Network Security While Traveling?

truesaer writes "I'll be spending all of next year backpacking through South America. In the past I've used Internet cafes while away, but this time I plan to bring a netbook and rely primarily on Wi-Fi hotspots. I'll be facing the same issues and risks that business travelers in hotels and airports face, as well as those encountered by millions of other backpackers, gap-year travelers, and students. Since my trip is so long I'll have no choice but to access my banking, credit card, and investment accounts on public networks. I will not have a system at home to connect through. Other than an effective firewall, a patched system, and the use of SSL, what else should I do to protect my information? Keep in mind that many places have very poor bandwidth and latency."

Comments

Re:SSH & SOCKS Proxy

[buchner.johannes]

Please mod parent up.

Usually I'd say you're fine by using https, as it provides end-to-end encryption. Sadly the last word is that that is not true anymore. Throw a ssh tunnel towards the middle of the internet, preferably 'close' to your mail/banking website in terms of few nodes in between.

For example, you can route your (ssl) traffic through shell.sf.net.

Re:Good starting point

[v1]

For an even slightly more robust machine, use Windows 7 Ultimate with BitLocker and a strong password for your logon.

I seem to remember speculation/rumor/unsubstantiated claims awhile back regarding bitlocker having a second way to unlock the data but only the public key was seen, no one knew specifically who had the private key. (govt/ms?) Was this ever either put to rest or proven?