why would you want to monitor msn conversation? issues with the colleagues or the boss? that would be so lame. i'd installed a keylogger instead, more fun with them.

to elaborate further on wkkay's post, in conjuction with tcpdump you can use tcpflow or flowgrep to reconstruct the tcp streams so that you'll get close to a coherent reading. on a busy network these tools can be very valuable in getting that killer lines of conversation you so desperately need.

if your motive is to block msn or other bandwidth-hogging traffic, then you would need a different kind of solution.

This post has been edited by ihsan: Mar 1 2005, 10:27 PM

your boss should be doing something more beneficial than monitoring his employees surfing habit. impose a policy and use the monitoring to supplant the policy, your boss will spend less time micro managing. with disciplinary threat and job security, the employees will think twice about overspending time on the internet.