[41] in Resnet-Forum
Re: secure hubs in dorms
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ann Stunden)
Mon Nov 8 11:33:12 1993
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 10:03:38 -0600
To: resnet-forum@MIT.EDU
From: anns@nwu.edu (Ann Stunden)
We're in the midst of the same discussion for exactly the same reasons.
And our Residence Halls staff think it's really important that we make
efforts to protect students from "being snooped". We are also in the midst
of getting approval for a significant policy about network and computing
citizenship that says that, I think, talks about snooping as one of the"bad
things". I need to check that out.
I dto am interested if anyone has recently made the decision to install the
smart hubs.
ann stunden
At 10:32 AM 11/8/93 -0500, lumm@spot.CC.Lehigh.EDU wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I'm new to the list so forgive me if this was discussed before.
>
>We're going to shortly being installing 10base-T Ethernet in dorm
>rooms here at Lehigh. Our question is whether it is worth the extra
>initial expense and greater administartive effort to install 'secure'
>hubs rather than standard 10base-T hubs. Secure hubs are the ones
>that scramble traffic to a port if it is not destined for the Ethernet
>address assigned to that port.
>
>The reason we are considering this is because of the risk of Ethernet
>snooping. Ethernet monitors are much cheaper these days, and there
>are PD Ethernet snooping programs available which are quite effective
>in fast machines with fast Ethernet cards. This plus the fact that
>snooping is a passive activity which we can not discover. We will
>have subnets separated by routers that will limit the snooping
>activities to the local net, but even that is quite a bit of exposure.
>
>What are other Universities doing about the Ethernet snooping factor?
>Not worrying about it? Do you have a policy about students snooping
>on each other's traffic, even though chances of actually catching
>someone doing this is quite small? If you were going to start
>installing dorm room nets today, would you use secure hubs?
>
>thanks,
>mark
>
>
>--
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Mark Miller
>Lead Network Analyst lumm@Lehigh.EDU
>183 Computing Center, Bldg #8B lumm@spot.CC.Lehigh.EDU
>Lehigh University
>Bethlehem, PA 18015
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ann Stunden
Academic Computing and Network Services -Vogelback Computing Center
Northwestern University -2129 Campus Drive North - Evanston IL 60208
708-467-2667 - 708-491-3824 (fax) - anns@nwu.edu
