Website Browsing Monitor

Hello All,
I'm trying to find a browser monitoring program for use at a client's property where public computers are available for use by residents. These RBC's (Resident Business Center) computers have full internet access with no website filtering. The computers themselves have Microsoft Shared Toolkit installed on them, which locks down PC functionality for the public profile and wipes out disk changes upon restart.

We're pretty sure that this would eliminate the usage of a software based product installed directly on the RBC, unless the product can export its results to a different directory on a different IP address. Our firewall (a Sonicwall TeleTZ 170) has a very rudimentary website history which simply states what websites have been visited most. Unfortunately, we cannot monitor by specific LAN IP addresses, thus rendering the built in monitoring useless (there are internal office IPs also connected to this Firewall which do not require monitoring).

Does anyone have any ideas on how to monitor web surfing? The client believes that there has been illegal activities performed by a public user, although we don't really have a way to find evidence with the solution we currently have in place.

Thanks for your help!

 

Hi, writersblade.

I do not have any familiarity with such monitoring software but it appears such software is available.

• TracePlus/Ethernet ($219.95)
  They apparently have a demo you can try out to see if it might meet your needs.

I expect other similar monitoring applications can be found on the Internet.

If you or your client decides to implement such a monitoring tool, then it might be advisable to post a prominent notice (in advance) on all potentially monitored computers that activity monitoring may occur. I do not know what legal ramifications one might run into with such monitoring.

 

We'll definately check that one out. Thanks for the recommendation! We've started fooling around with Content Filtering product offered by Sonicwall. It looks like however we may be asking for too much from one piece of software; there will need to be a sign-up sheet managed by onsite staff since there's only one user profile for all of the public to use. Doesn't do much good to have the times the illicit activity occurred, but not what the individual's name is.

Thanks again Mailman!

 

You're welcome, writersblade.

Several packet sniffers are out there. I don't know which may be most useful. A couple more links to investigate if desired:


Network Analyzer and Packet Sniffer - CommView:

In 2004, I received a special offer from Zone Labs (producers of ZoneAlarm security products) for CommView. Therefore, without having any personal experience with packet sniffing, I tend to trust CommView.

===========

EtherDetect Packet Sniffer, Protocol Analyzer:
(no privacy policy link at the bottom of the home page)

Perhaps you would get better input/suggestions from users in the Networking forum about what these products can and cannot do.

 

That's a good idea. TBH, I wasn't really sure if this post belonged here or there. Again, thanks for that help, mucho appreciated!