Avoid being Hijacked on FREE WIFI

Maybe you are so happy to sit in that Cafe with an unsecured (no password required) FREE WIFI or other place using your laptop to surf the Internet or there is a neighbor with an unsecured WIFI link so why not piggy back on that free WIFI source?  The answer is that it is EXTREMELY easy for any person and there are 1000′s (growing by the second, and that is a statistic) who want to snoop into your business who can sit nearby and see YOUR screen on their computer!  YIKES!!  There is good news and 2 solutions;

First option: approach the manager of the place offering FREE WIFI and recommend they add a password to the WIFI and make a SIGN with the password written on it.  What, you say??  By adding a password even though it is publicly posted the information streaming through the air is now encrypted (secured) so that someone trying to read this information even knowing the public password will see encrypted data whereas without the password they can easily read the information they capture.

Second option; use a FREE Virtual Private Network (VPN) to secure your data before it flies through the air.  With VPN the data is encrypted on your computer before it is transmitted so that nearby snooper sees Gobbledygook.  How to do it:

The kind people who have been in business for years provide the VPN service at:

http://www.bestfreevpn.com  <- use this same link to see the current password (keeping reading for more information)

To set it up with a Windows 7 or Vista PC (http://www.bestfreevpn.com/windows-7-free-vpn/):

1. Open the Control Panel  ->  left-click on Network and Internet and left-click Network and Sharing Center.  (short-cut, left-click the START button and type in “Network and Sharing Center” and left-click on the option when it appears in the list that appears)
2. In the appearing windows left-click on Set up a new connection or network -> left-click (next) Connect to a workplace
3. Select “No, create a new cnonection” left-click (next) -> left-click Use my Internet connection (VPN)
4. Type in: Internet Address: bestfreevpn.com, Destination Name: BestFreeVPN (No other items checked) left-click (next)
5. Type in: User name: free, Password: (use the latest one shown at http://www.bestfreevpn.com/free-vpn/)

THAT’s it!  Pass this information on to your friends!

To set it up with a Windows XP PC:

1. Open Control Panel (left-click START and Left-Click the Control Panel)
2. Left-Click on Network Connections icon to open the Network Connections window.
3. Left-Click the Next button for the first “New Connection Wizard” Welcome window.
4. Select “Connect to the network at my workspace” in “Network Connection Type” window, left-click Next button.
5. Select “Virtual Private Network connection“, left-click Next button.
6. Connection name: type in bestfreevpn.com, left-click Next button.
7. VPN Server hostname: type in bestfreevpn.com, left-click Next button.
8. Left-Click FINISH, type in USER: free and PASSWORD: (use the latest one shown at http://www.bestfreevpn.com/free-vpn/) and left-click CONNECT.

THAT’s it!  Pass this information on to your friends.

Mobile Phone 3G and WiFi

More of us are using laptops,  30% of the market in preference to a desktop or in addition to a desktop computer.  And over 70% of phone users now have Internet Access enabled phones and are using them as their primary way to manage their services, applications, data and email / Instant Message communications.  This article from CNET (Feb. 12, 2010) explains that any heavy user of Internet Access via the phone should make sure their next phone, if it does not already, supports WiFi (802.11n) access.  This is the same technology used by laptops for wireless networking.  The amount of data (bandwidth) needed to send and receive web information is bursting the current capabilities of the cell phone industries infrastructure.  For this reason cell phone companies are hoping you will choose WiFi hotspots for your web surfing to free up how much data travels via the cell-phone towers.  And it is likely we all will choose this option when available for faster web surfing.

This brings up some security issues.  First, How secure is that cell phone call when using the Cell Phone companies cell tower? Actually more secure than many home wireless phones (see legal issues).  Most of the major U.S. Cell Phone Service providers use Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) like;

, , , and

that sends the call information over multiple paths that makes it difficult to intercept.  Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) on which GSM technology is based breaks calls into time-slots and is used by and .  Both technologies are difficult to intercept since they are both digital and break the communication up into pieces.  Just be aware that if “roaming” this is an analog signal and it is much easier to be monitored by radio scanners.

What needs to be weighed when talking on the phone is how valuable is the information being discussed.  If a person or organization would spend lots of money for it then assume they are listening.  Giving your debit card over the cell phone that contains your life savings is not a good idea but giving out an account’s information that only holds a limited amount of funds may not be as great a worry.  [As a side note it is worth having a separate account for on-line purchases, over-the-phone purchases if using a debit type card or a credit card is a good option since it does not link to actual money but links to credit.]  The goods news is that using a cell phone is a relatively safe way to communicate and the chance of eavesdropping is slim.  A word of caution, however, is to not accept another phone as a gift or think twice about buying a 2nd hand phone as there are snooping programs that can be installed on a cell phone!

If absolute security is required a 3rd party encryption product is necessary and both parties for the cell-phone call need to use the same technology solution.

Security for WiFi is another BIG issue (see Working in a Cafe).  The safest method for connecting via a public WiFi access point is using Virtual Private Networking (VPN).  If the WiFi connection is not using encryption where you need to use a password to access the WiFi Hotspot, with WPA2 being the current safest encryption type, then all transmissions are vulnerable to being snooped so be extremely careful what information you send or receive while using a non-encrypted public connection.  Most safe activities would be doing general research, looking up public transportation schedules and such.  But you should switch to your cell phones built-in email handling applications, if available, for managing email.  Plus, avoid going to financial account web-sites or using web-sites where you are entering a user-name and password.  Although this may seem a bit more complicated it is mostly common-sense because if you have a laptop and there are strangers sitting nearby you would not want to have your financial accounts open on the laptop so just take it a step further and assume those strangers can “see” the information being sent & received while using a public WiFi hotspot.