In the late 90's, I attended a presentation that described doing just such a fractional-light fiber split at major exchanges (e.g. MAE-West) to collect data for

In the late 90's, I attended a presentation that described doing just such a fractional-light fiber split at major exchanges (e.g. MAE-West) to collect data for research purposes. [1] While the researchers were probably trustworthy, I remember thinking that such sniffing seemed like it could be pretty scary in the wrong hands. (The presentation was given by Evi Nemeth, who was sadly in the news recently due to being lost at sea.) [1] http://www.caida.org/workshops/isma/9808/report.html http://www.caida.org/workshops/isma/9808/report.html "The coral/ocXmon family of monitors use optical splitters to tap fiber, filtering 5-10% of the light signal to interface cards in the coral monitoring host."