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.