Great Scott Gadgets Throwing Star LAN Tap Pro

Great Scott Gadgets Throwing Star LAN Tap is a small, simple device for monitoring Ethernet communications.

Tap Throwing Star LAN Tap is a passive Network Tap that does not require a power supply. There are active methods of eavesdropping on Ethernet connections (eg, a mirrored port on a switch), but none of them can overcome passive taps in terms of portability. For a target network, the Throwing Star LAN Tap connector looks like a length of cable, but the wires in the cable extend to the monitoring ports and also connect one destination port to another.

The monitoring ports (J3 and J4) are for receive only; connect to the data receiving lines of the monitoring station, but do not connect to the station transmission lines. This prevents the monitoring station from accidentally sending data packets to the target network.

Tap Thing Star LAN Tap is designed to monitor 10BASET and 100BASETX networks. It is not possible for an unpowered Network Tap to be able to monitor 1000BASET (Gigabit Ethernet) networks, so Throwing Star LAN Tap intentionally degrades the quality of the target 1000BASET networks, forcing them to negotiate a lower speed (usually 100BASETX) that can be passively monitored. This is the purpose of the two capacitors (C1 and C2).

Like all passive LAN taps, Thowing Star LAN Tap reduces signal quality to some extent. Except as described above for Gigabit networks, this rarely causes problems on the target network. In situations where very long cables are used, signal degradation can reduce network performance. It is good practice to use cables no longer than necessary.

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