In theory, if someone were to download some inappropriate material through the Gnutella network at their place of work. Would this raise any red flags in the Technology Department. Basically can they track any downloads made to my computer?

mike

I would have to say... maybe. I'm not sure if they would be able to track the name of the file you're downloading. However, I'm almost positive they would be able to track that you downloaded a file. Also, I think if anyone looked, they would be able to see some strange network traffic patterns because of the Gnutella client. While your company probably doesn't explicitly forbid running Gnutella clients at work, I think as soon as they found out you were running it, they would tell you to stop. They would probably call it "Inappropriate use of company resources", or some such. I would recommend not risking it, and just wait til you get home.

Dave

I would have to say no. Depending upon your network. I know of a few people that use gnuttella hosted p2p software at some christian colleges that are able to get "inappropiate" material without throwing any flags up. One person in particular uses xolox. I agree that you shouldnt risk it.

Furthermore, at this institution, they do not have the ability to browse the contents of the students computers via the network, maybe other types of networks do, so downloading this material may not be a problem, but keeping it around would be. Just a thought.

Sure, all current traffic analyser e.g. tcpdump or Ethereal can trace and log any protocol, also the unencrypted gnutella protocol. If someone sniffs on a router or gateway, he can easy create a list of uploaded/downloaded files and assign it to an IP address.