Colleges Leverage eTelemetry's Plug-and-Play Appliance to Identify Illegal Downloaders.

Locate Passively Maps Student Users to Their IP Addresses and PCs to Monitor Use of the Network

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Security and Identity Management is the number one issue that, "needs to be resolved for the institution's strategic success," according to EDUCAUSE's 2006 Issues Survey Report (http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0633.pdf).

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) knows this all to well. They regularly issue citations to colleges alleging illegal downloading occurring on their networks, but only provide an IP address and time stamp. For colleges faced with this citation, finding the actual identity of the music pirate is not easy.

Likewise, when a student's PC inadvertently sets off a virus, the campus IT staff has only the IP address of the infected PC. They must cull through switch logs, trace cables, and walk from room-to-room to find the person and the infected PC. This diverts valuable network engineering staff time from proactive activities that protect and enhance the campus network.

The College of Charleston, South Carolina, and Northwestern College of Orange City, Iowa, faced these issues until they installed eTelemetry's Locate.

"We've used Locate to identify and disable users downloading MP3s and students with virus-infected computers," says Harlan Jorgensen, Director of Computing Services at Northwestern College, adding, "In the past, it would have taken several hours to locate the person behind the IP address."

Locate passively analyzes network traffic to map the user to their IP address, their PC (MAC address) and their location (switch port) in real-time. Locate also archives this information for a historic record of person to IP, PC, and switch port. Now when an RIAA citation letter is received, the college uses Locate to look up the IP at the time cited in the letter and identify the student. Locate includes the capability to send that student an email and because the campus phone directory information is automatically pulled into the system Locate also provides the college with the student's phone number.

"Student-owned PCs, a rapidly changing user community, and bright students pushing the technology envelope make college networks especially challenging to manage," says Alan Schunemann, eTelemetry CTO, adding, "Locate is an affordable plug-and-play appliance that gives colleges endpoint visibility to support their identity management initiatives."

About eTelemetry

Established in 1999, eTelemetry, Inc. turns network traffic into business intelligence. Our products provide plug-and-play organizational visibility, giving business owners, IT management, security and support personnel a top-down view of all desktop-computing assets, the people using them, their activities and physical location. For more information, call 888-266-6513 or visit http://www.etelemetry.com.