[rescue] Jeez!!! Are ethernet taps are a racket business?

[Daniel de Young]

$1500 for a glorified 3 port hub?

I just got an estimate on a 3 port 10/100 ethernet "tap".

My goal is to passively analyze traffic from my WAN, LAN, DMZ/802.11
segments to a homebrew NIDS.

I guess I could three hubs in and use "read only" cables, but then I
deal my LAN<-->DMZ effective bandwidth a blow.

Anybody meditate on how to do this cheaper or even roll yer own?  Any
hardware geeks ever cook something up on a breadboard or anything?

-Daniel