You are probably familiar with how easy it is to sniff traffic on a shared network and how traffic is sent. But I will explain a bit about how a hub works on a shared network as an introduction anyway. The way that traffic is handled on a shared network may be compared to the way mail is distributed during a mail call at military boot camp. One person stands at the middle of the room and shouts out the names on the letters as everybody stands around and listens for their own name to be called. . . .
You are probably familiar with how easy it is to sniff traffic on a shared network and how traffic is sent. But I will explain a bit about how a hub works on a shared network as an introduction anyway.

The way that traffic is handled on a shared network may be compared to the way mail is distributed during a mail call at military boot camp. One person stands at the middle of the room and shouts out the names on the letters as everybody stands around and listens for their own name to be called. Everyone hears whom the letter is addressed to, but only the person whom the mail is actually for would (normally) pick up the letter. In this example, the person shouting out names would represent the hub, while the people expecting letters would represent the workstations on the LAN.

If a user on the shared network puts his network card in promiscuous mode and installs a sniffing program, their computer will be able to collect all of the traffic on the network, instead of only the traffic that is addressed specifically to their computer.

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