Wireless Home Networking - Index of

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Part IV: Using a Wireless Network
Staying Secure in a Hot
Spot Environment
As we mention earlier in the chapter, most Wi-Fi hot spots, whether they be
free or for pay, utilize no network security and encryption (this is simply
because it’s easier for users to get online without trying to figure out WPA
passphrases and the like). There are some exceptions (for example, T-Mobile
uses WPA and 802.1x authentication on their hot spots), but the vast majority
of hot spots are completely without encryption.
What this means to you, as a user of a hot spot, is that everything that you
send and receive from your laptop is “in the clear.” Anyone else in Wi-Fi range
could intercept your transmissions and read them. If that doesn’t give you
pause, it should!
The lack of hot spot encryption also could lead to a situation where you
unwittingly log onto a “fake” hot spot with a similar SSID to the one you’re
trying to log onto. In this evil twin attack, some bad person sets up an access
point with an SSID such as Starbucks right near the Starbucks where you
think you’re logging into a T-Mobile hot spot. You log on and they capture
everything you do online (for example, online banking and Webmail passwords).
Not a good situation.
You can do a few things to secure yourself in a hot spot environment. The
first (and best) is to use a Virtual Private Network (or VPN). Using a VPN in a
hot spot gives you three distinct benefits:
� A VPN provides security even without airlink encryption (WPA or WEP)
by encrypting all your inbound and outbound traffic. Even though someone
could freely “read” and copy all your Wi-Fi signals, those signals
would be protected by the VPN’s encryption and would be nothing but
gibberish to the end user.
� A VPN provides privacy and anonymity online (even beyond the bounds
of the hot spot) by making your public “face” on the Internet an IP
address in your VPN provider’s network rather than your own IP address.
This means that any online tracking (both the benign and the malign
kinds) that relies on your IP address would never be able to associate you
with your actual IP address. This benefit could also apply at home or
anywhere you go online.
� A VPN provides you better access to the Internet in locations where
certain Web sites or Internet applications (such as VoIP, discussed in
Chapter 13) are imposed by the government or other organizations. For
example, many western travelers in China find that they can’t access
Web sites that they normally view (for example, some parts of Wikipedia
are blocked). A VPN lets you “tunnel” through national firewalls and do
what you want to do on the Internet without being blocked.