Receive-only cables are standard (RJ45) cables manually modified to
allow only the data-receive signal. This solution is very cheap and
simple to build, and since it does not interfere with traffic, it has no
impact on network performance and goes undetected.
Ethernet hubs (or switches) checks the "link status" of the cable, which
is done by periodically detecting if any signal has ever been received.
If you simply disconnect the transmit pair of the cable, the hub will
not detect anything from the cable and therefore, report the cable as
"not connected". However it is possible to easily construct a cable to
send back a large amount of errors in the transmission path, so that
signal can still be detected, but almost no packet can pass the CRC
error check. (Very slick!)
Code:
http://www.infosecwriters.com/hhworld/hh9/roc/node3.html
http://www.geocities.com/samngms/sniffing_cable/