Web Surfing in Public Places Is A Way to Court Trouble

We had a story come in from the New York Times reminding people that web surfing in public places Is a way to court trouble. There's nothing in the story that is anything hugely new - but it does lead to an interesting question. What's the worst "on the road" security setups you've seen?

Comments

Sensationalist, at least about wireless

[markov_chain]

From TFA:

These software programs are called packet sniffers and many can be downloaded free online. They are typically set up to capture passwords, credit card numbers and bank account information -- which is why Mr. Vamosi says shopping on the Web is not a great way to kill time during a flight delay.

Michael Sellitto, a graduate student studying international security at Harvard, said that even though he encrypted any sensitive data on his laptop, he planned to sign up for a service like HotSpotVPN to add another level of security when he is traveling, especially when using poorly protected networks at cafes and hotels.

Have these guys heard of SSL? SSH? Can you say overkill? And who is this Sellitto guy, sounds like a liberal arts major that can't cut it in a real security field. *breathes into paperbag*

Re:Interesting question

[justinbach]

Wow, that's a sure sign I've had a rough weekend; my last post on Friday afternoon was a +5 Funny, and here I am Monday morning with a 0, Troll. I guess I need a hug... :-(

Re:classic diligence, albeit in a modern world

[gEvil (beta)]

So how much money did you make on that particular IPO? :-D

Re:Denver Airport

[ScottyH]

"bags"?

Re:Denver Airport

[__aaclcg7560]

"snakes" :P

Re:classic diligence, albeit in a modern world

[Control Group]

This reminds me of an anecdote I read somewhere, the details of which I mostly forget. So I wouldn't believe it, if I were you, but it's still amusing.

Dr. Smith is a medical researcher, helping run one end of a typical double-blind clinical trial of Unobtainasil, a new drug which is hoped to treat a severe condition. He's flying to Switzerland for a conference of some kind.

While in the airport, he happens to sit down next to Dr. Jones, whom he met a while back at another conference. They get to talking shop, as is not surprising - and it eventually comes out that Dr. Jones is also working on the clinical trials of Unobtainasil.

With great dismay, they realize they've just compromised the trial, and all the data will probably need to be thrown out.

Whoops.

Moral of the story: never talk about anything with anyone.

Conference Call

[onkelonkel]

Similar situation - except it was a conference call between us and a supplier (10 people in our office on a speakerphone talking to 10 people in their office). At some point we needed to discuss something amongst ourselves so we told the suppliers we were going "off the air" for a minute and put the phone on mute. To our amazement, the suppliers thought that because they could no longer hear us that we could no longer hear them. Their mic was still open and we heard the talking as if we were no longer listening. They were quite candidly discussing flaws in their equipment that we hadn't found yet, and trying to decide which imaginary ship date they were going to tell us given that their product wasn't really going to be ready for 4 more months.

Needless to say, we made the "off the air" discussion a part of every call we had with them.

Re:The virus of Troy wooden horse type

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in Asia will you find hotel rooms with both a Hello Kitty branded computer and a bunch of Trojans.

Re:Public computers

[pclminion]

If the machine is insecure enough to have a keylogger, it's hard to say what other kinds of software may be presesnt on the machine.

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