A little about me before you get the answer. I am a computer professional that has been working in the IT industry since 1997, with experience working with IBM and the government. For a number of years before I moved to New Zealand I ran an own IT company and one of the services that we offered was low cost network protection for business. We worked for a large number of small businesses, restaurants, hotels, print shops, accounting offices etc. and supported everything from the desktop computers to the network servers. One recurring concern was that staff at these places were using the internet for non work related items. One hotel had us block everything except around 20 websites from all staff computers as the staff were downloading movies or spending all day on dating sites or Facebook. This type of service can cost thousands to implement with high end servers and rules, but they did not want to spend much. We offered them a solution where we installed the hardware and special software for a set monthly fee that included all updates and maintenance on the system. The result was hundreds for a solution that they never needed to worry about.
So the New Zealand government has enacted a copyright law that will work towards stopping peer to peer sharing in New Zealand. The problem is that the law focuses on the internet account owner rather than the person who downloads the material. The big question is this: How can the small to medium size business that offers internet to its customers protect themselves. As papers have pointed out, most businesses can not afford to install the hardware needed to block this type of internet usage nor can they afford to employ a full time computer professional to monitor the new hardware etc. I have an answer that will help most small to medium businesses provide free internet to users protect them from having peer to peer network connections used and not break the bank.
So if you are a bit tech savvy have a geek you deal with or just want to give it a try I will tell you how to solve this. Of course I am happy to help sort you out as well for a reasonable fee, but that is not the point, which is that you can do this for a slight cost. So first off you need a computer you no longer use, anything from a Pentium 4 and up will work. You will need two network cards and the free version of Untangle and follow the instructions from here http://www.untangle.com/How-to-Install-Untangle-Apps?sku=UN-80-LTE-9999-0FREE . I am not going to go through every step as I am providing this expecting that whom ever is installing will have a bit of tech experience or they are willing to read the Untangle website.
This product knocked my socks off. I set it up for the hotel and just logged everything that happened for a week so they could see if it would be a benefit. The owners were shocked to see how much time the staff spent on sites that had nothing to do with work yet complained they did not have time to get the work completed. The reports were enough to convince the owners and managers that this product was everything they needed. The web filter stopped the surfing right away limiting what the staff could go to. The protocol control stopped the peer to peer traffic and they were able to see how many machines had virus and many other issues.
I am telling you all of this to help you the small business owner find a cost effective way to deal with the new Copyright Law here in New Zealand without costing you an arm and a leg. If you want help with this call your geek and have them look over the documentation or send me a message to arrange a consultation.