Chat Sniffer?? does it really works? prevention?

[anonymous999]

Hello, i just came across some software of the site, which can sniff conversations within the network..i was wondering if it really works?
There are many of them available online, this is just one of them:
http://chat.mingsoft.com/index.html

And is there a way to prevent conversation from being sniffed?
I've found one solution, which is to encrypt messages . It doesnt really prevent messages from being sniffed, but make the logs unreadable. lol
http://www.secway.fr/us/products/simplite_msn/home.php

Is there any way to prevent it?

[mackone]

Ya chat snippers do work. If you want to know whether your network is connected via hub or switch, just run the sniffer and check it for 1 or 2 hours. If you see only your and your buddy’s message then a switch is used; if you see others messages as well then a hub is used - in which case you are in a danger as your messages are leaked.

And thats a nice find, will check that and let you know how it worked for me. If you come across any prevention utilities...let me know too.