function of wiresharkl

[ramadan10]

i just came across the wireshark and i learnt you can use it to read information in network packets and i will like to know whether the information is going to be in words.

[JorgeM]

The information is not going to be summarized in natural language. Wireshark, like many other packet capturing applications, allow you to collect the packets that are intercepted and provide you with an interface to view the packet's details. For example, you can look at the various aspects of the packet, layer 2 & layer 3 information as well as the payload.

This type of application is very useful in network troubleshooting.

[gerbil]

If by information you mean data, the answer is maybe. Traffic is in hexadecimal byte form, there is a considerable amount of "heading" information in each packet (all set out for you), and the message or data is also identified and interpreted into ascii characters. Passwords, too.
You might read scraps of a webpage, or email text. Some pages/responses are encrypted... in that case you see gibberish.
Wireshark is easy to use, to make sense of what it provides you need knowledge of the various protocols used to transmit across the web. A lot of what you see is simply to do with the business of a transaction: requesting, acknowledging, handshaking, checking and re-establishing a presence. And the data? Well, unless you are doing as Jorge suggests (troubleshooting) you are left with snooping on a network if you have access to a server. Otherwise, and apart from general interest, content is easiest read in a browser or email client.