Peek & Spy

PEEK & SPY lets a privileged user see exactly what is on another user's terminal and then permits him to either take control of that terminal to fix the problem from his own or let the user have control while he gives any needed instructions. If the PEEK & SPY user chooses to fix it himself, his input can be displayed on the user's screen to show him/her how it was fixed. Now system managers can solve user problems (especially remote ones) without having to go to the user to solve them. Where PEEK informs users they are being watched, SPY doesn't. In addition, SPY gives system managers documented proof of security breaches and provides a tool to lock out unauthorized users.

When a system manager can see a user's screen he/she will not have to depend on that inexperienced user to determine their exact problem or describe it accurately over the phone. Nor will he waste time going to the user's terminal. He can see the screen repainted as it was before he started watching with whatever error messages were on it. The terminal attributes and characteristics are also correctly displayed. And the user gets to see the correct handling for the difficulty he/she had. PEEK & SPY solves the problem of how to give personal attention to users and trainees at a distance and permits remote, interactive training and demonstrations.

Concerning security, PEEK & SPY allows the privileged user to see and log everything done by another user using any one of four journaling options. PEEK & SPY can log the observed user's session actions to an output file. It also permits locking out a user's keyboard in the case of a security breach. With SPY the user is not aware he/she is being observed.

Using standard VMSINSTAL and PEEK & SPY's "Quick Install" instructions, it installs in minutes. You don't need to read the entire documentation to install it. There are only a few commands to learn. The basic instructions for installation and use of PEEK & SPY fit on a single sheet of paper.

If PEEK & SPY resides on an OpenVMS node that has PCs running VT terminal emulation programs and the PCs' screens are generated on that node, PEEK & SPY will be able to view the PC screens also.

PEEK & SPY runs under OpenVMS on VAX, Alpha (AXP) and Itanium (IA64) systems and supports DECnet remote connections, TCP I/P, and DECwindows Motif. The hot-key command sequences are completely configurable and may be specified as qualifiers on the command line or in a logical name table. PEEK & SPY does not require any special drivers. Since PEEK & SPY is usually installed as a privileged image, the user needs no extra privileges to run the program. Explicit permission is not required of a user with both SYSPRV and SECURITY privileges. Any user on the system can use it; however, the user being watched must explicitly permit any non-privileged user to watch him/her.