I recently posted an enhancement with the Squid Development team and it was initially 
suggested that this request could be done outside of squid using a redirector etc.

As a background, I work in a State Government Department in Sydney, New South Wales, 
Australia and I'm looking for a mechanism to manage the amount of time that 3000+ 
staff spend on the internet.

We are using squid and squidGuard on Solaris 2.8 to filter various url's within the 
categories of "Inappropriate sites (Porn etc.)" which are not allowed 24hrsx7days and 
"Non-business related sites"  which are disabled during business hours of 7:00am to 
7:00pm Monday - Friday and the rest is available 24x7.

As you would be aware, this requires a lot of overhead for both the Web/Unix 
administrators.  In addition, it can lead to a level of frustation from user's who 
expect to have access during lunch times (anywhere between 11:00am - 2:30pm), to sites 
such as internet banking which are deemed non-business related.  This expectation is 
still assumed even though the Internet Policy outines the use and misuse of the 
internet etc.

The department has encouraged the use of the internet and web technologies, although 
of late, the network is being further stressed given a limited budget and bandwidth to 
support the increased usage and demands.

So, I am considering a business model which will allow different users to have varying 
levels of access and times to sites etc.

For example:

1.  All staff - Unlimited access to all government, education and approved business 
related sites.

2.  All staff - Approx. 30 minutes to 1 hour per day, between the hours of 7:00am to 
7:00pm Monday-Friday or lunch time)  access  to non-business related sites.

3.  Approved Staff - (x hours will be supported during x times) to access non-business 
related sites.

4.  All Staff - No access to Inappropriate Sites.

Although this is only at a conceptual stage, the idea would allow users to have a 
level of access and time, which could be reset daily, and my staff to focus more on 
blocking inappropriate sites, which are continually changing locations etc.

Therefore, I was hoping to see whether you could point me in the right direction or 
perhaps consider this model as part of the squidGuard development.

Looking forward to your response.

Mal

Malcolm Morgan
Manager, Support & Network Operations

Dept. Land & Water Conservation,
Level 8, 10 Valentine Avenue,
Parramatta  NSW  2150

Phone: (02) 9895-7660
Fax: (02) 9895-7086
Mobile: 0411 252 903
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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