WiFi Security at CoffeeShops? Any Software to Use?

Hey Guys -

Do you know of any great programs to protect/encrypt your stuff on a unsecured wifi spot, such as if im at a coffeeshop?

Ive tried OpenVPN Version 2.6 i believe from their own website... but I cant seem to install it.... I think i need to download a Tap driver or something, but dont want to screw anything up, since I really dont know what im doing? Any suggestion would be great

Thank You

 

Maybe set up a VPN? Just a thought... I'm not really an expert.

 

A quick google brings up plenty of juicy hits that look quite promising. I would suggest reviewing a few of them to see if they satisfy your needs.

 

shyster

I know there are plenty of VPN (i believe name) theres so many out there and just wanted to see if anyone has personal (great) experience from any of the software... im a newb and just wanted to ask if someone has used one that would be good for a beginner...

Seeing as some give you adds that seem to pop up out of nowhere, i wanted to double check the bad ones... ones with adds dont neccessarly tell you they have adds...which sucks...

thanks and ill check out the VPN

 

what kind of security do you think you will need?

something to 'protect' your computer from intrusion/penetration by other people on the wwan

something to 'protect' your data traffic from snooping on the wwan

or??

 

Fair enough; my apologies if I was too gruff - I can only plead insufficient coffee at the time. I haven't tried using anything like that at a hotspot (mainly 'cause I don't use hotspots), but I would tend to want to avoid any sort of a service that claims to be protecting my privacy while throwing ads at me from who knows what ad-server.

Are you looking for a VPN solution that provides a vpn server for you, or are you looking for a VPN solution that would permit you to create a secure VPN tunnel between your wireless laptop (at the hotspot) and your desktop (at home)?

 

Shyster
Sorry if my statement was contrued in a negative way... i didnt mean that... now that i re read it, i guess it does sound sort of negative... sorry for this...

newsposter:
I just dont want someone to gain access to my information... been looking at some websites, and its just to easy to access ones passwords and usernames, with a click of a button.. however these tools are supposed to be used in a professional way, such as checking ot see if "your" network is safe, you just cant help those that snoop...

So, i am looking for something that would encyrpt a "unsecured" access point... you know, the ones you dont have to input a WEP or WPS-PSK ecncryption key to gain access to the internet..... Since im using one that does not require a encryption key, such as a coffeeshop... so, technically, something of both, but mos important, something to "encrypt" the information my wifi signal sends out (maybe im saying it wrong?

 

the problem if I understand you is that in order to encrypt, you need to decrypt on the other side.

In an unsecure coffee shop session, you cannot encrypt something on your side, if there is nothing on the other side to decrypt it.

The VPN solution that others are talking about would allow you to create an secure tunnel through the open space, but it is assuming you are connecting to something on the other end--say, a work server.

You're connecting from your laptop through open space to an uncrypted website (say, Yahoo, login page)...you cannot achieve what you're after.

 

so a VPN wouldnt protect me if im in a coffeeshop... i know i can setup windows firewall connection to a "public area" instead of a "work space"... but i was just hoping that a good VPN program/software would help with a "unsecure connection"...

the coffeshop i go to has a router(d-link- or netgear, i forgot) in place for their customers, but it called a unsecure connecition when logging into it?

thanks

 

A VPN would help you - at least one that used encryption - but the problem is you need something on the other side of the VPN tunnel (something you either control or can reliably trust) to decrypt the VPN traffic and then re-send your internet traffic to the actual target as normal internet traffic.

I found several services that would do that for you, but you either have to pay for them, or put up with obnoxious ads (which, in and of themselves, could consitute a security risk).

One is Hotspot VPN. Another is iPIG (aka "iOpus Private Internet Gateway"). The third is Hotspot Shield.

As I said, they all are for-pay (Hotspot Shield has a free version, but then you have to put up with the ads); however, if you're doing anything more than basic web-surfing - for example, if you do your online banking at this coffee-shop - then it would probably be worth it to get one of the for-pay services if you simply cannot restrict yourself to merely surfing websites that don't require you to submit any private or confidential info.

 

A vpn would protect the connection between the two items on each side of the VPN.

OK, let me back up....you're in a coffee shop and you have a TS server at work with an application you need or even, for your sake, an internet browser.

You establish the VPN between your laptop to your work server--the information between them is encrypted even though it is tunneling through an unprotected network. You could, ostensibly, use the web browser on the server to surf the web in relatively security.

But if you are in a coffess shop and only surfing the internet, there is no virtual private network. A VPN is an end-to-end communcation. The communication between the two ends is secure. With normal surfing, there is no vpn on the other side to connect to, only a web server.

The firewall when set to public area, prevents other people from poking around in your computer or accessing any resources you may be sharing. It does not protect the connection from your laptop to the router.

The coffeeshop's unsecured connection means it is unencrypted. Data between you and the router are flying back and forth in plain text. Someone with an wireless sniffer can grab packets out of the air and see what is contained.

So, let's say you visit some forum , and you log in--your password and username flies through the air to the router, which sends it to yahoo server. Someone with a packet sniffer can read that, find out your user name and password.

I gave the example of yahoo earlier, but that was a bad example, as the login for yahoo's login page is encrypted (note the page is https://login.yahoo.com).

The simple answer here is: don't do anything on a unsecured network you wouldn't share with the stranger sitting next to you.

Now,

 

Tunneling to a proxy server would serve up the same security as a VPN. Like at work here, I can theoretically tunnel to my home computer and surf the internet from there, bypassing the corporate firewall. But that's not necessary here, since I have access to the firewall

I don't think that all that work is worth the results in your case.

Your best bet is just to limit your sensitive web browsing to something more secure.

 

If you have sensitive data that is going to unencrypted web sites (http instead of https) then I'd be taking my data elsewhere.

The method of tunneling/VPN to a proxy site is good and one that I'd suggest as well. The challenge there is whether or not you trust the operator of the proxy site enough to run your web traffic and passwords through there. All you've really done is to move the potential of a breach from the local WWAN upstream to the proxy service.

 

Let's back up even further and reflect on the pointlessness of encrypting a coffee shop Wifi connection (it sounds absurd even as I type it)... it's not like you'll be banking or filling out financial information over such a dubious connection. The worst thing that could happen is that someone will find out that you love BBC news or NBR. There is no mission-critical data to protect here... so why go through all this exhaustive effoty to protect something worthless?