Pre-Scan:
Prior to installing and running the PixAlert Auditor we need
to obtain permissions and inform appropriate staff.
- Is the company Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP) up-to-date and does it permit
auditing of company and personal information? We rely on you
to verify this with your HR department.
- Have those who need to know been informed that
a Discovery Audit is taking place? This typically includes the IT
Security or IT Manager and at least one management representative.
- Has a private
room been scheduled? The dedicated PCs
performing the Discovery Audit should be located in a private room to
ensure that no potentially unsettling images are inadvertently viewed
by members of staff.
The PixAlert Auditor software will be installed on one to three of your
PCs. This protects you and
us from inadvertently distributing potentially illegal or at
least highly inappropriate images. Before we can install and run
PixAlert
Auditor, we therefore need to have you put in place the following technical
measures:
- Are appropriate access credentials established?
The auditing PCs must have sufficient rights to perform all necessary
tasks associated with the audit including access to Personal Computers,
Email accounts, and server shares.
- Do the auditing PCs meet the minimum hardware
requirements?
- Windows 2000 or XP
- 512 Mb RAM
- 1 Gb free disk space
- Do the auditing PCs have the necessary software
for viewing documents:
- Microsoft Office
- Microsoft Outlook 2003/XP
- Suitable Graphics Viewer
Lastly, we enter into a non-disclosure
agreement to ensure your
information and data is kept safe and confidential.
Scan:
With the help and under the supervision of a
member of your IT staff, an Academy Technologies consultant will install the
PixAlert Auditor software
and start the scan of target PCs, server
shares and E-mail accounts. [PixAlert Auditor is able to directly scan MicrosoftExchange, Lotus Notes and Novell Groupwise]
When the scan is completed we will remotely connect to the PC,
categorize the suspect images and obtain the anonymous data needed to
prepare the report.
PixAlert Auditor will scan for over 100 image file types as well as
images embedded in Microsoft Office documents (Word, Excel, Power
Point), Outlook, Exchange, ZIP and RAR files. It uses 7
algorithms to determine the inappropriateness of an image:
- Body
- Face
- Background
- Foreground
- Luminosity
- Edge
- Texture
Depending on the amount of disk space scanned scans may take from a few
hours to well over a day. When PixAlert finds a possibly illicit image,
it creates a encrypted copy of it and deposits it on the auditing PC.
The copied image can only be viewed from within PixAlert. Scans are
performed unattended.
Categorization:
Once the scan is completed, an Academy Technologies consultant will remotely connect
to the auditing PC(s), view each image and assign it to a
category:
- Inappropriate
- Highly Inappropriate
- Probably Illegal
- Other
The image files never leave the auditing PCs and hence never leave the
corporate network. Image categorization is a manual process and may
take from an hour to several days. At the end of the categorization
the
Academy Technologies consultant will transmit (email or ftp) a file containing
secured and anonymous statistical data. Academy Technologies will use this data to create a report.
Please note that images and personal data are NOT contained in this
data file. This sensitive data remains on the auditing PCs on the
corporate network.
Report:
Academy Technologies will generate a report for management that contains information
about the audit process and of course scanning results such as the
number of images per category, the number of critical images per PC,
the source of images, etc. Images are not shown on the report and user
data is 'anonymised' meaning any user names are replaced with a proxy
name. The report of a paid PixAlert Audit includes an
appendix mapping real user names to proxy names.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us via on-line form or phone.
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Academy Technologies LLC
2666N 650E, Provo UT 84604
Tel: (888) 456-7226
Authorised to
distribute PixAlert software and services in USA. |
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