Re: [SARES] Free Wireless Internet

From: Steve Lemke <steve@INTERNET.>
Date: Mon Dec 12 2005 - 09:04:04 GMT
On Dec 10, 2005, at 6:06 PM, James Long wrote:
> Since this network is not encrypted, anyone listening in can get  
> your username and password for any site you visit.  Even if it is  
> encrypted, everyone else who has the key can monitor your traffic.

That's really no different from using any other public hotspot from  
your laptop.

Use https (secure http) for web site logins where possible, and use  
IMAP and SMTP over SSL if your email server supports it, or at least  
use secure (email, ftp, etc.) authentication if possible.

There are companies out there that will provide the service of a VPN  
connection -- purely to give you an encrypted path from wherever you  
happen to be connecting directly to their server, and then they dump  
your packets back out onto the 'net.  I think they're pretty cheap,  
though if you have VPN at work you can use that too to at least  
encrypt your traffic to keep people from being able to see it.

--Steve


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Received on Mon Dec 12 17:24:15 2005

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