I have downloaded and purchased the software program "SpyCop." Here
are my impressions.

SpyCop is intended to detect keylogger programs. These keyloggers
secretly capture keystrokes on a computer, and relay them to an interested
party. Keyloggers are used by police agencies, spouses, and other useful
entities.

I'm not sure if SpyCop has any viable competition. I found a similar
program on the net, but it hasn't been updated in a year so it is probably
out of date. AdAware and SpyBot are aware of some keyloggers, but I
don't know if their authors intend to do a thorough job of identifying
them.

SpyCop is $49.00. Summary opinion: way overpriced for what you get,
but where to find a viable alternative?

I purchased Spycop and it immediately gave me irritation. The SpyCop
website http://www.spycop.com advertises a price of $69.00, but offers
a $20 discount, for a limited time. Depending on when you visit the
website, the discount is promised to last until midnight, or until the
end of the week. But the discount is always offered, and it is always
set to expire in a short time. This practice is dishonest, and dishonest
in a petty and childish fashion. Anyone with a lick of sense can figure
out that the real price of this gadget is $49.00. The fact that the
publishers of this program resort to this "$20 discount" rubbish says
that they don't care a bit if they appear to be crooked. What species of
human rubbish is it that doesn't care about his own reputation?

I installed SpyCop and it gave me more irritation. It selected
"\Program Files\Internet Explorer" as its default install directory.
This directory already has a fairly important use, as you can imagine.
Worse, it installed files with such generic names as setup.exe in this
directory. I was not pleased. On the other hand, I was able to uninstall
and reinstall in a more reasonable (dedicated) location. Peeves: The
uninstall program left a file behind that I had to delete manually.
Also, the uninstall program does not appear in
|Control Panel|Add and Remove Programs| where it belongs.

Then I ran SpyCop and it was slow. Not a big deal. My computer never
gets bored, that's why it's useful. SpyCop found a file that it thought
was suspicious: it suspected that ntx.exe was an installation of the
SpyTech keylogger. My copy of ntx.exe is not a keylogger. I'm concerned
that SpyCop identified this file as suspicious simply because of its
name, rather than its contents. If this is the extent of SpyCop's
diagnostic ability, then it's rather weak. A hostile party could evade
SpyCop by simply renaming his keylogger files. I'm speculating here,
perhaps SpyCop uses more sophisticated methods as well.

SpyCop has a pushbutton that promises to give more information about
the suspicious files it discovers. I highlighted ntx.exe and pushed
the button. My web browser appeared on my screen and pointed to a Google
search page with the search string "spytech." This is yet another
irritation. I already know how to use the goddamned Google search
engine. When I pushed the button, I wanted to see what information the
SpyCop authors had compiled into their program regarding SpyTech.

To recapitulate: this program is way overpriced at $49.00. If I could
find a viable, competing product I would love to try it.
--
David Arnstein Please do not look at laser with remaining eye
arnstein+usenet@pobox.com