[Crispy]

Yay for bad research. I personally have quite an adverse reaction to cig smoke, my sinuses immediately plug up with only a whiff, and stay that way for hours. I have a feeling I will be in that state a lot of the time in Japan...

[Crispy]

Well, when you do it to yourself for long enough, you just stop thinking about it. It's like how kids who get slapped around by their parents slap other kids around without even considering that those other kids might not like it. At least, that was my theory about the kids who slapped me around.

[cstaylor]

Maybe we should be handing out unfiltered cigs to all of the Japanese oldsters?

[kamome]

My company moved into a new office building that has a kitsuenshitsu (smoking room) on every floor--complete with a smoke filtering system and a nice view of the city. Even though it might have taken the best view in the office, I'm glad it's there. In our old building, everyone would smoke at their desks and in the conference rooms so that years of smoke build-up left the office looking dingy and nicotine stained. The office was absolutely ugly and it was embarrassing to even bring clients there. Now at least all the smoke is concentrated in one small room.

[cstaylor]

Cool, keep the cancer-kids all in one place. Just hope their clothes don't carry the stench with them.

[Crispy]

I personally think that smoking rooms like that in workplaces should require the users to dress in disposable paper suits before they go in, because their clothing will carry significant amounts of smoke particles with them.

[cstaylor]

I personally think

Sorry, pet peeve time. How else can you think? I'm guessing this is equivalent to "in my humble opinion"?

[Ataru]

Man, I fucking HATE cigerette smoke.. however, I'd be almost happy to put up with it else where in Japan if they'd JUST FUCKING BAN SMOKING IN GAME CENTERS.

[Crispy]

Sorry, pet peeve time. How else can you think? I'm guessing this is equivalent to "in my humble opinion"?

I'll keep that in mind. However, elsewhere people have been called because someone took their unqualified statement as intending to be the Gospel truth...

Oh yeah, and I should mention that my mother has worked as a researcher on a project to test the effectiveness of in-school smoking prevention intervention from the time I was born until about three years ago. The results were overwhelmingly negative, i.e. that sort of thing doesn't work. I coulda told her that, but she she needed hard evidence. Anyway, the next project is kind of the same deal, but for smoking cessation intervention. I predict the same result. Anyway, as a by-product, I have been steeped in anti-smoking propaganda (mixed with actual facts) my entire life.

[cstaylor]

Yeah, but the last thing we need is a bunch of healthy oldsters... keep them young'ns smokin' until they keel over.

[tokyojoe]

My company moved into a new office building that has a kitsuenshitsu (smoking room) on every floor--complete with a smoke filtering system and a nice view of the city. Even though it might have taken the best view in the office, I'm glad it's there. In our old building, everyone would smoke at their desks and in the conference rooms so that years of smoke build-up left the office looking dingy and nicotine stained. The office was absolutely ugly and it was embarrassing to even bring clients there. Now at least all the smoke is concentrated in one small room.

I love how Tully`s handles it by having that `fishbowl` for the smokers. It`s funny to watch the reaction of the oyaji when they realize they have to be relegated to the back room behind all the glass.

[kamome]

I love how Tully`s handles it by having that `fishbowl` for the smokers. It`s funny to watch the reaction of the oyaji when they realize they have to be relegated to the back room behind all the glass.

Hell, yeah! Starbucks is usually all non-smoking, too. Thank god for the American coffee chains! They may be infiltrating Japan with greedy capitalist fervor, but at least they provide a smoke free alternative to Doutor.

Btw, I grew up in a household with a mom who smoked two packs a day until she nearly keeled over from all the carcinogens and tar in her lungs. Growing up in an environment where I couldn't breathe turned me into a total anti-smoker.

I personally think that smoking rooms like that in workplaces should require the users to dress in disposable paper suits before they go in, because their clothing will carry significant amounts of smoke particles with them.

Totally. But everyone has to go in to the smoking room at some point if they want to hear all the office gossip. That's where the real shit goes down.

[cstaylor]

Totally. But everyone has to go in to the smoking room at some point if they want to hear all the office gossip. That's where the real shit goes down.

Nah, most of it goes on over email. That's what tcpdump is for.

