Campus network questions.

Thanks everyone for your contribution. My school are blocking P2P mainly because they want to cut bandwidth usage and cost, legit stuffs are second reason. They used to allow P2P just one or two years ago, now they ban it, they said last time there are too many people using it and many times causing the network to overload and shutdown. We still share files quietly (underground) but they are mainly anime and recent movies, no mp3, no ebooks and the files are too little. I am not so needing P2P, so I don't care much (but would also be great if I can know how to circumvent it), I am more interested in how the network works. If it is a LAN, is it that we can sniff packets? because I tried Ethereal and it is not capturing anything! Also can I see who is on the same LAN? Thanks.

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If it is a LAN, is it that we can sniff packets? because I tried Ethereal and it is not capturing anything! Also can I see who is on the same LAN? Thanks.

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yes you can sniff packets, if you on a switch it will be a bit harder than a hub. make sure you have the proper NIC selected in etheral, or it wont work, hehe.

Oh! I am not selecting the right NIC! that's why! thanks, it can capture packets now.

now I want to know how can I see who is on the same LAN... what's the technique?

When I was at uni they blocked p2p but you could easily tunnel through the restrictions with a HTTP tunnel. also once they were wise to this (disturbing that security was so lax for the one of the key UK mirror sites)

However becuase of this it motivated someone to create a p2p program specifically for sharing files within the university network, independant of netbios, it really was a good little program - but unfortunatly only worked due to the infrastructure consisting of hubs, and once these were replaced by switches with the ability to block individual ports this great little program ceased to be a useful (in its hayday there was about 5 terebytes of shared files (yea so they were all copyrighted files, but poor students, who can't get TV reception due to the 60's architure of the place need something to keep them entertained..))

once the switches were inplace it meant that sharing was limited to single accododation blocks, not really that great... there were ways around it (tunnelling again) but the setup needed to make the exisiting program work was to long winded to be useful for the average student, and No had the time (myself included) to create a patch, although I did do some work to see how viable this was - as for explusion, its simple, dont get caught, keep your gob shut and your head down, its usually the gobby idiots that get caught... (I wish to a certain extent I'd taken more advantage of the network and learnt more, but such is life, theres often more important things (drink, work, girls) definatly not in that order!)

i2c

Alright, for a switched network, you will not be able to directly sniff packets, you will have to do some ARP spoofing. Try a utility called Ettercap for switched networks.

If you are not on a switched network, you will be able to see all the traffic on your individual subnet.

Just remember, ARP poisoning is detectable, and it is most likely a TOS violation, and possibly illegal. Be careful.

I attend a nice college in the US.... They do not block P2P but they give you a fair warning that the government is watching university students..... Even if you find a way to break through all the restrictions of your campus's network.... most likely if you are unencrypted, you are at risk of getting caught and I would not recommend using a popular P2P for illegal files or any type of WAREZ.... Even FTP downloads could be risky if the filenames are obvious.... I live off campus so I am fortunate enough to have freedom of download.... If you are on campus.... Find an online buddy that is willing to help you find some of the files your looking for and send them to you encrypted on an open port.... I was actually wondering about this yesterday, Is there a good software for encrypting file transfers or the filenames, etc.? I have an FTP server that I was gonna set up for some buddies of mine that live on campus.... but I don't want anything to be sent non-encrypted through the schools log files..... I was also curious about this, Is it illegal to encrypt data since the DMCA(my least favorite law)... and will you get watched for encrypting data transfers? And one other thing.... Is there anyway to see if you are being watched.... tracert maybe?

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How about we try a new concept here. All that extra time you would spend on P2P, let’s use that for studying.

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Well if my major wasn't Computer Science I would agree with you on that.... but I believe that learning to defeat things such as campus network restrictions would be an educational thing for me to do if I were to persue a career in computer networking?

But I would have to agree with you in general..... Study.... not try to take advantage of your school's bandwidth..... Wouldn't it suck if you were a junior and you got kicked out because you downloaded something copyrighted?!?!? think about losing everything you have worked for and all the money you spent... lost for some file you could have lived without......

L8r,
Nate