If you think that Snort is not worth the time to learn and setup; this article will change your mind. "Snort is, by far, the gold standard among open source NIDS systems, with over 100,000 users and 3 million downloads to date." With the help of the Snort's website which, contains a wealth of documentation any Linux user should be able to setup Snort quickly.

There are many reasons why open source software is finding a home in this country's most security-conscious departments of government. Payton is inspired by an oft-quoted truism in the open source community known as Linus' Law: "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." This truism has been proven to the satisfaction of decision makers at DARPA, GSA, NIST, NSA as well as the Armed Forces, all of whom are implementing open source solutions for their software needs

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