Monitoring search engine usage

[Julian1]

Hi,

 

I'm told that if a student types something like "pipe bomb" into a search engine, an immediate alert needs to be sent to the DSL. Currently we're using Lightspeed but (correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think it has this capability. Can you recommend something that would enable this kind of monitoring?

[SteveB_NI]

Securus does that - it monitors key strokes for certain terms & generates alerts.

 

Problem with a lot of search engines is that it’s encrypted I believe which makes content filtering difficult surrounding them.

[Julian1]

Securus does that - it monitors key strokes for certain terms & generates alerts.

 

Problem with a lot of search engines is that it’s encrypted I believe which makes content filtering difficult surrounding them.

 

Ugh, I hadn't thought about encrypted traffic. Sounds like it will have to be some kind keystroke monitoring software, maybe AB Tutor.

[3s-gtech]

You can break the encryption if you have MITM certificates installed and your filtering can do it. At least, currently.

[georgeescott]

I had a lightspeed rocket many years ago and it had SSL inspection along with capturing search engine queries so I believe it’s possible.

 

Worth checking their knowledge base or contacting their support on what it’s like now.

 

https://help.lightspeedsystems.com/s/search-page?s=SSL%20decryption

[hallb15]

NetSupport does keyword monitoring. It works very well allowing you to set which categories result in a snapshot of the offending word being typed and which are just logged etc.

[sigma]

Impero can also be configured to do it, so can Netsweeper - I would excpect such terms to be in mornitoring categories for both products - such as one of the NCA lists, or can be configured manually.

[Wave9_Lee]

Hi,

 

I'm told that if a student types something like "pipe bomb" into a search engine, an immediate alert needs to be sent to the DSL. Currently we're using Lightspeed but (correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think it has this capability. Can you recommend something that would enable this kind of monitoring?

Lightspeed does this, so perhaps it's configured incorrectly or you have a legacy LS product? Let me know if you need some support from LS.

 

The Alert product uses both AI and Human interpretation to understand the context too - so is an improvement on simple keystroke logging, which could probably raise a lot of false positives. Https inspection shouldn't be an issue as the Agent is imbedded on the device - are you using a rocket type product?

 

cheers

[MartinT]

Smoothwall does our search terms filtering but you do have to have inspect/decrypt enabled (for secure Google and Bing) with the certificate distributed to the workstations.

[SchoolsBroadband]

All decent filters should do this.

 

Lightspeed does so long as you do ssl decryption.

 

Dave

[Julian1]

Lightspeed does this, so perhaps it's configured incorrectly or you have a legacy LS product? Let me know if you need some support from LS.

 

The Alert product uses both AI and Human interpretation to understand the context too - so is an improvement on simple keystroke logging, which could probably raise a lot of false positives. Https inspection shouldn't be an issue as the Agent is imbedded on the device - are you using a rocket type product?

 

cheers

We're using Lightspeed Rocket - I've no idea which version or how old it is; I don't have full access as our IT administration is outsourced - unfortunately our outsourcers are not being very communicative at the moment.

[Wave9_Lee]

We're using Lightspeed Rocket - I've no idea which version or how old it is; I don't have full access as our IT administration is outsourced - unfortunately our outsourcers are not being very communicative at the moment.

If you upgrade/switch to the client/cloud version then you'll be good. Given that it's a safeguarding issue, I would suggest putting your request/concern/requirement in writing to the highest exec you can identify in the outsourcer and copy in your line management/SMT.

[GrumbleDook]

NetSupport does keyword monitoring. It works very well allowing you to set which categories result in a snapshot of the offending word being typed and which are just logged etc.

 

Yep, this is available via on prem NetSupport DNA or via cloud-hosted classroom.cloud. @Julian1 Let me know if you want more info.