8e6 Enterprise Reporter Assists San Diego City School District in Preventing Potentially Fatal School Shooting.

ORANGE, Calif. -- 8e6 Technologies, a leading supplier of Internet Content Filtering, Monitoring and Reporting Appliances, today made public their most riveting success story to date. In late May 2005, network and security personnel at one of San Diego City School District's larger high schools in San Diego, CA were able to prevent a potentially fatal incident from occurring at the school using the data provided by 8e6's Enterprise Reporter.

The 8e6 Enterprise Reporter (ER) (http://www.8e6.com/products/er3/index.htm) is the only stand-alone appliance that reports on Web usage without compromising filtering speed/performance or any other server/network functions. Built on a dedicated MySQL server database that works in conjunction with the 8e6 R3000 content filtering and monitoring appliance (http://www.8e6.com/products/R3000/index.htm), the ER processes and generates detailed or summarized reports in a fraction of the time of competitive products, making it the fastest and most flexible reporting solution developed to date.

The incident involved a teacher at a San Diego area high school who received an anonymous death threat from a student via his school email account. Due to the life-threatening nature of the email, and the fact that the student had imposed an actual date that the violence would occur, it was critical that the student be identified immediately and handled accordingly. The email was forwarded to the high school's Network Technician, who then brought in Grant Gutstadt, the District's Security Administrator, to help him work the case.

Using data procured via the district's Enterprise Reporter, Gutstadt was able to obtain the exact time stamps of when the Yahoo user logged in and sent the threatening email in question, and the internal IP address of the Cisco content engine through which the sender was connected. From corresponding log information in the Cisco caching engine, the specific Yahoo user's host IP address was obtained. A network scan of the IP address revealed it was online and fingerprinting identified the configuration as likely a student computer. With its subnet belonging to one of the site's internal wireless networks, the search focused on one of ten computers currently in use in that class. "Our Enterprise Reporter was key in collecting the exact data we needed in a very short amount of time. Within 24 hours the information procured helped narrow the number of suspected students to less than a dozen," Gutstadt explained.

Armed with the data Gutstadt was able to collect using the 8e6 Enterprise Reporter, the site technician was able to isolate the exact computer used to email the death threat. Under the supervision of a police officer, the specific computer in question was identified by matching the wireless network card's MAC address to the information provided by Gutstadt. Finally, by using the physical computer checkout records from the day and time the email was sent, the site technician was able to identify the student to whom that machine was checked out that day. The suspected student was then apprehended and arrested, and will be legally punished accordingly.

"Our Enterprise Reporter server has provided us important data on critical occasions such as this one, which is invaluable to any school system," Gutstadt said. "With more than 50,000 users, 8e6's solutions afford us excellent protection for students and staff, and allow us to maintain a single policy across our 200 school sites. This simplifies our support needs and we are able to allocate our resources - which are always in short supply - to other critical support needs."

"Fortunately these kinds of incidents don't happen very often at this particular school, but with violence in schools being an ongoing issue throughout the U.S., it is important for schools to take the proper precautions and be prepared to react quickly when these situations arise. All schools should have a solution in place like the Enterprise Reporter, which was the critical element in preventing a potentially fatal tragedy at our school," Gutstadt added.

San Diego City Schools serve approximately 136,000 students. It is the second largest district in California, and eighth largest urban district in the United States. The district's mission is to improve student achievement by supporting teaching and learning in the classroom.

"It is success stories like these that validate 8e6's ongoing effort to offer the absolute best products and solutions in the industry," said George Shih, CEO of 8e6 Technologies. "It is preventing tragedies like what almost happened in San Diego, and protecting both students and staffs at schools throughout the U.S., that prove what an invaluable resource our appliances are to the education arena."

About 8e6 Technologies

8e6 Technologies is a leading provider of appliance-based URL filtering web-use reporting, IM and P2P control solutions. Since 1995 8e6 has provided scalable network solutions to enterprise, SMB, government and education customers worldwide. Located in Orange, California, 8e6 assists its customers in reducing liability, improving employee productivity and preserving network resources. For more information regarding 8e6 Technologies, visit our website at www.8e6.com.