Forensic Software or School Guardian which one

[Grommit]

Forensic Software or School Guardian which one would is better for web filtering and which one would you use to filter your internet

[tech-man]

We use Secure Computing SmartFilter which has recently gained Becta accreditation - a very

good product. We purchased it from Brightfilter - Delivering online protection for Enterprise, LEAs, Business, Education and the Home. I understand they supply it to some LEAs for RBCs. Support is first rate and the response filter list changes are very fast. Well worth a look.

[plexer]

School Guardian is BECTA accredited is the other one?

 

Ben

[Grommit]

School Guardian is BECTA accredited is the other one?

 

Ben

 

So is RM and elonex BECTA accredited ...

 

Forenesic OSftware looks vey good as is handles cyber bullying as well ?

 

Forensic Software Limited

[Hecate]

We use Forensic and are reasonably happy with it

[plexer]

School Guardian is an edge device filtering all outbound web traffic, policy central is a client based monitoring and compliance product.

 

You can't really compare the 2.

 

Ben

[jamin100]

Another +1 for forensic software.

[GrumbleDook]

We have 3 tier filtering (5 if you include the firewalls).

 

We have the RBC firewall, followed by RBC NetSweeper (transparent proxy used for general clearing out rubbish), then our internal firewall (seriously locking out who can and can't try to access anything other than by our prescribed routes) which also does our NAT, then we have Smoothwall and we are now implementing Securus for client level.

 

Other than some anonymisers (mainly due to being 2 version behind on smoothwall) we don't have any issues.

[Grommit]

We have 3 tier filtering (5 if you include the firewalls).

 

We have the RBC firewall, followed by RBC NetSweeper (transparent proxy used for general clearing out rubbish), then our internal firewall (seriously locking out who can and can't try to access anything other than by our prescribed routes) which also does our NAT, then we have Smoothwall and we are now implementing Securus for client level.

 

Other than some anonymisers (mainly due to being 2 version behind on smoothwall) we don't have any issues.

 

The issue is anonymisers.... I really need to get those blocked and I need to make a case for smooth wall (Web filtering not Proxy) against Forensic..

[eejit]

We have 3 tier filtering (5 if you include the firewalls).

 

We have the RBC firewall, followed by RBC NetSweeper (transparent proxy used for general clearing out rubbish), then our internal firewall (seriously locking out who can and can't try to access anything other than by our prescribed routes) which also does our NAT, then we have Smoothwall and we are now implementing Securus for client level.

 

How do you have the time to look through the logs though? Especially with Securus we would need a full time techie to look through all the violations.

[GrumbleDook]

The latest version of school/network guardian is your best bet I think ... even with our version being 2 versions behind it catches more than NetSweeper does.

[tom_newton]

OK, i'll start by saying i'm a bit* biased, so take my advice as you will

 

If it was a "Pick one" scenario, i'd take the SmoothWall, simply because as an edge device it will do a better job of web filtering. If it was a "I have real deep pockets" job, I would definitely go for both as the client-side screen-scrapey things can be useful for non-web stuff like catching flash games off USB sticks.

 

In terms of cyber-bullying - we already have some instant messenger control and logging, and we're expanding to log forum/youtube posts as well. Youtube videos are also logged by popularity, which can spot inappropriate additions quickly.

 

Anyway, if you need to know anything in particular about SmoothWall, please do give me a ring.

 

*less than you might think, actually.

[Grommit]

Is Forensic Teksys ?

[jamin100]

No - Policy Central Enterprise

[Domino]

I've not experience of forensic, but my dealings with school guardian in a school enviroment have always been very very good.

 

anonymous proxies are pretty much wiped out by it

 

plus, you can't argue with the price.....

[Grommit]

If we add Securus into the discussion... whould this be the better choice ? Rather than Smoothwall or Forensic ?

[Ric_]

@Grommit: Since your reason behind the purchase it to prevent the use of anonymisers, Smoothwall is the obvious choice - it sits there and filters and it is extremely well priced.

 

If your motivation behind the purchase was to combat a cyberbullying problem, Securus or Forensic are the products to go for since they will scrape the screen catching nasty emails, word processed documents, etc.

 

I think that ideally, you would get both types of product but the screen-scraper things are very rpicey and are therefore hard to justify if you don't have a perceived problem.

[bossman]

We run IPcop proxy here and to date it has cost us nothing for 5 years got virtually everything nailed down even the PHP and CGI proxy sites and as for Cyberbulling through e-mail we run Zimbra which uses a bad word filter log which denies the sender and redirects bad messages to an alias account which can be accessed by anyone who has access to this account and reports made.

Looking at a project to create a client which will capture screen and log to database any bad words or abusive comments.

We don't have much by the way of funding so we have to look at building certain things ourselves.

[Grommit]

@Grommit: Since your reason behind the purchase it to prevent the use of anonymisers, Smoothwall is the obvious choice - it sits there and filters and it is extremely well priced.

 

If your motivation behind the purchase was to combat a cyberbullying problem, Securus or Forensic are the products to go for since they will scrape the screen catching nasty emails, word processed documents, etc.

 

I think that ideally, you would get both types of product but the screen-scraper things are very rpicey and are therefore hard to justify if you don't have a perceived problem.

 

mmm OK... which is better for Screen Scraping ... Forensic or Securus ?

[Abaddon]

Good question.. I've been using Securus for a number of years now, and had no problems until recently.. which, in fairness, they are coming in to work at until resolved. I'm a long way down the line to swapping to Policy Central though at this point. I've been trialling that, and it's had no issues yet.

 

I don't want to compare the two here at the moment, as I think the issues with Securus would level the field if fixed properly, but I'd be interested in other opinions.