[OLUG] Promiscuous eth0

[Phil Brutsche]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far way, someone said...

> Okay, I'm dumb... can someone explain promiscuous mode to me and why its a
> bad thing?

Normally, when a network card recieves a packet over the wire, it
determines if it should tell the OS about the packet if it's destined for
that network card, based on the destination hardware address - the MAC
address when dealing with ethernet.

In promiscuous mode, an ethernet card tells the operating system about a
packet it recieves over the wire, period.  This mode is typically used by
packet sniffers.  That's why Vincent said he'd be worried if he saw that
in his logs - if he's not running the packet sniffer, someone must be.  
Since running a packet sniffer requires root access, that would mean that
your system was compromised (aka "hacked") in some way.

-- 
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Phil Brutsche					pbrutsch at creighton.edu

"There are two things that are infinite; Human stupidity and the
universe. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein


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