glennw Posted October 10, 2006 Posted October 10, 2006 Currently have in school on evaluation the Securus PC misuse software .A very comprehensive and powerful tool . Anyone using this , or even more importantly can anyone suggest a cheaper alternative .The 7k quoted for Securus is way out of my league
plexer Posted October 10, 2006 Posted October 10, 2006 http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=search&mode=results Ben
Geoff Posted October 10, 2006 Posted October 10, 2006 You can't link to search results plexer, just link the individual posts/threads.
plexer Posted October 10, 2006 Posted October 10, 2006 hmm ok well in that case search for securus glen it's been done several times. Ben
plexer Posted October 10, 2006 Posted October 10, 2006 How about: http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=search&search_keywords=securus Ben
Richie1972 Posted October 25, 2006 Posted October 25, 2006 We had a trial of Securus and thought it was an excellent piece of kit - except for the explorer error on logging off the client machines (although we have been told there is a fix for that). The cost is the thing that's putting us off, so I'm toying with the idea of developing something simpler myself... We have around 300-400 machines that the kids have access to, so to put securus on them all would cost us a fortune
k-strider Posted October 25, 2006 Posted October 25, 2006 We use Securus, I quite like it Its quite a job trawling through it and working out what to process / hand on to teachers for punishment etc... good for catching those Web proxies.. it has a most common web sites visited too.. We actually bought it to cover our backs legally just so that we were being proactive in protecting the users... I get some interesting screen grabs from it... you learn all about all the secret affairs etc hehe... It’s also useful for finding things you want to look for, for example I added our unfiltered proxy so I could check it was just staff that were using it and not kids finding some way of changing the IE proxy On the Licensing front the way the rep explained it to me was that the server keeps track of the number of clients we have about 200 Lics so it keeps tabs on the first 200 concurrent users anyone after that it doesn’t keep tabs on... we have it deployed on about 300 stations but I haven’t ever seen the client count above 200 on the server... The server crashes occasionally.. but always when your browsing the console... so you know to go and restart it...
Ric_ Posted October 25, 2006 Posted October 25, 2006 @Richie_OLSJ: An cheaper alternative to Securus is definately something others would be interested in. I know that one of the biggest prohibitive factors for us was cost. Early releases of Securus also didn't enjoy working with Citrix which is also a must have feature but I believe that is sorted now.
Ravening_Wolf Posted October 31, 2006 Posted October 31, 2006 I had a Securus unit in my previous post and found that the ~7K price tag was probably worth it in terms of backup in the event of a legal issue. Despite the obvious system abuse deterrent, we also found that it had a pastoral side - at least two students with serious personal problems were identified for professional help following analysis of their web browsing behaviours. In such a situation, 7K is cheap and easily justified. The last time I spoke to one of the Securus reps, he did mention that there was a "home" version which schools could sell to parents for use on home PCs. Any such sales would carry a percentage kickback for the school which could be offset against the next years renewal costs. That might be worth looking into again also...
03jmason Posted February 27, 2009 Posted February 27, 2009 Hi, Securus is a good piece of software, but despite its claims, it can be bypassed. There isn't any alternatives that I know of, but you might be able to get someone knowledgeable to write a program that will do something similar. I myself have managed to write a cut down version of it, and whilst it doesn't have all the bells and whistles, it does do the job of catching anything that should be being typed etc...
garethEds Posted February 27, 2009 Posted February 27, 2009 Hi, Securus is a good piece of software, but despite its claims, it can be bypassed. There isn't any alternatives that I know of, but you might be able to get someone knowledgeable to write a program that will do something similar. I myself have managed to write a cut down version of it, and whilst it doesn't have all the bells and whistles, it does do the job of catching anything that should be being typed etc... and with boasts like that you just know someone is going to ask you for a copy - why not release it as an Edugeek project? Gareth
plexer Posted February 27, 2009 Posted February 27, 2009 here here would be very interested in this. I think ab tutor offers some of this too 1
wesleyw Posted February 27, 2009 Posted February 27, 2009 Policy Central is another contender. If you play them off each other you'll get a good discount. Wes
BlueDragon Posted March 2, 2009 Posted March 2, 2009 Depending on exactly what you are looking for from the solution you may want to look at NetModerator School Edition. Principally it looks to protect and moderate for bullying, sexual bullying, grooming, profanity, harrassment and other inappropriate conversations throughout the school network and will identify traffic from email, webmail, instant messenger, chat rooms, social networking sites, forums etc The benefit is that it requires no hardware or installation/configuration other than simply rolling out an agent on each machine and is licensed on a subscription basis which keeps your costs relatively low and managable. The false positive rates are very low as it does not rely on keywords or blocking techniques and uses over 200 factors to analyse the communication in context. By assessing and ranking risk, the system prioritizes alerts making it easy to manage and quickly identify top offenders or pupils at most risk.
tmcd35 Posted October 7, 2009 Posted October 7, 2009 here here would be very interested in this. I think ab tutor offers some of this too It's amazing, you have this software and don't realise half the features at your disposal. Just started checking into this as we can't afford to renew our Securus license. AB Tutor can monitor keywords and snapshot screens. Can also log all websites visited and all keyboard activity, etc.
Edu-IT Posted October 7, 2009 Posted October 7, 2009 I'm interested to know how Securus can be bypassed. I've not yet found a way, since it sits quietly in the background.
JJonas Posted October 8, 2009 Posted October 8, 2009 We have Securus and it caught a significant grooming event that resulted in a successful prosecution. So money well spent in my opinion.
TechR Posted October 8, 2009 Posted October 8, 2009 I'm interested to know how Securus can be bypassed. I've not yet found a way, since it sits quietly in the background. The Securus URL blocking doens't work at all. Enter a domain into the block list, create a shortcut to it using explorer. If you open it and refresh it a few times you'll get through on about the second or third attempt. Sometimes you get a few mangled bits of HTML from the "Access Denied!" page, but rarely. Chocolate teapot.
BJG Posted October 8, 2009 Posted October 8, 2009 I'm not a big Securus fan myself - very cumbersome.
JJonas Posted October 8, 2009 Posted October 8, 2009 The Securus URL blocking doens't work at all. Enter a domain into the block list, create a shortcut to it using explorer. If you open it and refresh it a few times you'll get through on about the second or third attempt. Sometimes you get a few mangled bits of HTML from the "Access Denied!" page, but rarely. Chocolate teapot. We had major problems with URL blocking as well - which is a shame as it can do some things that you cant do with cachepilot. We had problems with it not blocking things we told it to block We had problem with it blocking things that should not be blocked and we had problems with clients not updating their block lists (probably the cause of the first problem on my list)
TechR Posted October 8, 2009 Posted October 8, 2009 We've had one and three, but luckily not two. I think that would be the final straw that would result in it being ejected out of a window.
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