If a computer is used by several people, it's likely that no one will take responsibility when something goes wrong. There are many ways to limit what each person can do at the keyboard, but there's also the option of recording their activity and presenting hard evidence. That's what Hidden Capture is for. Monitoring sessions without the user's consent is a sensitive subject, but when the situation has reached a breaking point, this program might just help you out.
The Shared-Computer Problem
I've seen it happen many times, and I think I've accumulated a bit of experience. Families with four or five members sharing a single computer, blaming each other for damaging it. My job in those cases is simply to fix the problem, ignoring the nuclear war between kids and parents. But the question always remains: Who was the author of the digital disaster? To know precisely, you need special measures, or rather, special software. Anything resembling a keylogger or a background screenshot system carries a huge responsibility... but when the integrity of the computer is at risk... let's just say they are options to consider.
What Hidden Capture Does
Hidden Capture, a small program developed by Mohsen E. Davatgar, offers multiple parameters to capture images during a session without leaving a trace. You can specify whether you want a full desktop capture, a region of the screen, or just the active window—very useful for focusing on what you need to know. By default, it saves images as black-and-white JPG with 50% compression, which should be enough to get information, but you can change that behavior if you wish.
The program includes several keyboard shortcuts, and as an extra security feature, you can protect access to its interface with a password.
Stealth and Limitations
It's worth noting that Hidden Capture doesn't make much effort to hide itself. While it doesn't create a system tray icon, its main process is completely exposed in Task Manager. In other words, Hidden Capture will do its job... as long as you don't ask it to act like a master of stealth.
