The design and implementation of an agent-based framework for acceptable usage policy monitoring and enforcement

Abstract

Reliance on the Internet in the workplace means that manually monitoring compliance with an Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP) is impractical given the volumes of data generated. Therefore, for such a system to function effectively, the processing of vast audit trails obtained must be processed by automated means. This paper introduces the incorporation of a novel user-monitoring framework into the domain of software agents for large-scale auditing of Internet use with possible extensions to general network use. It is intended that such an approach would replace current ad-hoc methods such as those based on perusing server logs with a more accurate representation of user activity. The system described herein is an experimental multi-agent one provisionally known as WebEngzilla, which actively monitors and reports on the Web browsing behaviour habits of network users unifying an ambient client monitoring system with a distributed data mining back end.