"It's this complexity and difficulty -- the confusion that often comes from staring at packets -- that Snort is best at unraveling. In fact, the entire reason Snort is so useful for a Web developer is because it allows for concentration on design patterns, layouts, and functional tasks. With Snort, beyond a basic understanding (most of which you have from the previous article and this section), you can let your tool do the work you don't want to. The remainder of this article, then, lays out how Snort can handle packet analysis, and how you can use community efforts to keep your systems safe, without you needing to relearn the things you've forgotten from that one required networking class you took in college."
