Comments on: What software are there to track which websites a wireless router user has visited? http://www.a86.co.uk/what-software-are-there-to-track-which-websites-a-wireless-router-user-has-visited/ This is A86 Raw and Clear Sat, 24 Apr 2010 20:05:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Barbara Wills http://www.a86.co.uk/what-software-are-there-to-track-which-websites-a-wireless-router-user-has-visited/comment-page-1/#comment-650 Barbara Wills Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:18:34 +0000 http://www.a86.co.uk/what-software-are-there-to-track-which-websites-a-wireless-router-user-has-visited/#comment-650 One solution is to setup a transparent proxy. This can be done as to not interfere with access but can provide all sorts of data including every web access or you can restrict certain sites if you really want to. There are several add-ons that have been done for squid to provide reporting from the logs that it can keep. A side benefit is that using caching you can maximize bandwidth and make browsing effectively quicker for sites that are visited frequently or by multiple users. This is basically a free solution. Any, say, old pentium machine with decent network cards, a fair amount of memory, HD space and Linux loaded on it can handle this. You could also use something like tcpdump (a packet capture utility) which can monitor *all* traffic going through the network. This too is a free program. The average user would have no idea if you were using any type of 'tracking' method. And all but the most knowledgable would be aware of certain methods (eg tcpdump can be quite difficult to determine if it is being used depending on how it is used). While it would be pretty easy for someone to realize that they are going through a proxy (eg. a random error with the proxy accessing a page) this can be excused as being in place for the speed benefit. Many corporations probably use some commercial software, mainly because they have a budget and don't care so much about cost as they do prettiness and nifty charts and reports that a program can make for them with ease. There is plenty of open source software that can do just as much. For more possibilities do a search on freshmeat or sourceforge. One solution is to setup a transparent proxy.
This can be done as to not interfere with access but can provide all sorts of data including every web access or you can restrict certain sites if you really want to. There are several add-ons that have been done for squid to provide reporting from the logs that it can keep. A side benefit is that using caching you can maximize bandwidth and make browsing effectively quicker for sites that are visited frequently or by multiple users.
This is basically a free solution. Any, say, old pentium machine with decent network cards, a fair amount of memory, HD space and Linux loaded on it can handle this.
You could also use something like tcpdump (a packet capture utility) which can monitor *all* traffic going through the network. This too is a free program.

The average user would have no idea if you were using any type of ‘tracking’ method. And all but the most knowledgable would be aware of certain methods (eg tcpdump can be quite difficult to determine if it is being used depending on how it is used). While it would be pretty easy for someone to realize that they are going through a proxy (eg. a random error with the proxy accessing a page) this can be excused as being in place for the speed benefit.

Many corporations probably use some commercial software, mainly because they have a budget and don’t care so much about cost as they do prettiness and nifty charts and reports that a program can make for them with ease. There is plenty of open source software that can do just as much. For more possibilities do a search on freshmeat or sourceforge.

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