Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Internet Monitoring, Blocking, and Tracking



          Internet monitoring and blocking is a process of testing or tracking how web-end users interact with the internet.  Monitoring is essential to ensure that a website is available to users and downtime is minimized.  No matter what age one is looking to monitor, internet monitoring is essential.  Internet monitoring is the only way for one to know what is going on. Parents can give their children some freedom with internet monitoring.  It is also important for employers to help ensure employees follow the company guidelines.  There are also many criminals on the internet, and no one can trust these people.  It is very important to keep the ones around you safe.  Unless one has a monitoring software, one cannot know for sure what is going on.  With internet monitoring, one can ensure that a child will not stumble upon sites with highly inappropriate content and teens will not be encountered with situations meeting an online buddy they are talking to.  Once a skeptical website or chat is detected, the internet monitoring program will then block the source.  Blocking is important for allowing zero access to inappropriate websites and chats.  
          Electronic passage through the internet leaves a path that can be traced.  Tracking is a process that follows the Internet activity backwards to the source.  There are many different tracking tools.  One tracking tool is cookies.  Cookies are computer files that are stored on a user's computer during a visit to a website.  The cookie is a tracking device, which records electronic movements made by the user at the site.  Commercial websites use cookies to allow a user to establish an account on the first visit to the site to avoid entering account information each time.  Cookies can be disabled.  Bugs or Beacons is another type of tracking.  It is an image that can be installed on a webpage or in an email.  Bugs cannot be disabled.  The user's IP address, email, computer's operating system, URL, and the browser that was used can be gathered by bugs.  Active X or Java Script are other trackers.  These computer-scripting languages are automatically activated when a site is visited.  This creates "pop-up" controls. Email tracking is also possible.  It is possible to trace the path of the sender to the path of the receiver.  The IP address can be used to track the true origin of an email.  Tracking is important in finding out crucial information about the computer owner's usage. 

No comments:

Post a Comment