Thursday 25th

I'm feeling dog-tired this morning. This is because I was up most of the night finishing my special purpose packet analysing program. For those of you who think that packet analysers are boring things that network managers use for troubleshooting problems, I need to enlighten you. Most data travels round a network unencrypted. In fact if you have an e-mail system like ours which is based on a central host that is accessed through terminal emulation, then the usernames and passwords that you enter travel unencrypted as well. Now an ordinary packet analyser program will happily decode packets and display the data but it's rather a blunt instrument, even with the filters that are usually supplied.

For serious work you need a program like mine. It has two modes of operation: in 'snoop' mode you specify the node address of your target and it filters all packets with the given source or destination address and copies the data to your screen. This is as good as looking over someone's shoulder. In 'collect' mode it monitors packets coming from the central host and identifies those which contain a prompt for a username to be entered. It then follows the thread of the interaction between the host and the client PC to pick up the entered username and password, and writes these to a file. Much easier than my old keystroke logging program.

Of course, I wouldn't dream of using a program like this except in self-defence, and neither should you. But think for a moment... Did your network manager give you a knowing smile after you sent that e-mail to that fabulous looking babe in the Marketing Department? Did he smirk at you after your boss sent you a reprimand for missing last month's sales targets? Or is it just your imagination? Come to that, how do I know about the e-mail you sent to that babe in the Marketing Department? Makes you wonder doesn't it?

I check my diary for the day. There is a meeting of the IT management this afternoon to finalise the budget proposals for next year. Needless to say there will have to be a lot of cuts, and nobody will want to give up their own projects. I feel sure I ought to be able to facilitate an amicable solution to this problem, but I'm fresh out of ideas. I venture over to the coffee machine for some stimulation.

During my third cup of coffee the brain cells start to function again. Several of the largest budget submissions are from the Operations Manager. If he were to be missing from the meeting for some reason it would be so much easier for the rest of us to reach agreement. Fortunately the Ops Manager uses a personal organiser program on his PC to store his appointments, and the last time I was in his office I had the foresight to move his diary file to a network drive to which I have write access. I hurry back to my desk.

I run the organiser program on my machine and load up his diary. It wouldn't do just to delete the meeting because that would make him suspicious, so I search for a suitable appointment to swap it with. That's interesting, tomorrow afternoon he's attending a presentation from one of our major suppliers at their premises forty miles away. Just the ticket. I interchange the two events and save the file.

As I'm returning from lunch I see the Ops Manager rushing out of the building towards the car park. He's obviously only just checked his diary. The budget meeting goes exactly to plan. Without being there to defend his corner, the Ops Manager takes the brunt of the cuts. The meeting finishes in record time and the finalised budgets are passed to Finance for approval.

Later in the afternoon a harassed-looking Ops Manager returns to his office. I did consider leaving a copy of the agreed budgets on his desk, but decided against it. The poor chap must have enough problems. After all, I don't suppose it's easy to make an expense claim for attending a non-existent presentation.