What are the Ethics and legality of packet sniffing?

Answer:
Packet sniffing as a legal activity is usually defined by the corporate or company policy. Most institutions will ban the activity unless your job role requires it. Outside of a company network there is usually no restriction on packet capturing/sniffing.

Packet sniffing is also done by certain types of programs, such as IDS or IPS devices/systems.
First answer by Enigmamerlin. Last edit by Enigmamerlin. Contributor trust: 107 [recommend contributor recommended]. Question popularity: 1 [recommend question].