"Wireshark in the Cloud! Founders Share with Us About Open Source, Windows vs. Linux, and Other Topics."

Wireshark has established itself as one of the most prominent network monitoring tools, used by both hackers and system administrators to capture and analyze data packets in various situations, whether for troubleshooting or information logging. This open-source project has played an important role in uniting the Linux and Windows communities.

Gerald Combs and Loris Degioanni, the creators of Wireshark, have shared the story of how this project began and developed, as well as introducing their new tool called Stratoshark, designed for system-level analysis.

Combs recounts that his first contact with computing was through a Timex Sinclair 1000, a very basic computer that sparked his interest in technology. While studying computer science, he worked in his university's computing services department, where he used a network sniffer, an expensive device for network diagnostics. Later, at a small Internet service provider, he decided to create his own protocol analyzer, thanks to the availability of the PCAP library that facilitated packet capture. By doing so, he chose to release it as open-source software, allowing others to contribute to the project and helping to form a community around it.

Degioanni, on the other hand, started with a Commodore 64 and later deepened his programming knowledge with an Amiga. His interest in networks emerged in college when he realized that network analyzers were prohibitively expensive. Thus, he decided to work on a library that would allow packet capture on Windows, culminating in the development of WinPCAP, complementing Combs' work.

The founders also discuss the evolution of Wireshark, explaining that the shift to a more accessible context in terms of hardware and software, such as Linux and the decreasing costs of network cards, enabled its growth. Collaboration between the two was key to unifying Windows and Unix users, allowing popular tools in the latter environment, like tcpdump, to be used on Windows systems as well, which fostered a broader community.

Over time, they have faced several challenges, including creating an infrastructure for the project and adapting to the needs of its users. Wireshark, which allows for examining and filtering network traffic in an understandable way, has been successful due to its ability to break down packet data, giving it a crucial role in network analysis.

The new product, Stratoshark, aims to offer a similar set of tools focused on call and data analysis of the system in Linux environments. According to its creators, this tool will allow users to observe system activity at a very detailed level, just as Wireshark does for networks. Its launch represents a new phase in the evolution of system and security analysis.

With a design that seeks to maintain familiarity for Wireshark users, Stratoshark is presented as a complementary application that will facilitate system monitoring and diagnostics in modern computing environments, including cloud-based ones.