Every wanted an easy to use network analysis tool that tells you almost everything that is going on with your computer? Enter
Ntop. Ntop runs as a service for Windows 2000 and Windows XP machines and provides a web interface for browsing network protocols, bandwidth usage, host information, and overall network load. It provides nice graphs that even the semi-technical person can understand. I can think of a number of uses for Ntop, not the least of which is the ultimate corporate IT spyware. Ntop provides data export facilities that could be scripted to export network usage data on shutdown to be imported into a centralized repository for reporting and analysis. Routines could be run on the imported data to send alerts to corporate IT to alert them on porn usage and other promiscuous activities. Ntop could be used to alert corporate IT about virus propagation. Again, a ton of potential applications for this very basic and robust utility.
