For example, we immediately found other transmitters in use in eWeek Labs that were not part of our test. These units turned out to be part of a test by eWeek's sibling publication, PC Magazine. Managers in organizations that are deploying wireless networks could just as easily find out that the business on the next floor down is using 802.11b wireless technology, which may be responsible for poor network performance or even security breaches. However, wireless control packets, which carry instructions on how a wireless network is shared, are not encrypted and can be clearly seen by Sniffer Wireless. Even without the proper WEP key, Sniffer Wireless can tell how much traffic is being carried on each of the 11 channels supported by the 802.11b specification.
Managers do have other ways of getting information on wireless networks.
Many of the statistics and performance measures that Network Associates' product shows can be obtained, albeit with more work and without as much finesse, with the utilities provided in most wireless cards and access points. For example, access points know how many mobile units they are servicing. In addition, mobile units often have utilities that readily tell signal strength. And because Sniffer Wireless is passively sensing traffic, it consumes no appreciable bandwidth of its own. We got information about the test wireless network by accessing several tabs in the software's Dashboard, where Sniffer Wireless shows network utilization, packet throughput and errors.