Need to monitor wireless traffic on my router

[pokerbuddy234]

Hey Guys,

I am in need of a program that monitors all traffic in and out of my wireless router (Motorola SURFboard SBG6580) . I have searched the internet and found what i believe is exactly what i'm looking for, but it is not compatible for windows 8.1 (Mingsoft.com). Basically i'm looking for a passive program to capture all emails, IM's, social media interactions in an out. I know there are a lot of sniffer programs out there, but they tend to only show stats of data use and times used. I am looking for a more detailed account of what is actually passing through.

Any help on this would be great. Thanks in advance.

 

[digitaldoc]

This is a challenge to accomplish. The modems do not track it for you. You can find programs that will monitor the traffic on a single computer. To monitor this on an entire home network cannot be easily done though. Some of the ISP's track it and provide this info, but not all of them do.

 

[pokerbuddy234]

Do you know if bright house networks provides this service? If you don't know, what exactly should I ask them when I call support?

 

[bill001g]

The software is not the problem. Even the software you link is being extremely deceptive acting like it can capture data just by loading a program.

The actual data must pass though the program in some way. The only way you are going to get that is if you have a piece of hardware that all the data is forced to flow though.

The way it currently works is all your data goes into your modem/router and gets send over the coax cable. You can't see anything on the coax cable since it is encrypted and your router does not have the ability to do any form of data capture analysis.

The only way you fix this is to get different hardware. Pretty much you need a router that can do the function you need. There really are none since the cpu is way to small and there is no disk storage on routers.

The only realistic way to do this is to place a PC acting as a router/firewall in front of your current router. You will need to disable the wireless on the current router so the traffic can not bypass your firewall. You will when need to place a wireless device (a AP) in front of your firewall to provide the wireless.

At this point your PC that is running the firewall can get and inspect the data. You can then choose many many programs to generate the reports.

Will you ISP do this for you....likely for a large charge. They too would have to have hardware to intercept and collect the data. They likely keep very basic data but it is unlikely they by default keep the level of data you want. They would run out of disk space if they were monitoring all users at that level.

 

[pokerbuddy234]

The software is not the problem. Even the software you link is being extremely deceptive acting like it can capture data just by loading a program.

The actual data must pass though the program in some way. The only way you are going to get that is if you have a piece of hardware that all the data is forced to flow though.

The way it currently works is all your data goes into your modem/router and gets send over the coax cable. You can't see anything on the coax cable since it is encrypted and your router does not have the ability to do any form of data capture analysis.

The only way you fix this is to get different hardware. Pretty much you need a router that can do the function you need. There really are none since the cpu is way to small and there is no disk storage on routers.

The only realistic way to do this is to place a PC acting as a router/firewall in front of your current router. You will need to disable the wireless on the current router so the traffic can not bypass your firewall. You will when need to place a wireless device (a AP) in front of your firewall to provide the wireless.

At this point your PC that is running the firewall can get and inspect the data. You can then choose many many programs to generate the reports.

Will you ISP do this for you....likely for a large charge. They too would have to have hardware to intercept and collect the data. They likely keep very basic data but it is unlikely they by default keep the level of data you want. They would run out of disk space if they were monitoring all users at that level.

 

[Alabalcho]

...I am in need of a program that monitors all traffic...
Basically i'm looking for a passive program to capture all emails, IM's, social media interactions in an out...

Even if such software / hardware exists, it might not help you a lot since most of the traffic these days is encrypted (e.g. GMail. Skype, Facebook). If the person you're trying to monitor is brave enough, he/she can encrypt ALL of his/her traffic, and you won't get anything usefull (apart from probably web sites visited).

Are you a parent in search of technology to look what your child is doing? There are other means to do that.

 

[pokerbuddy234]

...I am in need of a program that monitors all traffic...
Basically i'm looking for a passive program to capture all emails, IM's, social media interactions in an out...

Even if such software / hardware exists, it might not help you a lot since most of the traffic these days is encrypted (e.g. GMail. Skype, Facebook). If the person you're trying to monitor is brave enough, he/she can encrypt ALL of his/her traffic, and you won't get anything usefull (apart from probably web sites visited).

Are you a parent in search of technology to look what your child is doing? There are other means to do that.

Yes, 2 teenage daughters and a teenage son. So it is not easy to keep them all safe... What did you have in mind?

 

[Alabalcho]

I am afraid you're on the losing end (hopefully, I am past this period for now 😉)
- install monitoring software on their computers / laptops. Let them know that.
- get a router with parental control options. This will let you blackist some sites, and set time restrictions
- set your router to use OpenDNS
- set a curfew on their mobile devices (if they have smartphones, they have data plans, and they can/will bypass the router altogether)
- and most importantly - talk to your kids.

 

[raymoore]

...I am in need of a program that monitors all traffic...
Basically i'm looking for a passive program to capture all emails, IM's, social media interactions in an out...

Even if such software / hardware exists, it might not help you a lot since most of the traffic these days is encrypted (e.g. GMail. Skype, Facebook). If the person you're trying to monitor is brave enough, he/she can encrypt ALL of his/her traffic, and you won't get anything usefull (apart from probably web sites visited).

Are you a parent in search of technology to look what your child is doing? There are other means to do that.

Yes, 2 teenage daughters and a teenage son. So it is not easy to keep them all safe... What did you have in mind?

I have a site (commercial here) designed just for this task, but like others have said teens can get around most anything. Were your children younger, browseONLY.com would replace their browser and you can set exactly where they browse, times of day and add sites remotely as needed; even eliminates ads because they would come from unlisted sites.