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How safe is public WiFi exactly?
- Thread starter Braders88
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Pretty much all major commercial websites where security is a Big Deal(TM) (banks, Google services, etc.) use SSL to prevent theft of information. So you're safe in that case.
You may be less safe with some of the less popular services, such as cloud-enabled apps where you don't know what mechanism is used to communicate with their servers. Anyone who has even an inkling of knowing what they're doing will always use SSL.
If it's a web service, look for the SSL "lock" icon to tell you if you're mostly safe logging in. I say "mostly" because nothing (not even VPN services) is fool-proof. It's just a matter of making it extremely difficult for an attacker, and SSL does this job adequately.
You may be less safe with some of the less popular services, such as cloud-enabled apps where you don't know what mechanism is used to communicate with their servers. Anyone who has even an inkling of knowing what they're doing will always use SSL.
If it's a web service, look for the SSL "lock" icon to tell you if you're mostly safe logging in. I say "mostly" because nothing (not even VPN services) is fool-proof. It's just a matter of making it extremely difficult for an attacker, and SSL does this job adequately.
While at home, I have all of my devices connected to my home (ATT) network. But when I leave home, I disconnect from wifi and use LTE all the time.
I can't steal passwords or credit card info myself, and don't have an interest to learn, but the recent reportings of what happened at the Olympics was enough to make me sit up and take notice. NO ONE that went to the winter games in Russia or where ever it was, got past the airport without having some sort of malware installed or logins stolen. The people reporting took test phones with marked info that would help them identify the use of the info stolen off of those phones and those phones were tapped while still in the airport. Schiech.....
Look, I'm not techie in that way, and can't provide a link, but if you Google the above stories, it will almost make you turn off your phone between uses.
I can't steal passwords or credit card info myself, and don't have an interest to learn, but the recent reportings of what happened at the Olympics was enough to make me sit up and take notice. NO ONE that went to the winter games in Russia or where ever it was, got past the airport without having some sort of malware installed or logins stolen. The people reporting took test phones with marked info that would help them identify the use of the info stolen off of those phones and those phones were tapped while still in the airport. Schiech.....
Look, I'm not techie in that way, and can't provide a link, but if you Google the above stories, it will almost make you turn off your phone between uses.
To be fair, it took some specific doing or specific not doing of some things from various people at the Winter Games to have something happen to their phones. And even then it wasn't iOS related as I recall. Not to say things are safe, but they are safer than that, especially for iOS devices in that respect.
That may be true, but LTE is so much faster than wifi, why even take a chance? Is how I look at it. Maybe I am a bit paranoid, but have had things electronically stolen from me in the past. Not phone related, but data related. But to be fair, this is simply my opinion.
If you use it an electrical surge will be wirelessly passed onto your device and it will kill you
Sooooo, I'd like to take your time machine for a spin. Can in borrow the keys?
Open roads are usually managed by a municipality. Who takes responsibility for open hotspots?
That's the point. An open hotspot is either secure or not. It doesn't matter who manages it. Suppose you can find an open hotspot "managed" by a City Government. It's no more secure than a privately managed hotspot, if there are technological flaws in the 802.11 specs.
