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Ask Slashdot: Low-Cost Tools To Track Employees' Web Use?

Posted by timothy on from the possibly-hostile-answers-expected dept.

First time accepted submitter red-nz writes "I come from New Zealand where new anti-piracy laws have come into effect that prosecute the owner of the internet connection for copyright violations. This is now a major issue for businesses, as they of course don't want to be liable for employee infringements. We have some good firewalls that are capable of doing basic filtering by 'category,' e.g. P2P sites, etc., but ideally would love to find a low-cost or even better Open Source alternative to expensive reporting tools (such as WebMarshal or Websense) that is capable of reporting on individual employees' usage with friendly reports (i.e. dont just show the URLs of the 3000 items their browser requested that day). It may be too much to ask but if the software could also show how long they spent on each site, it would be fantastic. Anyone got any winners out there they can share?"

9 of 384 comments (clear)

  1. and it's thwarted with...... by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A simple encrypted proxy or VPN over port 80 to home.

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    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:and it's thwarted with...... by imemyself · · Score: 4, Informative

      True - but then it would be the person at home (or who runs the proxy) who would appear to be sending the traffic. So it would not be the business's problem.

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    2. Re:and it's thwarted with...... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      uh, the "reason" someone torrents from work is because they are at work.
      if they were at home, they'd torrent there.

      maybe they'll lose their job and have lots of time to download stuff at home, but i'm sure they're not thinking "this is great i have so much more bandwidth here" nor are they thinking "this is great now no one will know who i really am because i'm hiding behind a corporate network"

      they're thinking "damn i hate my job, i'm so bored, i'll download some stuff to pass the time"

  2. ntop by bsDaemon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ntop (http://www.ntop.org) should be able to do more or less what you want, but you might have to tweak a few things. However, it would also help you get a better handle on all your network usage in general, so I'd look into it anyway if I were in your situation.

  3. Re:Change the employee agreement by MyLongNickName · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am glad that you are a practicing lawyer in New Zealand and have educated us on this wonderful workaround. Could you please give us the contact information for your legal practice just in case someone in law enforcement questions the validity of your fine resolution to this problem? Because clearly your method trumps the employer-employee agency laws.

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  4. Slippery slope by Sqr(twg) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "I'm required to stop copyright violations, so how can I best spy on my employees' surfing habits and see how much time they spend on each website?"

    First: You are not required to monitor what you employees download at all. Under NZ law it is not illegal to watch copyrighted material via direct download (youtube etc.) You only need to worry about p2p applications. These are easy to spot as they *upload* to lots of different ip addresses at the same time. If someone has 500 open ports and a Gigabit/second outgoing bandwidth, go talk to him!

    Second: People tend to leave their browsers on all day with 10 different tabs open, so even if you could view the time spent on different sites, that info would be meaningless.

    Third: Spying on your employees surfing habits can piss them off, and is likely not worth it, for the same reasons why people don't work better if you mount "security" cameras behind their backs.

  5. Re:Wrong approach by andymadigan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm a Software Engineer. A peripheral part of my job involves dealing with Oracle. If I run in to a problem, I google the error message (or google what I am trying to do). I typically find the answer on some random blog or forum (no, the answer isn't always on ask tom). Are you going to claim those sites aren't "required" and therefore I don't need access to them? Otherwise, your whitelist is going to be pretty long...

    --
    The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
  6. Morals by WorldPiece · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seems to me that asking this question here is like going on a vegetarian's blog and asking whats the best cheap knife to butcher a cow with...

  7. Or encrypted to a nearby country by Quila · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What would cost more, censorware acceptable to the government, or a small server hosted in the Philippines?