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General discussion

How do I track external use of my router, like web activity?

May 30, 2008 1:44PM PDT

My brother-in-law is staying with us for a while as he's "getting on his feet." Wife and I work, and kids are home after school. They never seem him leave, and it seems to me like he's not looking for a job, yet he has a decent computer and other nice things for a 27 year old with no job, girlfriend, or friends with any means. My suspicion is he's doing something that might be illegal in our house during the day (he's had problems in the past). But my wife won't hear of it. He's often on the computer, and I'd like to make sure he's not using our DSL and house for inappropriate activities. Is there a way to monitor his internet/e-mail usage through my wireless router? I have an iMac 7.1 running OS X 10.5.2. My router is a 2 Wire 2701hg-b. His laptop is a pc compatible model. Dell, I believe. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Discussion is locked

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A lot of routers have a log
May 30, 2008 10:05PM PDT

containing a list of internet accesses. My old Linksys recorded the URL of websites visited. My new Belkin does not.

Log onto your router and check to see if it keeps a log.

To log onto your router you will have to refer to the manual that came with it but as you are using a Wireless network I guess you have already found how to access the router when you set the wireless network password.

Email is another problem which involves access to his machine and will not be covered here.

Of course, you could always deny his computer access to the internet, and then plead ignorance.

P

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NO log
May 31, 2008 11:37PM PDT

Thanks. I checked the router, and the 2wire website, which is not all that helpful, and I could not find anything about a log, other than a firewall log, which I cannot find on my setup screen.