CyWatch

CyWatch



Block unwanted Net content and monitor machine and Internet usage with this software

The Internet today

has become a rich source of information, education, and entertainment.

Everybody wants to log on to the Web, and sooner or later, you''ll find

yourself getting an Internet account for your family. However, like

all good things, the Net too has a darker side. From obscene and dirty

pictures to manuals on how to make bombs, the Net has it all. In such

a scenario, it isn''t surprising that parents are worried about letting

their children surf the Web. So what is the way out?

CyWatch from Signotron is a software that lets you control how the Internet

is used from your PC. So, you no longer have to worry about what your

child might be up to in your absence. It can also be set up on intranets

to restrict and log all access.

Installation is

simple. CyWatch creates an administrator account on a system, and the

administrator is the only one who can make changes in CyWatch. To install

it on different machines on the network, you have to physically go to

each machine, install the software, and define the rights for each user.

Any further changes to the configuration will also have to be done by

the administrator. After the installation and a reboot, your operating

system is under CyWatch''s control. It gives its own login screen on

startup, and a user is given Net access based on rights assigned by

the administrator.

This can be very

useful in a home with children of varying ages. You can grant each of

them separate user rights and put different restrictions on them if

you want. It''s also useful on an intranet where you want to restrict

or allow access to specific areas. So, you could install it on a Web

server or an FTP server and define access rights based on IP addresses.

This acts as a firewall, and protects your machine from unwanted users.CyWatch gives you

a list of services such as HTTP, FTP, Telnet, POP3, NetMeeting, ICQ,

SMTP, and Real Audio. You can grant or restrict any of these services

to a particular user. You can also set up customized filters for each

user. There are five categories in this section, comprising nudity,

sex, violence, language and gambling. Most Websites of these types rate

themselves on a scale of 0 to 5. CyWatch uses a protocol called PICS

(Platform for Internet Content Selection) to determine this rating.

You can restrict or allow access for any of these levels. Setting the

level at "0" means complete restriction, and "5"

means free access to all levels.

After setting the accounts, you can also block specific sites from the

system using their URL or specific IP addresses.

CyWatch also has

extensive logging and monitoring features. You can log machine usage

to see which user has been using the machine at which time. You can

log site access-to all sites or only sites that have been blocked. This

makes it easy to see what sites have been visited and by whom. An extensive

log file is created which contains all the monitoring data. You can

choose to make a new log file after a specific number of days or after

a specific size (in MB). You can then print these files too.

An additional feature of CyWatch is Intruder prevention. Here, you can

block Java applets, and ActiveX and Java scripts from Web pages. You

can also disable the creation and reading of cookies from your machine.