1. A method of capturing data in a computer network comprising: (a) designating a plurality of areas of computer memory as buffers, wherein each of the plurality of buffers is associated with a status flag; (b) receiving a data packet; (c) receiving a second data packet; (d) writing the received data packets to a buffer; (e) modifying the status flag of the buffer in dependence on the contents of the buffer, wherein the status flag of each buffer indicates whether a received data packet may be written to that buffer; (f) monitoring the status flag of the buffer, wherein the status flag of each buffer is monitored by a computer operating system kernel daemon, wherein the computer operating system kernel daemon is alerted when the status flag of a buffer is modified to indicate that a data packet may not be written to that buffer; and (g) writing the contents of the buffer to persistent computer memory in dependence on the status flag of the buffer, in dependence on a request, or in dependence on a special event.