Tech Forum

Does anyone know of a router I can buy that can track each individual device by MAC address, so I can see what's coming and going? In this world of BYOD, my teenage daughters have their friends over, and "Dad, what's the WiFi Password?" is happening all too frequently. I would rather they "hang out" at my home rather than other homes, partly, so I can see what's going on.

I recently attended a fireside on Pornography, and they said you need to eliminate all private access to the Internet, for all children (And adults for that matter), or at least have a system they will understand every site gone will be reviewed by Mom and Dad. I need a solution.

I would prefer it be on the Router level, with a website dashboard where I can see and monitor, and if needed restrict, and filter based on URL, keywords, or time frames.

I currently use K-9 and it works great, but it doesn't work for handheld portable devices such as android based devices like Kindle and phones.

Thanks!
Keith

Blue Coat's K9 is available on routers that use ZoneAlarm. K9 provides logs for you as well. Maybe not as detailed but they could help you with info on how to interpret the data.

For smartphones and tablets used away from home, the K9 app is available for them, that's a modified Firefox browser, and again any URL they go to may be available in the logs as well.

Does K9 automatically send an email report yet about sites visited.. the only problem I ever had with K9 was I had to go in and look.. I'd rather have a report that can be directed to someone else... or a 'buddy'.

I would go to their site, getk9.com, and look for a support email address. They could tell you if it does, or how to get an emailed report, or if that is not a feature at present, that would be a very good feature request.

JohnShaw wrote:Does K9 automatically send an email report yet about sites visited.. the only problem I ever had with K9 was I had to go in and look.. I'd rather have a report that can be directed to someone else... or a 'buddy'.

I do not recall that it does, but I use my router for email reports.

That's probably true of most consumer routers, one would have to check the specs of any given router to see if you can get that type of data.

K9 will give you the categories of websites visited. Those categories that are heavily visited will show at the top. Even bad categories will see the occasional hit even though you may have the filter set to block them, simply because it keeps track of what categories you are visiting. You'll be able to spot any trends as far as problem categories. Some hits are simply because of ads or other links the K9 filter may have scanned on visiting some sites but this is infrequently seen. Use router logs for actual site URLs. K9 (and most other filters) will block those problem links from even being reachable.

As far as filtering goes, it's extremely good, probably better than just about anything out there and they have the mobile apps too. It's still not perfect or complete, so be sure to block 'unrated' sites too (most anything commonly visited is already rated and assigned one or more categories). No matter what filter you do use, be sure it has an 'unrated sites' category as that will trap almost anything not rated yet.

You could give openDNS a try, they have paid and free versions. Since it would be configured on your router then it would block any and all requests from your network.

dbooncha wrote:You could give openDNS a try, they have paid and free versions. Since it would be configured on your router then it would block any and all requests from your network.

Unless the device had it's own DNS settings.