The dark side of open wireless

Jürgen

It's an interesting thought. When I was thinking about it, it came to me that there's another thing that should be considered with open wireless hotspots - honeypots.

Just imagine, a business person, on the go, gets a phone call, opens his laptop and gets connected to his email with an open WiFi access point he found floating "around". But such a hotspot could be left open on purpose - say it traces everything that goes in the open and records everyone who's connected to it. While I'm not able to tell exactly the scenario right now, I just have intuitive feeling that such a thing would pose a risk to an occasional user, who probably would not even remember where exactly he got connected. You know, somewhere in the neighborhood...

So in any case, I think it's a two-edge sword - both sides should be careful. Those that live their APs open should get educated and fully understand what that means, and and those connecting should know how to use the widely open APs as well. I don't think I'd trust an open wireless without any layer of security, say VPN of some sort.

Call that a paranoya, but that's just what I think.

Good point by the way.

Fgpyyih804423 in 160 seconds. How Safe is Your Windows Password?

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They should've tried my cats name...

hehe, kiddin'

-A

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