Monitoring Internet and email

You may want to get legal advice specific to your location (state laws may vary) but generally, if an employer has notified employees that they should have no expectation of privacy in regards to electronic communications using company equipment, there is no legal barrier to monitoring either the destination or contents of electronic messages.

Technically, though, you have a real challenge because of the diversity of clients as there is no central point to monitor like there would be if you had an Exchange or Notes server. Exchange, for example, has a journalling function you can implement to log each and every message that travels through but even then, you would need a separate solution to deal with Web-based e-mail that bypasses theExchange system.

A lot of it depends on how important this is to the owner. Locking down and monitoring a network are expensive, both for software and personnel time required to implement and monitor. On the other hand, sexual harrassment and industrial espionage can be expensive as well and both commonly take place via electronic means.

I think I would probably start with a well-publicized audit of the desktop clients and then escalate as needed to deal with the folks that still aren't getting the message (so to speak).

paul

install proxy server and make all clients authenticate with username and password as they get on the internet. Tell everyone what you are doing, and that logs will occassionally be monitored for acceptable use. This honest approach would be preferable to sneaking around and spying on employees.
As for email, set limits on the size of the mail they can send and receive. This will curtail use of cartoon jokes, avi movies and sound files, that typically make the rounds among email users.