Re: Fiber optic vampire taps

[Lee Brink <lcbrink () pobox com>]

According to our network people where I work there's currently no way to 
splice fiber optic cable.

The two ways they mentioned (wrt monitoring fiber optic traffic) would 
be to cut the cable and insert a transceiver in the line. The main issue 
with this is that someone will notice the cable has been cut as soon as 
it happens and be able to tell where the cut has been made.

The other method they discussed is to remove the fiber cable's outer 
insulation and bend it. You could monitor the light signal at the bend 
via refraction. The two issues they brought up with this method is that 
AFATK it's only a theoretical method, and with the refraction a severe 
loss of db would result and be immediately noticed.

I personally don't know much about fiber optic cabling, but the people 
in the network department that do know were confident on the above info.

Lee Brink
Cornell University


Nick Iglehart wrote:

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> I have a client who has a fiber optic line between two buildings. 
> There is no physical security and so they are concerned about someone
> tapping into the fiber line and capturing data.  
>
> I read something a while back about tapping fiber optic lines without
> breaking the sheathing and now I can't seem to find anything but
> vague references to it.  I have googled for hours and checked the sf
> archives with no luck.  Anyone have any references to this?  Any help
> is appreciated.
>
> Nick
>
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