Safe WiFi Hotspot

[margaretmahlum]

Looking to be on the road for a few months at a time and need to have access to a safe, secure WiFi to handle financial transactions, campground bookings etc. via the internet using my laptop and smartphone. I wonder what others have found to be the most cost effective way to accomplish this and stay connected while traveling the roads in an RV.

I am fairly new to the RV Forum. So far I have had good responses to my posts and I really do appreciate the help.

[paulcardoza]

McD's is OPEN wifi where anyone can connect. Presumably, your mifi is password protected and only you have access.

[Harvey51]

How is mifi or phone tethering more secure than wifi at Macdonalds? It is all wifi.

[myredracer]

Wifi can be ever so slow and have poor coverage, especially at CGs. We used to rely on wifi at the CG we have a membership at. Their wifi was pitiful and when kids got up in the morning and got onto the internet, it would come to a crawl or drop out. Had to get up real early and go down to the clubhouse - not fun.

We only RV in part of the year and now use a monthly Verizon mifi plan. Very good coverage most of the time and fast. Sometimes we can't get a signal, which unfortunately is at one of our favorite CGs. Verizon supposedly has the best coverage. Not cheap exactly but worth it.

DW is an accountant and a certified fraud investigator and has no issue using Verizon for financial matters as long as on an encrypted connection. It's preventing our CCs from being hacked that is an issue.

Nothing is worse than going camping and roughing it and not being able to use a PC. Now we can sit at the campfire and surf the 'net all day long. :W

[carp65]

Verizon MIFI Jetpack.

[wbwood]

valhalla360 wrote:


Using a modest amount of common sense if all well and good but after that, yes, it's a waste of time and the unintended consequences are likely worse than the risk.

I'd rather a thief not destroy the door frame that will cost $1000 to repair while breaking in to steal a 3yr old laptop that's probably worth $50 on the resale market.

I agree.... I would much rather leave my car unlocked, rather than have someone break my window to steal 50 cents, hand sanitizer and a dollar flashlight out of it. As that is all that I about keep in it.

[Harvey51]

I do not hesitate to access my bank via Macdonalds wifi. I have been watching the news and have never heard of anyone losing money through hacking into online banking except the guy who sent money to himself and claimed a thief did it. You are only expected to take reasonable precautions with your password and check your balance at least once a month. The banks are confident about their https - which is far better than credit card or debit card security. I use one bank that says in its terms that the bank is responsible for fraud losses and another that does not. I happen to know the manager of the latter and she says that bank also covers any losses that might occur.

If it worries you, speak to someone at the financial institution and arrange to limit access to what you plan to do online. Strike up an acquaintance so you can establish your identity when phoning the place.

[stetwood]

Library

[Matt_Colie]

Mags,

I thought I answered this one, but I don't find it here.

Anyway, we have been doing this for years. You already have a Verizon (V) account, that will serve you well. Just get (buy) the app for your smartphone called Foxfi. That will let you use the phone to create an hotspot. You get to set the security. You buy the app just once and pay no monthly for the use, but it does burn your data bandwidth, so you have to be mindful of that. We have been doing this for years. I used to have an unlimited data plan, but V made that too expensive to keep. Now I just have to be a little careful and not let the per/month data get out of hand or buy extra when I need it.

Matt

[valhalla360]

Campfire Time wrote:

westernrvparkowner wrote:
To get the lowdown on personal information security in general, catch the episode of "Adam Ruins Everything" that deals with the issue. It basically explains that you cannot do anything to protect your credit information, your personal information or any other information that would materially make that information more secure. In other words, the barn door has been open for years, and the horses are all long gone.

Horse hockey. That would be like saying since criminals can easily break into any house there's no point in locking the doors. You can't protect or control every aspect of any transactions, even if you never use the Internet. But there is plenty you can do to protect what you can control and reduce your attack surface. So why wouldn't you?

The media just loves to scare people. Tru Tv was good when it was court TV, now it's just the National Enquirer in video format.

Using a modest amount of common sense if all well and good but after that, yes, it's a waste of time and the unintended consequences are likely worse than the risk.

I'd rather a thief not destroy the door frame that will cost $1000 to repair while breaking in to steal a 3yr old laptop that's probably worth $50 on the resale market.

[RoyB]

I was hoping that ANGRYBERT-63 was going to come back and tell us about his WIFI TRUCK unlimited 3G data that came with his truck that is not used with a cell phone.

Probably is going to be like the other post that got something similar with his 2015 Chevy truck using ON-STAR on SPRINT NETWORK...

Roy Ken

[TangoFox]

You can use any public wifi with almost 99.9% security if you have a VPN. A VPN creates a secure tunnel that connects you directly to a server, directly from your computer. It's a way to mask your internet traffic, so snoopers can't see your packets that you're transmitting. It's not 100% foolproof, but you're pretty dang near.

They cost around $50 a year.

As others have pointed out, if you don't trust how the websites you're connecting to are handling your information... then there's not much this can help you with.

[2oldman]

allenm wrote:
My concern is how companies, and even doctors, safeguard my information

Oh I don't think we have anything to worry about with doctors. If I go to a new physician I still have to fill out paper forms listing everything that's happened to me in the last 67 years.

With good security comes incredible inefficiency.

[bob_nestor]

valhalla360 wrote:
While the data costs are cheaper than they used to be, I'm not aware of anyone with unlimited data plans. Certainly not for $35/month. You may come across the occasional individual who got grandfathered in years ago but that's not relevant to the OP most likely.

Depends on your definition of "unlimited". Virgin Mobile has a $35/mo plan that has unlimited data, although only the first 1Gig is hi-speed and after that it is throttled. The plan includes 100 min of talk time, but after being with it for one year they moved me to unlimited talk time for the same price. The downside is it runs on the Sprint network and doesn't roam, so unless Sprint has a tower in the area where you are there is no connection.

T-Mobile has a $30/mo prepaid plan that is very similar. I can't tell if it is limited to only T-Mobile towers or if it roams though and their policies on roaming data seem pretty restrictive. To get the T-Mobile plan you have to search for it on their web page and sign up online. It says it is for phones purchased at Walmart, but any phone compatible with their network will work as long as it's unlocked.

I haven't checked AT&T or (shudder) Verizon, but I'm guessing they probably offer similar plans. You just have to dig deep on the various web sites to find them.

[azrving]

Do online bill pay or automatic charge card payments but dont put a check in the mail.

Not even safe here

Washing