Shoutbox

A keylogger is definitely one way to go. I've been asked on several occasions to monitor my sister's MSN (not because of people she meets online, but actually because of the people she goes about with) by my dad.

I actually used a combination of ethereal (it has a new name now, and I've forgotten what it is) and a filter which allowed me to see what she was sending by monitoring network traffic.

There's also a program called MSN Sniffer out there - although I don't believe it's freeware - which simply sniffs out MSN chat packets as they are sent.

I agree that people's conversations should be private, but only once they're old mature enough to be trusted not to do anything stupid anyway. My sister definitely doesn't fall into that category - although I did tell her that I watch what she's saying. And she says stupid things regardless.