There is, for the second time in a month, a yellow jacket in the basement. You know what else is in my basement? My favorite machine.
The first time this happened, it was early and I was getting ready for work. I saw something moving on my bottle of heat-protectant spray. It looked like a really fat caterpillar, but it had wings. I sat there for a second pretending like nothing was happening. It was distracted by the smell of the heat protectant.
I slowly turned off my hair straightener and set it down, backing away semi normally. (Ladies, who hasn't done their hair in front of their device. 😂) I realized that this was not an average bee. This was not a regular puffy bumble bee, or a sweat bee, or a honey bee. This bee looked like it was a soulless attacker.
I alerted my boyfriend immediately. I did not want anything bad to happen to him while he was sleeping. These yellow jackets attack for no reason. While I was at work, he picked a fight with the yellow jacket and thankfully won. I was so scared for him. The following morning, I saw a dead yellow jacket inside my computer case. 😭
That sounds like 2 yellow jackets so far. After a month passes, I am sitting there minding my own business and BAM, another one! I saw it just barely land on the top of the bookshelf out of the corner of my eye! I think to myself: "**** this, I am moving out!"
My boyfriend got traps and crack sealer for the basement, seeing my state of petrification. They have been setting out for a few days. But he went to work and could not save me until he came back. (Yes, it is save the princess when there is a direct threat buzzing around.) Therefore, I must stay up on the second floor. I am not moving until I see a dead bee. I have not been in the basement and I absolutely refuse to go down there until there is undeniable evidence.
But my computer is in the basement...
My 7-year-old mac is no match for my 2-year-old custom desktop. I must use it. But how? I had one of those moments where a tiny lightbulb went on. I wanted to get to a specific project of mine so I could share the tiny excitement with everyone.
Remote Access for the win
I remembered that I installed a remote app on my phone so I could see my pc screen whenever and wherever. (LOVE that btw). Since it's all synced through google anyways, I was like well hey, let me pull that bad boi up! Like butter, I see my pc desktop. I messed around with it but my pc desktop is much wider than my laptop, so it wasn't a perfect situation. I discovered I couldn't record my pc screen while remoting in from mac. I tried it a few times with no luck. (What's up with that?)
Then I remembered I had made a shared folder for my local network. (Just to prove to myself I knew how at the time.) I saw that it was still there. Ah! So this is what networking is really for! To save us from ourselves and evil bugs!
So then, I copy over the project folder of interest to shared location, and then put a copy on my macbook. So, as you likely know, we can not just open up a project and run it on mac, if it was built on a windows pc. There is some convertabobbing involved. I had copilot CLI do the fantabulous converting.
All of this so I could share:
Project Peekyport
It's a home network analysis and organization tool that I am building from scratch. Well, yes from scratch but ai-assisted because I am just learning Java. Which btw Java appears to be more verbose than Python and Ruby I am also finding. Why do I have to tell you it's a string? Python and Ruby are not like that. I digress.
App Name: Peekyport
Tech used:
- JavaFX
- Nmap
- tshark
- Custom CSS
- Draggable topology
- Local storage
- and an interface to connect your router of choice.
This is not a web app. It is a thick-client JavaFX network tool with direct OS integration and minimal dependency footprint. I made it over-the-top with "levels" to represent the floors in a building. One can place nodes around and get a better idea of what your topology actually looks like!
I built this because all the cool-looking tools are not free, and I wanted an engaging one. This is by no means perfect or a finished product, but I wanted to share my excitement.
Quick Layout Overview
Before Peekyport becomes interesting, we need to scan the network in question. You can run a lightweight scan that covers only the most common ports, or a deep scan which would take much longer. A light scan is adequate for tinkering purposes. When the scan is run, I created a visual console display so the actual scanning can be seen in real time with a progress bar. The visual feedback is nice to clarify that things are actually happening. Bonus: it looks cool.
Here you can see a scan in progress in Peekyport:
After scanning your network, nodes will display in the central area in the Topology Tab. With each node you can edit:
- Name
- Category
- Group
- Floor Number
- Shape and color to differentiate items
- Upload images to help you additionally identify
Connect to your router by navigating to the router page and entering the details.
Connecting your router, scanning your network, and comparing it to your wireshark packets gives you a good peek into possible security holes. This allows a user to draw actionable insights for tightening things up on a home network. Being careful with what you are exposing ensures you are less prone to security issues.
Cool! Now having our basic network topology from the grass-roots network scan and our router connected to allow more specific details, we can run a small wireshark scan and import the saved pcap file. About 2,000 packets or so should give you enough to poke around with. 🤔
Heading to the Web Traffic Tab, we select a packet capture for analysis.
Here is a screenshot of the per device traffic activity after upload:
Depending on your scan and what network you are connected to, you will see the corresponding devices. On a wifi network scan, you will only see wifi links. If you run a scan connected to ethernet directly, you will choose "hardwire" in the link view. If you do not have the right one selected, you won't see the links because they do not exist. Makes sense.
I really, really like the network topology link visualization. I feel like I can gain a much better understanding by see what devices speak to each other, through what ports, and how much. Now I can confront household memembers when they overtake the network bandwidth, with my new network facts. Empowering, isn't it? 😂 JK, my bandwidth has actually not been a problem thanks to dynamic quality of service.
Network safety by severity is found in the safety tab:
This provides a snapshot of home network security. Many internet users do not have the need or resources to have a fancy enterprise grade network solution for their home. This app empowers a single individual to investigate their home network with a home router, keeping data secure by running it locally.
For everyone
This app pulls web traffic together with IP addresses, mac addresses, and conversations between these addresses to gain insights about what can be addressed to improve security. It's super nice to be able to monitor traffic in such a specific modular way, with each device and all of is ports listed.
It makes learning about your home network fun and de-mystifies the seemingly intangible network activity for all. I think every home network should have something like this.
For the future
I am struggling a bit with the drag and drop interface, it behaves in an unexpected manner and there is a lot of weird layering and processes happening if other processes happen. It was so bad at one point I was about to trash the whole thing. But I have been powering through it, and I am slightly less frustrated although it's still not great. The data part is working gracefully. I will continue to fight with the UI until I am satisfied. (So, no end in sight for the foreseeable future. LOL)
What network analysis tools have you built? Comments, tips, questions?
Thank you for reading my tiny story. 💜