if you use a sniffer to get url, cant they detect you doing this?

[reckone1999]

hi, i'm part of a club, and this club has free streaming videos to watch, and i've wanted to download them, to watch them in my ipod. i've tried recording my screen with Debut, and it wouldnt work, i've tried viewing the source code, and it's hidden behind java.

i think the only way to go about this is sniffing out the url, but if they are serious about not wanting the videos to be downloaded, couldn't they have sniffer detection?

because i wanted to know if there's a fool proof way of finding the url undetected.

thanks in advance

When you use a URL sniffer on your computer, you can't be detected, because URL sniffers analyze traffic coming to your computer. They shouldn't change any traffic or send any feedback.

However there is a chance that you will be detected when downloading streaming media. To prevent this you can use software that captures packets coming to streaming media players.

For example, you can use
WM Recorder to capture packets coming to Windows Media Player and Real Player. And you can use Jaksta to capture packets coming to flash player (please note that Jaksta can download content as well).

Some streaming content is cached and you can copy it from the cache folder of your web-browser.

[reckone1999]

thanks for your input, i guess i'll give WM Recorder a try, even though i've heard it doesnt work for a lot of people.

and just for your own knowledge, you might want to google sniffer detection.

sniffers can be detected. i was more or less, curious if someone knew a way around it.

any other thoughts are welcomed

thanks again

Originally Posted by reckone1999

thanks for your input, i guess i'll give WM Recorder a try, even though i've heard it doesnt work for a lot of people.

You need to use WM Recorder in the PRO mode to capture packets from Windows Media Player and Real Player. WMR is very popular, so can find many complains. Stream Ripper does support for WMR, I visit Applian User Forums and we can tell you for sure that most of the problems with WMR and Applian recording software can be easily solved by reading the user guides. WMR may have problems with RTMP protocol which should be solved in the next version. As for recording from Windows Media Player and Real Player, WMR is the most powerful tool for that.

You can also use WebVideoCap to capture packets from Windows Media Player.

Originally Posted by reckone1999

and just for your own knowledge, you might want to google sniffer detection.

sniffers can be detected. i was more or less, curious if someone knew a way around it.

They can be detected by software on your computer. They can be detected by an admin of your network if he/she can log in to your computer. Some of them can be detected by the admin of a LAN by using detection software.

I really didn't pay enough attention to the question. This is because most media streams don't come from a LAN, so one doesn't need to worry about him/her using network sniffers.