Firefox (and other browsers) has got a whole bunch of security measures which encrypt your password and username when you use a login page. But if you download Firesheep extension you will get aware of how poor and ineffective these measures are! In fact, the whole goal of this terrific extension is to prove how easy is to harvest passwords and usernames as well as hack entire accounts from any busy Wifi network. The Achille’s heel in Firefox is the way all private and sensitive info are protected. Only the password is encrypted, but the rest isn’t. I am talking about cookies which are sent back from the remote server, (which contains your email account for example) to your Firefox. Such cookies contain all your information and your password, but the bad news is that they are completely visible to anyone as no protection is applied!
Firesheep addon for Firefox lets you harvest all kind of passwords and usernames from any kind of Wifi Network. It works in a very easy way. Just install Firesheep extension on your Firefox, open it, click the big “Start Capturing” button and wait! As soon as someone connects to his email, Facebook, Twitter etc. account, their names and photo will be displayed on the Firesheep window. Double-click on someone, and you’re instantly logged in as them!
Firesheep just wants to shows how easy and dangerously simple is to hack and enter someone else account just by clicking a single button.
download it from here:
http://www.esnips.com/doc/8cde3947-ce61-4e2a-a302-017d93498517/firesheep-0.1-1
and its source is here:
https://github.com/codebutler/firesheep