UGN Security Forums UGN Security: Underground General reading sniffer output

where is some good info on how to read output from programs like ethereal. as of now, to me it is all jibberish. i need to be able to find info like passwords and such ;-]

i want to test it on my own network and then take it out war driving for when i am on someone elses network.

from my understanding you can get info on any user activity on the network right?

thanks

The short answer... In the middle pane there will be a heading at the bottom that says "data"; highlihgt it. Then in the bottom panel it will highlight the portion of the packet that is data. From there you can read the payload of the packet.

The long answer... Look up packet composition on google. Learn the different types of packets and what their headers look like. Once you know how packets are put together you can pull em apart and read em.

learn about different protocols and the data that their packets contain. you can find out about the protocols from here : http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/

that way you know what you are looking for when you look at the packets...