Does the administrator of a LAN knows everything that goes on on the clients computers?

Question

like the web sites they visited and their email passwords and all that? and if that's true, how can a client protect himself??

so does the URL only appears or the page as a whole, foe example if I logged on to Yahoo Answers and asked a question, can he access that question and read it??

Answer 1

Most LAN administrators can't be bothered watching every web page you go to or reading every email you send, however what you will most likely find is that every web page you and everyone else visits is logged on a server (using a program similar to webmarshall (http://www.marshalsoftware.com/WebMarshal/))
The LAN admin will scan this log periodically looking for "abnormalities", this may be extensive use of inappropriate sites while using company resources etc... From there, unless your admin thinks they are gods gift to the world, they will normally just block access to that site and go on about there day. Unless they are absolute brats (or being dictated to by those higher above), they will report their findings to their supervisor who will decide what action to take. If serious enough they can then decide to monitor you more closely including emails etc. It is not uncommon from my experience (from the admin side) to see employers use these tactics as a way to dimiss an employee, they basicly "bait the hook" by letting you think you are not being monitored, wait for you to slip up by spending too much time on inappropriate sites/send the wrong emails etc. then dismiss the employee accordingly (I'm currently in the middle of performing this task at the moment for my boss, it's not pleasant! Slightly ironic though if you consider what i'm doing on this site!).
At the end of the day, the computers you use at work belong to the employer, as does the connection you use for the internet, so they have every right to access/monitor ALL information that enters/leaves the LAN !
You can use a proxy server to prevent log files being generated on the work server showing your true destination, however when you see that a user is using a proxy server, you get VERY suspicious, VERY quickly! And you could feel the wrath of your IT department for attempting to effectively bypass the systems that are in place. Some contracts will even state that attempting to bypass the systems in place can result in instant dismissal. If your IT person/people are not complete prats, then talk to them and ask them what the policies are.

Answer 2

No, but he can find out a bunch if he wants to. He probably does not have time to read every email. You could protect yourself by purchasing SECURE email, but you would need to decide if it were worth it to you. Remember, not JUST the LAN administrator has access to your information if you fail to take steps to secure your computer, but any other hacker in the world that would decide to hack you! Probably the easiest and least expensive way to secure your computer is to reformat your hard drive, and install kubuntu at www.kubuntu.org because Windows users are vulnerable to at least 114,000 virii that do not infect open source software. If you have Windows, even with an excellent up to date Antivirus software, there are still over 1000 virii that can infect your computor because the best antivir software is only about 99% effective.

Answer 3

Remember. It's the LAN administrator's network and he is protecting it from you. If your afraid someone can see where your going or what your doing you should simply not do it. I have sniffers on my LAN that see traffic when it leaves any isers PC so there is no hiding that.

Answer 4

Yes.

Every computer have a history stores that will tell you what website you have been visiting.

Answer 5

Depends on how he has everything set up. For the most part...yes.