Sniffing network traffic in python. capturing network traffic has usually meant delving into the C programming language, which ha sscared away many would-be developers. however, the interaction of pcap and libnids with python has been made easier in recent years, allowing for easier data capture and manipulation. the python language is easy to work with and powerful, giving advanced data structures and string handling routines to users with minimal fuss. By marrying these two pieces, powerful data capture systems can be built. this talk will introduce pynids, the glue that merges python and libnids, and two example programs: http-graph and VersionDetect.