Qusetion: Sniffing Around. Many times sniffers are used to collect and analyze data going across a network. Sniffing software can be used to collect passwords and other confidential information. Sniffers are able to collect this information because computer's communications are sent over a shared network almost like the old party lines that telephone companies used in the 1950s. Consequently, any computer can listen in on the communications directed at another computer.

One sniffer that is relatively easy to use on a Windows system is called WinDump. WinDump is available for free from a number of websites (http://www.winpcap.org/windump/install/). Instructions: Download and install WinDump. A program that is used to analyze the raw data collected from WinDump is Dice. Download and install Dice (http://www.ngthomas.co.uk/dice.html). Dice is optional but it classifies the information in a more readable format and it is recommended. Use the two programs to analyze data on your own computer. In order to collect a lot of data, make sure your computer is connected to the network and/or to the Internet.