WiFi

Bill S. wrote:
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I am under the impression that if you are on an https or better secured website, it doesn;t matter if the wifi is open-access (unsecured), as all data in and out of your computer is encrypted, and would be of no use to someone trying to capture keystrokes, or "read your mail". And if the laptop/tablet has reasonable security (firewall), they would not be able to get to your hard drive.

For those of us who live real lives yes this is true. Is it conceivable that the owner of an open wifi could hack your https session? Possibly, but probably about the same odds as a hacker waiting by the side of the road to hack my car computer and send me plummeting off an embankment.

In any case, I do not keep any passwords or other critical info on my computer, unless encrypted in a password safe

A very safe idea, but now if I could get all of my personal information and social security # off my doctor's computer I would feel better. I don't save passwords and don't worry about what is on my computer.

Someone mentioned VPN. Is that something that we could all implement by placing a wifi router/repeater, with VPN, between our laptops and public wifi? Then we could log on to our own repeater's ssid, and everything from there out, would be encripted?

Would that increase our internet security?

A VPN takes two players. In this case you want to be encrypted through the potentially nefarious open wifi access point so you would need to run a VPN from your PC to a third-party server somewhere on the Internet and then they would provide decryption so the message is in the clear to the end receiving web site (and perform a reverse service on the way back). Basically you are trusting the VPN service provider instead of the wifi access point. Pick your poison.

Dave