2 yrs...
Its a cruel and scary world out there, and freaks are out there.
Not sure on AOL instant messenger, i downloaded and checked settings and not find and way to save a copy of messeages....I do know that MSN and Yahoo have those options.
They also have options to only IM people on your list and block and incoming chat requests from people not on your list, but if kids are savoy enough or have friends that are savoy on th pc, then they can change settings without you knowing.
Yahoo, is not good though because of chat rooms, yahoo chat are worse than aol.
I realize your a concerned parent and looking for best options for your kids.

I think it's unrealistic in this day and age to deny teenagers/kids AIM clients.. it's hands down the most popular form of out of school communication for every student. n0cmonkey had a good suggestion, use Gaim, it's a fantastic AIM client that has full logging support (and no, I don't believe it's enabled by default) so that you can check up on your kids as you'd like.

 

[jdiddy]

DeadAim does message logging and its only $5.

 

[SLCentral]

I vote DeadAIM. How old are your kids? I started IMing when I was 11, as well as the rest of my grade, and we're all still obsessed 4 years later, it's really quite addicting, so make sure your kid has other pasttimes. Also, I don't think its a good move to spy on your kids if they are 13+, they deserve some privacy. I understand your worrying about safety online, but I'd say talk to them about it. All teens deserve their privacy, IMO.

 

[flamingspinach]

Trillian Pro (http://www.trillian.cc/) is an excellent program that unfortunately is not free, nor is it open source. It does logging too. Unfortunately there is no parental control AFAIK so you wouldn't be able to stop your kids from turning off logging. Or you could use GAIM (http://gaim.sf.net/), I recommend that as a free alternative. I hear that Miranda IM (http://www.miranda-im.org/) is good as well (also free).

But I wouldn't recommend spying on your own kids (or anyone else's! ). IMHO, it will cause a rift when they find out what you're doing. Depends on how old they are though, I guess. If they're 12 or older, I'd recommend giving them a bit more freedom and privacy. Just my opinion though. >_> Sure there are "freaks" out there, but there are also many many more nice friendly people. Besides, as TheVrolok said, it's really the communication medium of choice these days among teenagers. And it makes sense too. But I'm guessing this second paragraph doesn't matter as much as the first anyway. ^_^

-fs

 

[eigen]

Originally posted by: flamingspinach
Trillian Pro (http://www.trillian.cc/) is an excellent program that unfortunately is not free, nor is it open source. It does logging too. Unfortunately there is no parental control AFAIK so you wouldn't be able to stop your kids from turning off logging. Or you could use GAIM (http://gaim.sf.net/), I recommend that as a free alternative. I hear that Miranda IM (http://www.miranda-im.org/) is good as well (also free).

But I wouldn't recommend spying on your own kids (or anyone else's! ). IMHO, it will cause a rift when they find out what you're doing. Depends on how old they are though, I guess. If they're 12 or older, I'd recommend giving them a bit more freedom and privacy. Just my opinion though. >_> Sure there are "freaks" out there, but there are also many many more nice friendly people. Besides, as TheVrolok said, it's really the communication medium of choice these days among teenagers. And it makes sense too. But I'm guessing this second paragraph doesn't matter as much as the first anyway. ^_^

-fs

True most of the younger friends that I have are on it 24/7.

 

[kevnich2]

I would recommend getting some type of netnanny type program. Set strict rules for IM'ing, then watch some logs for a little while to make sure the kids are obeying the "rules", if they are, watch it less. Yes, teens deserve some privacy, but the internet is a very scary world and contrary to what some above me say, I wouldnt' say grand teens 13 years plus too much privacy. Give them the idea they have privacy but keep an eye on them, if they obey the rules, give them more and more privacy. If you don't monitor things at all and something does happen, who are you going to blame?

 

[flamingspinach]

Well if you really feel it necessary, monitor your kids. But I would really warn against doing it without their knowledge. If they ever find out, which is probable, they may be somewhat upset, which is something to be avoided...

-fs

 

[mundane]

Worst case, you can always install a keylogger (record every key that is pressed for a given time), and scan through the logs when you have a chance.

Some good advice from the posts here. I'd suggest that you install some kind of device, no matter what. The anonymity of the internet (AIM in particular) encourages people to act/talk in a very uninhibited manner. If you allow random chats, it's only a matter of time before your daughter (or son) will receive some very disturbing requests. The poster aboves brings a good consideration to the table - suggest to let them know there's software. Of course they'll try to disable it; you just need to keep ahead of them. It's much better that way then they discover you've been "spying" on them for months. If they raise the privacy issue - your house, your rules =).

You mentioned mail in your OP - if you had access to the same account, you could monitor what went on. Gmail seems to be the hot provider these days.

 

[Supermercado]

I've used both AIM+ and AIMutation (both are free, and I liked both better than DeadAIM) to keep records of my own AIM conversations.

Edit: About email, we have Earthlink broadband as well and we have 5 separate accounts, one for each member of the family. I might be wrong but I think once your default account is created by Earthlink, you can create more at earthlink.net and give them passwords, etc. You should be able to create accounts for your kids pretty easily. We use Outlook Express to manage the accounts but they also have a webmail client at webmail.earthlink.net. I don't imagine there's a way to not have the accounts password-protected but if you're concerned about it, there's not any reason why you couldn't let them set the passwords and then find them out using a keylogger and check their accounts every once in a while just to make sure everything's okay. Same with the AIM logs.

 

[MrPhelps]

Thank you for all the advice, I was glad to get support from here.