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Much of that discussion is crap. They're wasting effort bikeshedding about local network sniffing. You have to assume that anything of value sent over the inter
by theBobMcCormick 16y ago
Much of that discussion is crap. They're wasting effort bikeshedding about local network sniffing. You have to assume that anything of value sent over the internet might be sniffed or at least could be sniffed by a well placed attacker. The last hop connection between your PC and the AP is hardly the only point at which your data is vulnerable. To assume otherwise is foolhardy.
That's why I said that the only additional risks I can see of an public Wifi is local attacks directly against your machine such as someone port scanning your laptop to look for vulnerable service or open fileshares, etc.
- pak 16y agoIt's much more unlikely that there is a sniffer between your ISP's routers and the target servers for interesting traffic than an attacker listening to your AP traffic. Your ISPs have a vested, primary business interest in keeping their network and peer traffic secure. The coffee shop could care less if people hack each other's Twitter over their AP. Think about it, say you want to grab somebody's credentials for a popular website. Do you a) hack into their ISP or b) follow them to a coffeeshop and open up Firesheep. What's the easiest angle you are going to take? Local network sniffing isn't the trivial example of sniffing, it's the most vulnerable and probably most exploited target. (Just ask Google.)