i have started a cyber cafe, and i really want to know how to use a sniffer?

Question

i mean, not for password theft, but just in case sumone sees porn on the computer, which is banned here. i have just a working knowledge of computers, and i don't really want to recruit a network administrator since they charge too much...could someone please tell me how to go about setting the program & viewing the data ??

Answer 1

Let me get this correct. You are running a public access point and want to trap all the traffic?

You may need to speak with a lawyer more than a system administrator.

Just block content that is not allowed with a firewall at the router or gateway machine! A good control prevents the activity before it occurs and you dont need to monitor your users data.

Answer 2

There are many kinds of "sniffers" - If you're looking for a packet sniffer, Ethereal and Microsoft's Network Monitor are popular, free choices although by default both on a Windows box can monitor only traffic directed to that machine. More is required to enable "promiscuous mode" which is probably what you really are asking about which enables collecting packet data on the network between other machines.

But, collecting packets is a poor solution for what you're asking about because you'll end up with a mountain of detailed data which have nothing to do with tracking web surfing habits, and sifting through all data (much less the effort collecting and storing) becomes an enormous problem.

Much better is to run any of a number of applications which automatically store traffic logs which is what you really want and much easier to manage and analyze.

You start with what your current wireless router and Internet Gateway devices already do, and if you need better information either consider changing the device (would probably cost about $800-1500 US nowadays) or installing an additional dedicated device which will collect the data for you.

Answer 3

Download ethereal for free and play around with it. It won't be much good to you unless you know how to read it but it will display network traffic including website URL's. It would be more effective to block adult content though but check out ethereal. I think it's the best freeware you can get. many similar programs are quite expensive.