aim listening

lives4him06

I was once informed that it was easy to 'listen' to a neighbor's aim conversations. Is this possible and how can i do it?

LordShryku

You want us to teach you how to snoop on your neighbors?

lives4him06

I dont plan on putting it into practice (honest) i just have no idea how it could be done and im curious. THis is a new avenue that i knwo nothing about and im always eager to learn

LordShryku

Well, try searching the web. There's probably no one here who wants to post how to sniff packets in a public forum.

lives4him06

understandable. Thanks

piersk

If you want something to sniff packets, the you could try ethereal

AdamBrill

The only way it would work to sniff packets is if you are directly connected to the AIM user(which you may be, I'm not aware on how AIM works). Either way, you will not be able to see what they are typing to someone else without a full hack attack, as that data is not being sent to you, but to whoever else they are chatting with. Unless you are a hacker genious, you probably won't be able to get it to work(and either way, their are laws on the subject, so consider yourself warned).

piersk

Can't you use a packet sniffer to (for want of a better word) sniff the packets coming out the NIC? Or does AIM encrypt them in some way?

lives4him06

Im pretty sure AIM does not encrypt, it is very insecure, so im told.

AdamBrill

Originally posted by piersk
Can't you use a packet sniffer to (for want of a better word) sniff the packets coming out the NIC? Or does AIM encrypt them in some way?

I do not have much knowledge on how AIM works, but about the only chat program that I know of that really has it figured out is Yahoo! Messenger. 🙂 And to get the packets that your friend(on AIM) is sending to another friend, you would need to do more than just sniff the packets that you are receiving/sending. To get the packets that they are sending to someone else would be more of a chore. 😉 And it's not legal, so even just to try it can land you in a lot more trouble than you bargained for...

piersk

Originally posted by AdamBrill
And it's not legal, so even just to try it can land you in a lot more trouble than you bargained for...

Althought TBH, the whole topic of aim listening isn't exactly kosher now, is it?

AstroTeg

Packet sniffing should work just fine (just make sure its configured to listen to either all the ports or the port AIM is using). Packet sniffing will only work for the network you are on. Look into how the TIC/TOC protocols work since that is what AIM uses. You'll find there's no encryption used. Some AIM clients do allow you to encrypt your IMs.

AdamBrill

Originally posted by piersk
Althought TBH, the whole topic of aim listening isn't exactly kosher now, is it?

lol, no. I was wondering if this thread would last, but I'm rather new here, so I'm not sure how the admin feels about this kind of thing. 😉

dalecosp

FWIW (btw, please 'scuse if this message looks funny, I'm on lynx at the colo right now....) many, many, many, broadband nets are very insecure.

It'd be rather trivial for me, from here, to drop a NIC into promiscuous mode and see traffic on the entire local loop. Now, decoding it, that's another story, at least for me, as that's not something I am either "into" or do for a living.

You should never say anything on the 'Net that you don't want indexed by Google. That goes for any protocol, although there are some that are, basically, 'safe'.

IRC/AIM isn't one of them....