A vampire tap (also called a piercing tap) is a device for physically connecting a station (e.g. a computer or printer) to a network that uses 10BASE5 cabling. This device clamps onto and "bites" into the cable (hence the vampire name), forcing a spike through a hole drilled through the outer shielding to contact the inner conductor while other spikes bite into the outer conductor. From the vampire tap, a short cable called an AUI (Attachment Unit Interface) is connected directly from the tap to the network card in the PC. Vampire taps allow new connections to be made on a given physical cable while the cable is in use. This allows administrators to expand bus-topology network sections without interrupting communications.
Without a vampire tap, the cable has to be cut and connectors have to be attached to both ends.
Vampire taps may also be used for malicious purposes such as transparent network monitoring.
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Famous quotes containing the words vampire and/or tap:
“I am the wound and the knife!
I am the slap and the cheek!
I am the limbs and the rack,
And the victim and the executioner!
I am the vampire of my own heart.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“A book is like a man—clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.”
—John Steinbeck (1902–1968)