Protecting Against Hacking re: Public Networks

As a newbie to the netbook scene I am concerned that when using my Aspire One in say a cafe (or even McDonalds) someone will be able to eavesdrop and capture the packets of info. and be able to listen in to my emails etc. Even worse as the BBC's Hustle programme showed it is apparently possible for someone to hack into a nearby netbook and 'listen' to say communicatioon to/from a Yahoo email account. Then when the owner logs out and departs the hacker can remain logged in and access the emails - and worse change the password thereby locking out the owner for ever. What is the best way of preventing this kind of unauthorised access please? Thank you very much - CJB.

 

It is nothing to do with Acer Aspire One as such. It can happen to ANY PC using wireless networking... That's why in "normal" networks you use encryption and authentication. In free to use Wi-Fi networks you actually asking for problems if you have sensitive data... Unfortunately there is no alternative if you do not want to pay extra for Internet access. I use one of 3G USB dongles for e-mail, classified info exchange and collaboration with others which should remain confident... For standard web browsing I use available Wi-Fi hot spots as web surfing traffic is not encrypted any way...

 

You can get some protection by using an email program like gmail and telling it to always log on and operate via HTTPS which is encrypted. Not all free email programs have the HTTPS option; and I recollect reading that Hotmail has it, but log in is always regular, not encrypted HTTP, which isn't good.

Never enter a user name or password unless you are on an encrypted network or use an HTTPS log in.

Well, maybe never, if you scurry around and look for suspicious types with netbooks in the restaurant or in a nearby car first...ha ha. You'd probably be safer just driving around neighborhoods looking for an "open" wireless than using a public spot where bad guys might think it is worthwhile to hangout.

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I just double checked and on the hotmail login page, at the bottom in "faded" type, there is a secure log in website option - use that to log in. But any email you open or send is subject to snooping, since Hotmail only uses HTTPS for the log in, not for subsequent data transmissions.

 

look into anonymous proxy's...
i've never used them myself so i can't give you any info on if they work or not. (don't really have anything to private in my life haha just a college student.)
but there is a program that i can't for the life of me think of what it is called right now, that will install onto your computer and will make your computer appear on it's own seperate network away from everyone else. that way you will be safer than just staying on the public wifi.
don't know if this helps but it may be something that you want to check out.

 

Do your own research on it, but I've done pretty well with HotSpotShield - although it's fairly light on resources, left to itself it wants to run its processes in the background all the time sapping some resources even when not turned on - I go manually into Task Manager to disable those between uses. (Side benefit - because it substitutes a US identity for its VPN tunnel it permits us Canadian users to access some of the protected US media streams.)

http://hotspotshield.com/

 

that the program that i was trying to think of, tried to help a friend use it to get on hulu in germany haha, but it works really well on protecting your privacy from what i hear

 

Yes, it worked with Hulu when I first got onto it but Hulu has a way to consistently block it now. It works with Pandora music and some of the TV networks and I think it works with BBC though haven't tried that in a while. But mainly it puts a wall around you when in a public wi-fi spot.