Scripts...anyone have any idea?

[Sirbendy]

I've just had my HOD suggest to me that we should have a "keylogger script to monitor the workstations for repeated presses of the same keys in a fixed period of time" (i.e. Cursor Keys, spacebar), and upon detection of said keypresses to close the active window on the workstation.

He thinks this would cut down on things like flash games etc...thing is, neither Steve or I have heard of anything like this, but now HOD is telling all and sundry about this...so, can anyone help with suggestions/ideas?

It seems he came up with this idea with "a techie friend, over a pint". Hmm.

Are there any programs that could be installed on the WS to do this, if a script isn't feasible?

[webman]

I'd imagine it'd be a massive overhead and waste of resources. What sort of keystrokes would it be looking for?

Lots of left keys in quick succession for moving left? Or positioning a shape in an office application? If the HOD isn't very technically-minded, bring on the excuses

There must be a better way to filter them 8O

[Geoff]

While possible, there's two problems.

Firstly, any antispyware/antivirus software you have on the machine is liable to nuke it.

Secondly, unless you have something in your policy documents, your users can beat you to to death with the Computer Misuse Act.

[apeo]

Agree with webman, the overhead for this would be insane for what your HOD is suggesting. Just tell your HOD hes a pratt for suggesting it

[Sirbendy]

Thats what I thought...his "mate" insists it's possible. I KNOW SWS is crap, and this week we're having something called "policy central" installed thats supposed to watch what they're on/typing and e-mail us snapshots when "forbidden or dodgy things" are typed..my judgement is out on that too, until I've seen it. I reckon it'll load up the mailsystem quite amusingly..

Bring on a decent internet filter, so that we can use the blacklists and chuck 50,000 URLs into it in seconds. Shouldn't be long now..

I had a free system tray doodad i was playing with at home thats supposed to monitor your web access and close IE/FF if you go to "unsuitable" sites..but honestly...I'd say it was more a classroom management thing..sigh.

[Geoff]

Bring on a decent internet filter, so that we can use the blacklists and chuck 50,000 URLs into it in seconds.

Dansguardian with a subscription to URLBlacklist works a treat. You'll need to run it behind Squid though. Especially if you want/need authentication and/or per user/machine/ip auditing.

[Norphy]

this week we're having something called "policy central" installed thats supposed to watch what they're on/typing and e-mail us snapshots when "forbidden or dodgy things" are typed..my judgement is out on that too, until I've seen it. I reckon it'll load up the mailsystem quite amusingly..

Policy Central is crap. We had them over here trying to flog it to us, I was most unimpressed. Securus does the same thing, it uses its own hardware, it doesn't clog up your mail server and it doesn't need to use one of your exisiting servers. I want it bought but the SMT here are still umming and ahing.

[Dos_Box]

this week we're having something called "policy central" installed thats supposed to watch what they're on/typing and e-mail us snapshots when "forbidden or dodgy things" are typed..my judgement is out on that too, until I've seen it. I reckon it'll load up the mailsystem quite amusingly..

Policy Central is crap. We had them over here trying to flog it to us, I was most unimpressed. Securus does the same thing, it uses its own hardware, it doesn't clog up your mail server and it doesn't need to use one of your exisiting servers. I want it bought but the SMT here are still umming and ahing.

So you have to buy a Securus server to run it on? Many of us would prefer something that we could control where and when it was deployed. One demo does not a bad product make, and I have yet to hear any more comments on it. Perhaps someone here has used it more in-depth and can comment?


P.S. I edited your post for swearing. Remember, we are being watched and would prefer not to get blocked by various LEAs' for profanity on our site.

[Sirbendy]

when they told us about what it could do (detect phrases like "I'm going to kill you" etc), I started laughing..when all the other IT Techs looked at me with confused expressions, I explained that it'd cut out teh amusement for me and Steve then...we'd be able to find out who's threatening us by mail..

[alan-d]

Policy Central 8O

We did a pilot for it - it was very good at what it does - in fact it was too good!!! There was very little room to tweak it to specific requirements.

Biology and physcology students could not even use word to type up course work !

The second version may be a little friendlier - I'd be interested to hear any feedback on that one. We were asked to pilot that too but we had too many commitments at the time.

[Sirbendy]

Feedback it is then.. I think it's this week it's going in..

[Norphy]

P.S. I edited your post for swearing. Remember, we are being watched and would prefer not to get blocked by various LEAs' for profanity on our site.

My apologies. Maybe implementing a swear filter might be a good idea?

As for Securus, yes you have to buy a box from them. However its not some massive pedastal box with Windows or *nix on, its a little black box like an integrated appliance with a custom OS and a 80GB hard drive in it. You have complete control over it and its up to you where and when you deploy it.

I admit we didn't look that much in depth to Policy Central. They came and installed it on one of our servers, briefly showed us the admin interface and went again. Sadly noone followed it up. However from what I've seen Securus is the much better product. It is more easily customisable. You can set different severity levels for violations. You can add custom violations. You can have it log violations when the PC is not attached to the network and have it upload them when its reattached. Finally the client has an MSI installer which is more than Policy Central had. Securus is the better product imo and the pricing is similar.

[mac_shinobi]

My apologies. Maybe implementing a swear filter might be a good idea?

Whilst your making that swear filter, any chance you can put the words ibook and mbna in the swear list lol Just I want my ibook asap and waiting isnt something I do well and mbna suck at getting one piece of paper work out to me to get this process started and so they are both swear words to me until I get my ibook lol.

[artram]

Have you looked into Impero?

It is solely software. The server and workstation bits run as services and the console portion runs as an executable. It comes with a distribution tool that allows you to push the workstation client out to your workstations so no need to package to roll out using other methods.

Allows you to set up either blocked resources or allow only ones. You can stop users from logging in more than once (admins can be exempt). You can block resources in real time.........

Here's their url:

http://www.imperosoftware.com/impero.asp

Hope you like it. It has worked wonders for us.