Sniffing Network Traffic Question

[PeterGriffin]

Is there a way to sniff the traffic around your neighborhood if you are on a cable modem?

I always heard this was possible so I gave it a try and it didn't work. I am behind a firewall and I'm using ethereal for a sniffer.

I'm not trying to hack or anything, I'm just curious and these sorta things.

Can someone help me please.

[zskillz]

It is unlikely that you will get much support for this type of behavior from the people at this site.

Furthermore, it very likely that that your cable contract specifically outlaws you from doing anything like this. I would read your contract again. If there is no mention of it, then perhaps we can help out here.

-Z

[blubomber]

That is a good question and i am curious as to weather or not i cam be done. I am also on a cable broadband connection.

I do not see the harm in it either. As long as you only use the information gatherned to satisfy your curiosity and not try to use it to do any hacking. I would compare it to a radio scanner that somepeople use to listen in on cordless phones. Anyway, most of the information should be encrypted in someway.

[PeterGriffin]

I agree with blubomber but if you say that I shouldn't discuss that here I would completely understand. I just wasn't sure what the guidelines where on this matter. As far as a contract, I never had to sign one unless there was something that was just implied.

Anyways, if you can help I sure would appriciate it, but if not I'm sorry.

I'm currently in school learning network security but I'm only at the beginning stages and haven't learned much. Therefore I am trying to gain some experience as to what people see and what they could do with this information to become better at securing the data that goes across a network. We all have to start out somewhere, but if you can't get theinformation to get started it sure makes it hard to get into the career that you wanna get into. Any sugestion and how to go about exploring the hacking abilities if hackers without having to hack yourself and do anything illegal? I wanna learn but I guess the real secuity experts are all x-hackers themselve. Well I will learn somehow I guess.

I just wanna know this simple thing, so please help if you can.

[Darthv15]

Zskillz is right we won't really help you out with this, but I can tell you if you are behind a cable/dsl router you won't see anything. The router would be the limit of your broadcast domain, and thus your sniffing abilities. In fact I have a Cable/DSL router with a switch which also limits my abilities to see any other traffic on my LAN. I highly doubt you would be able to see any traffic even if you weren't behind a Cable/DSL router unless you really knew what you were doing.

[Siliconjunkie]

The modem will filter it out. In the old days of cable modems you could do this, but not anymore. And, as others have said it is illegal and most likely violates your agreement with your ISP, even if you didnt sign it.

[vass0922]

Peter if you want to learn sniff your own traffic.
I'm sure if you have something like kazaa open you'll get plenty to sort through

and don't forget most webmail sites don't use SSL for their username's/password (yahoo and msn offer it, but dont' think either one uses it by default)

[stant093]

network two comps together and make them secure, then try to tear into one from the other..ive tried that, never made it anywhere. but i had the same curiosity, i wanted to just get a little knowledge on security...it never hurts to know too much, as long as its NEVER abused. good luck with school!