[kamome]

That's what tcpdump is for.

Sorry, could you enlighten those of us who are technically challenged about tcpdump? Not being an IT guy, I have no idea what that is (but it sounds like a cool way to pick up office gossip).

[cstaylor]

That's what tcpdump is for.

Sorry, could you enlighten those of us who are technically challenged about tcpdump? Not being an IT guy, I have no idea what that is (but it sounds like a cool way to pick up office gossip).

Okay, now I know what profession Kamome is in: Marketing. Only Marketing folks ask questions that could be answered by Google.

[cstaylor]

Now, for the answer to your question:

Ethernet networks share a single wire (this is overly simplified, but you get the idea), so any traffic that travels on that wire is received by every computer on the network. The network card in your machine, by default, ignores network frames not meant for you. However, all (AFAIK) cards support a special mode called promiscuous mode (gotta love those engineers, wakawakawaka), where the card accepts frames destined for any address.

So, tcpdump is a program for Unix-based PCs like Linux or FreeBSD. If you are running a Windoze box, you can use Windump instead.

So, now the hard part: how do you sniff traffic if your network is switch based (and if your company can afford smoking rooms on every floor, I bet they're using switching technology), because switch-based networks don't forward network traffic automatically?

Step 1: try Windump anyways. See if you can read any traffic from the machine you want to sniff. If not, you'll need to buy off the IT guy (as he's the only one who can help you with step 2)

Step 2: Have the IT guy place a hub (a small box that connects network wires together) between your PC and the target machine in the network room of your company. If you are trying to sniff email traffic, then you need a hub connecting you and the email server computer. If you want to sniff web traffic, you need to connect with the gateway computer. Now you can sniff all traffic destined or originating from the target machine.

Step 3: Prepare your resume, 'cause unless you have a business reason for snooping, this is probably a great way to lose your job.

[kamome]

Well, I'll give it a shot, just to see what happens. How do I put my machine in promiscuous mode? (Again, forgive the amateur questions).

And no, I'm not in marketing, but I also don't have the time to research computer terms on Google (funny, though, that I have enough time to post comments on FG, though.....).

[cstaylor]

You must be in management then... 'cause all you need to do is connect the dots from my intro to Step 1:

However, all (AFAIK) cards support a special mode called promiscuous mode (gotta love those engineers, wakawakawaka), where the card accepts frames destined for any address.

So, tcpdump is a program for Unix-based PCs like Linux or FreeBSD. If you are running a Windoze box, you can use Windump instead.

So, what I was insinuating here (and Bucho Kamome didn't get) is that TCPDump (or WinDump on Windoze) puts your net card into promiscuous mode for you... otherwise you'd get a whole screen full of nothing.

[cstaylor]

Linux Tools For Network Analysis

[kamome]

otherwise you'd get a whole screen full of nothing.

Well, that's all I got when I ran Windump. Buying off the IT guy sounds like fun, but a difficult task, considering I have never met him/her and there is no IT help desk in my company.

So, what I was insinuating here (and Bucho Kamome didn't get)...

Oh, you've just gotta' love that techie sarcasm.

The thing with computers is, this stuff is not blatantly obvious to those outside the field. I'm good at surfing the internet and using MS Office applications, but that's about it. I also knew how to download from Napster when it was available. Now, I'm just an FG website junkie.

[cstaylor]

The thing with computers is, this stuff is not blatantly obvious to those outside the field. I'm good at surfing the internet and using MS Office applications, but that's about it. I also knew how to download from Napster when it was available. Now, I'm just an FG website junkie.

Did you reboot your machine after you installed the WinPCap library? Otherwise the driver won't load. You also need admin privileges (what version of Microsoft Windoze are you running?)

[kamome]

Yeah, I rebooted, but I have no admin privileges, that's for sure. I'm just a regular employee running Win 98 on a laptop connected to the network. They've probably restricted regular employees from doing this sort of thing.

[cstaylor]

If you're running '98, there's no security at all, so you don't have to worry about that.

Windump is a command-line program, so you'll need to open a command-window to run it:

start->run
command (press enter)
windump

This isn't the most user-friendly program in the world, so good luck.