You do know that all monitors made after 2003 were bidirectional, right? It is our little joke that we make a small camera-looking thing in some models to make humans think that is how we watch them...
Help wanted ping.
Depends on the network and the laptop. Anything going over the network is easily intercepted unless its encrypted. If your laptop isn’t configured properly they can gain access to your disk drive.
Say you log into email and read them. They’ve captured your login/password and the contents of the email.
All wireless networks can be hacked using free software.
Oh, please. You certainly are. Don't be perpetratin'.
Depends on the network and the laptop. Anything going over the network is easily intercepted unless its encrypted. If your laptop isn’t configured properly they can gain access to your disk drive.
Say you log into email and read them. They’ve captured your login/password and the contents of the email.
All wireless networks can be hacked using free software.
Ping.
It all depends on your setup, and theirs.
If you want complete anonymity, a fresh iPod Touch, laptop or unregistered Droid wouldn’t have anything to share that was too useful. (MAC ID, browser info, etc.)
Many of these hotspots have a long disclaimer that requires you to click on something. That something may or may not be poking around. Frankly, the folks at the local Burger King or Howard Johnson’s don’t have anything terribly sophisticated.
You could set up a virtualized OS on a laptop, log in with that, and wipe it regularly... that would be quite safe.
Download a linux distro called Tails , install it onto a thumb drive, make sure to decide if you want a persistent storage partition on the thumb drive or not from the start.
General problems of getting Linux drivers for your laptop apply.
Plus the fact that at a public WiFi location you are in public. Besides eyewitnesses there are all those security cameras.
How much info I reveal about myself depends on how good looking the girl sitting next to me is.
You do know that all monitors made after 2003 were bidirectional, right? It is our little joke that we make a small camera-looking thing in some models to make humans think that is how we watch them...
At an open, unsecured WIFI spot, everything you send can be sniffed - basically all your email, browsing, etc.
Best to connect to a VPN first, then do all your other transactions - that way everything is encrypted before it goes over the WIFI network.
This is why large companies insist their employees use VPN at these wireless places. Whether you would want to set up a home VPN depends on your skill level.
Well gee for starters, your MAC address, the make and model of the accessing device, all stored log on info, all browser access while your logged on to that wireless network. If we flip a couple of software switches we can monitor all the traffic on your assigned IP address...some encrypted some not. It’s like trusting Google... be afraid... be very afraid
Don’t buy any thing online at a hotspot, just read Free Republic.
Your Mac address would be exposed to anyone that wants to log it, which cross references you to home.
Depends on what you mean by “cracker/hacker” and how you interpret the law. By strict interpretation of the law they can only legally know anything about you if you give them permission.
For example my Fortune 500 company cannot “catch” illegal penetration to our system by setting up an anonymous hotspot and monitoring users as they access it. It is illegal for us to monitor or record anything they do (at least our lawyers say that and I’ve talked to IT people at other companies who say the same). On the other hand there are laws saying we must record a lot of things.
A lot of the laws haven’t been tested, and a small hotspot admin won’t know or care. They will be able to watch anything you do. If you are secure (e.g. https or sftp) they can see what domains you look up but nothing else (e.g. they may know you tried to find www.IWantPorn.com and how many pages or files you requested/sent there but they won’t know more). If you are not secure they can see the full url or filename you request and any values you enter on forms. All of this, while technically illegal, would probably not get them in a lot of trouble. And they would be required to record it in some cases if they advertise their hotspot service.
Depending on your configuration they will be able to access your computer in ways that many people would not consider cracking/hacking. This would be considered illegal in most cases and you’d at least have a civil suit if they caused you problems.
With some easy-to-get cracker/hacker tools, a bored admin can access a lot of your system. The simple answer is that if you trust the operator, assume you are safe. And if you don’t trust them assume you are wide open.
Since spending a weekend at the Las Vegas Trump Hotel with “free” wi-fi , my lap top is inundated with Trump ads