But with Socks, all transaction s must make their way from the network level down to the application, then back up to the network level, so logging into an application level is easy. Socks5 also can proxy and cache DNS lookups or coexist with an internal DNS system that forwards Internet queries to an external host. Socks5 lets you deny access to users who do not have departmental permission to use the Internet. It fully logs all accesses for security purposes. And software that creates usable reports out of this data is available.
Reports can show top sites, or ports, sorted by data transferred or number of hits.
They also can show failed connections, daemon restarts and other standard statistics, depending on the implementation you use. However, you must configure a Socks client for applications that don't natively support Socks. For Windows applications, this is typically done with a Socks launcher. The freeware program SocksCAP, for example, works great for most applications, homegrown or otherwise. If you missed Richard Hoffman's column, Resisting The Path of Least Resistance, take a moment to read his unique view on what Microsoft has become.