The Password Spy

[Roy M. Silvernail]

On 30 Oct 2001, at 10:11, mmotyka at lsil.com wrote:

> "Roy M. Silvernail" <roy at scytale.com> wrote :

> >BTW, I'm looking for a convenient method to intercept data to/from a
> >serial port.  Got a piece of hardware I'm trying to reverse-
> >engineer, and I'd rather avoid writing a custom serial driver.  Any
> >ideas?
> >
> If you're running an open source OS on one of the machines under test
> you should be able to add logging to the driver. Maybe log to a buffer
> instead of disk and retrieve the buffer from a simple app.

Good idea, but the RE target is proprietary hardware and a 
Windows-only client application.

> Alternatively, you could probably just add a 3rd party to the setup
> and use one serial port Rx to snoop each Tx ( Pins 2 & 3 ). The
> chances are that one driver could drive the two receivers. Just
> timestamp what you read and log it. If there is concurrent exchange
> you might want to use two separate logfiles. If the parties are
> politely taking turns one logfile is fine and easier to read. This
> requires a fairly simple application instead of driver level work.

I wanted to avoid investing in a serial snooper hardware rig (though 
those are very handy... had one at my last job).  As it happens, 
www.sysinternals.com has just what I need:

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/portmon.shtml


--
Roy M. Silvernail
Proprietor, scytale.com
roy at scytale.com