August 1996 — Applications

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Software Monitors & Provides Internet Usage Statistics

Sewickley Academy, a private K-12 institution in southwestern Pennsylvania, has taken a technological approach to support and reinforce the school's Internet Acceptable Use Policy. In October, 1995, the school implemented an Internet monitoring and control program called SNAG-Secure Net Access Guardian. The network-level program, from Chase Sales Development Co. in Pittsburgh, Pa., is configured to selectively monitor, log and report on Internet activities and restrict access to unacceptable sites for all workstations including both Macs and PCs. Sewickley's network includes over 100 workstations, a Web server, news server, mail server and several dial-in connections. As a condition of using the computer resources, both students and parents must read and sign the school's Acceptable Use Policy. When the SNAG developers approached the Academy's Headmaster, Hamilton Clark, with the idea of implementing the program, he immediately agreed. A Windows NT PC running the SNAG application was connected to the network segment next to the Internet gateway PC. From this central access point the program manages all the Internet traffic to WWW, FTP, Gopher and Telnet sites and automatically logs and records each workstation IP address as the workstation user accesses the Internet.

Selective "Guidance"

"We can now see what Web sites our students are accessing and block out ones that are inappropriate," says Clark. To do this selective blocking, the network administrator defines "access profiles" for each workstation, restricting or de-restricting site access by simply clicking on a Hook "restricted" icon. Clicking on the Check "monitored" icon causes all Internet activities to be logged, including site name, site IP address, time and date of access and the total number of accesses for each site visited. Using one of several database queries, the administrator can sort accessed Internet sites by domain name, type (WWW, FTP, Gopher or Telnet), number of accesses and time. Once a site is identified as unacceptable the administrator "Hooks" the site, making it off-limits to all restricted workstations. When SNAG monitors a user attempting to connect with a restricted site, it reroutes the communication and truncates the attempt. The user experiences a common network error message, no connection takes place and the user is "guided" on to another, more appropriate, location.

Usage Tools Help Teach

"SNAG also allows us to see how heavy our usage is, and to learn about sites that might be useful for other students and teachers," says Clark. The software's monitoring effectively builds an Internet-usage database from which statistical profiles, charts and reports can be generated, further increasing the usefulness of the program.