Monitoring Internet Usage

The thing is we do use the internet to connect to our web mail and other applications which are accessed through the internet, not intranet or private network.

So there will always be internet activity including downloading pdf, excel, word etc attachments.

[timwilky]

I am only able to get round my companies policies though a VPN connection that routes all network traffic to/from my home network outside of the normal corporate intranet. I then have two ways of working, though a squid box and set my network proxy, or easier to remote connect rdp,vnc etc to a machine on the home network and internet from that.

[ophic]

Originally Posted by timwilky

I am only able to get round my companies policies though a VPN connection that routes all network traffic to/from my home network outside of the normal corporate intranet. I then have two ways of working, though a squid box and set my network proxy, or easier to remote connect rdp,vnc etc to a machine on the home network and internet from that.

We had a guy that tried a similar thing. He got it wrong and managed to route the entirety of the network traffic through his home ADSL line. Bear in mind this wasn't just an office - we had a large and busy in house server room. Might as well have just pulled the plug on the whole place.

[SoulKiss]

only way round it I can see is to use a 3G dongle/tether a mobile with a proxy server and route all non-work internet sites via that.

Could be a pain to set up but...

Use logmein, uses port 80 i believe, they wont be blocking port 80 typically.

[ophic]

Originally Posted by beabert

Use logmein, uses port 80 i believe, they wont be blocking port 80 typically.

but if they're monitoring, they'll be monitoring port 80 for sure, and it possibly goes through a proxy - which might mean it won't work at all. It does definitely mean that they'll detect the huge amount of bandwidth a remote access program uses when compared to normal web browsing.

Sure but they wont know what actual sites he is frequenting other than logmein, if they tell him to stop using it he then should comply

Just get mobile internet would be best, on your own device even better.

[madcockney]

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

Which you don't know, which is exactly we would need to know the infrastructure. Being found to be doing something to circumvent the monitoring in place would be a much more serious breach of the IT policy than to be spending too much time on the web. It'd be a disciplinary hearing, not just a quiet "lay off the internet" chat, so don't give the guy advice that could get him into trouble at work if he decides to trust your information and follow it.

It's ike playing slot machines only when you know they are about to pay out, to cheat any system, you need to know the system.

100 % correct regarding the disciplinary proceedings. There are also open source products that can do virtually every thing that most small operations want, so the company may have spent very little or nothing more than time, and still have a reasonable web filtering and proxy setup.

I think the problem arises from the fact that many people think that it's their right to access the Internet at any time they want to. A few months back one of our users was incensed that they could not access their personal e-mail account, and stated it was their human right to. We had not blocked it on purpose, it was just that hotmail had changed their access procedure, so our filter had blocked it. I pointed out that they had perfectly adequate organisational e-mail, but of course they had made a personal on-line order and were awaiting an e-mail so it was our fault. They were absolutely gob smacked when I told them that we did not have to provide access to their personal e-mail and that many businesses block all but their own.

Originally Posted by beabert

Sure but they wont know what actual sites he is frequenting other than logmein, if they tell him to stop using it he then should comply

Just get mobile internet would be best, on your own device even better.

Does logmein require a locally installed agent, or Java client, etc? Many organisations audit the PC's and report unauthorised software being installed. I've had to give up using MSN, as I install it for use at home, then every time I plug into the network in an office for more than 10 minutes, it's gone again! I only have admin rights on my laptop 'cos it's Vista 64bit and not the companies standard XP build and they chose to skip Vista. When I get Windows 7 it'll be a locked down standard build and it'll drive me daft.

you could allways get an, wait for it

















IPHONE, lol.