The Cellar - Firesheep

This is the best description I have found of Firesheep and why it was released... to expose a problem that users need to be aware of.

Techcrunch article

Lazy Hackers Unite: Firesheep Boasts +104,000 Downloads In 24*Hours

Quote:

In roughly 24 hours, Firesheep has been downloaded more than 104,000 times, as would-be-hackers — or the merely curious— downloaded the Firefox extension to test the exploit.

As we reported on Sunday night, Eric Butler’s Firesheep allows users on a public Wi-Fi network to effectively spy on others, by giving Firesheep users access to sensitive information (via cookies) that lets them log into their victim’s accounts on unsecured sites. The Firesheep extension is wired to identify a few dozen popular sites that are vulnerable to attack on public networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr and Yelp.