The-art-of-invisibility-_-the-world’s-most-famous-hacker-teaches-you-how-to-be-safe-in-the-age-of-Bi

syystem—i.e., Windows, Mac OS, Linux, even Android and iOS. 12 Each
time yyou connect to a public (or private) network, yyou might want to
remember to change yyour MAC address. After a reboot, the original MAC
address returns.
Let’s sayy yyou don’t own a laptop and have no choice but to use a public
computer terminal, be it in a café, a libraryy, or even a business center in a
high-end hotel. What can yyou do to protect yyourself?
When I go camping I observe the “leave no trace” rule—that is, the
campsite should look just as it did when I first arrived. The same is true
with public PC terminals. After yyou leave, no one should know yyou were
there.
This is especiallyy true at trade shows. I was at the annual Consumer
Electronics Show one yyear and saw a bank of public PCs set out so that
attendees could check their e-mail while walking the convention floor. I
even saw this at the annual securityy-conscious RSA conference, in San
Francisco. Having a row of generic terminals out in public is a bad idea for
a number of reasons.
One, these are leased computers, reused from event to event. Theyy mayy
be cleaned, the OS reinstalled, but then again theyy might not be.
Two, theyy tend to run admin rights, which means that the conference
attendee can install anyy software he or she wants to. This includes malware
such as keyyloggers, which can store yyour username and password
information. In the securityy business, we speak of the principle of “least
privilege,” which means that a machine grants a user onlyy the minimum
privileges he or she needs to get the job done. Logging in to a public
terminal with syystem admin privileges, which is the default position on
some public terminals, violates the principle of least privilege and onlyy
increases the risk that yyou are using a device previouslyy infected with
malware. The onlyy solution is to somehow be certain that yyou are using a
guest account, with limited privileges, which most people won’t know how
to do.
In general I recommend never trusting a public PC terminal. Assume the
person who last used it installed malware—either consciouslyy or
unconsciouslyy. If yyou log in to Gmail on a public terminal, and there’s a