How safe is free Wi-Fi service now available in many places?
From an intrusion standpoint a free WiFi access point is no less safe than an Internet connection at home, and standard security advice applies: enable the Windows firewall, engage Anti-virus software, and keep your XP system well patched. The fact that a public WiFi network is “unsecured” isn’t particularly relevant — if the establishment running the hotspot wanted it secured, they could do so and then post the WEP key prominently. This grants no security, and any cracker resourceful enough to sniff your packets off the air will have no harder a time decoding them if a WiFi password is extant, because he will have it too. One may assume the worst case, and when using a public network one may wish to protect one’s data. If you cannot trust the network to which you’re connected, you can choose to either limit your use to requests of a trivial nature (reading news, e.g.) or you can endeavor to use HTTPS: (encrypted SSL) connections instead of plaintext HTTP: connections. This and other
