Cheers mate,
I should've pointed out that his machine is an inherited PC/Windows 7. With the exception of iPads/iPhones, everything else on my network is hardwired. The Airport utility only gives me Access Control to any wired/wireless Apple product on my network, such as my Airport Express.

I haven't used either but they may give you some control

Path Analyzer Pro :

* Research IP addresses, e-mail addresses, and network paths
* Pinpoint and troubleshoot network availability and performance issues
* Determine what ISP, router, or server is responsible for a network problem
* Locate firewalls and other filters that may be impacting your connections
* Visually analyze a network's path characteristics
* Graph protocol latency, jitter and other factors
* Trace actual applications and ports, not just IP hops
* Generate, print, and export a variety of impressive reports
* Perform continuous and timed tests with real-time reporting and history

ProteMac NetMine 2.0

This is more like "Little Snitch" for your computer traffic not strictly what you are after but you may be able to restrict what the little bugger can connect to etc
The Protemac website has a lot of other utilities and worth a browse.
Both are applications and you can download free trials of them to see whether they are suitable.

Stewie

Originally Posted by Hydrology

Cheers mate,
I should've pointed out that his machine is an inherited PC/Windows 7. With the exception of iPads/iPhones, everything else on my network is hardwired. The Airport utility only gives me Access Control to any wired/wireless Apple product on my network, such as my Airport Express.

The smart move is to either hard wire him into the Airport hardware or to wifi him on to it. Then you've got the control features of the Airport system to limit him. Of course, the real simple method is that you remove the computer from where he has privacy and put it in a place where you have oversight of what's going on.

There's actually two parts to this problem.

First, there's the monitoring software - MRTG does it, it's newer iteration as RRDTool will do it with added front-end visualizers (like Cricket), there are other choices out there too.

However, having something that'll monitor the traffic is only going to work if you can see the traffic in the first place. If you're using a switch (or router, which will usually use switch technology for ethernet/wired ports) a computer connected to one port won't be able to see the traffic destined to another port. That's the whole idea behind why switches are better than hubs.

In the business world there's two normal ways around this - use a switch that supports having a port in "promiscuous mode" where that port will spy on all traffic passing through the switch (not all that common on consumer-grade gear) or put a device between the switch and the up-stream router (not all that practical if you're using a modem/router/switch in a single device).

If neither of these is an option then you're down to relying on software installed on each computer reporting back to a central repository. The usual way of achieving this is using SNMP. You'll need to specifically enable SNMP on each computer (and may need additional software to collect the right data and make it available via SNMP) and then you'll need to run a collector - this is where MRTG, RRDTool/Cricket and others come in.

I haven't looked at the level of SNMP support in Windows for some time so I don't know how well it supports the relevant bits.

For further background try:

Simple Network Management Protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David

Not sure if you're still having this problem but if you are, you may find this app useful:

Examinet

It doesn't answer the question of _what_ each person is doing but it does show your Internet activity in real-time, which may help.

Knock up a fake letter from Warner/Disney/whatever movie studio/all of the above (ie multiple letters) in Photoshop.

Nice scary legal threat, reminding you of possible imprisonment. Don't make a big deal of it - just leave it somewhere where he'll find it.

Search the net and find some news articles about people that have copped the nasty side of studios. Print them out, and leave them with the nasty letter(s). Maybe an article or two on male rape that happens in prisons, for some added drama.

(And don't let him see this post!)

If you're relying on software installed on the computer that's being used by the person you want to monitor/control then be aware that they might actually be smarter than you think and will work out how to circumvent locally installed software. This is all too common from what I see - the number of school kids I talk to who know how to access the admin network at their schools and/or by-pass parental controls on their own computers is quite high.

There's not really and "set and forget" solution to this type of problem.

If you're serious about having good control/oversight on what's going on be prepared to learn a lot about how computers and networks operate. You'll need pretty good knowledge and on-going effort to keep any solution effective.

David