Secure Your Internet Connection with a VPN
Whenever you connect to wireless access point, it’s a good to idea to make sure it uses decent encryption. Stay with WPA and don’t use WEP, as that method has been badly hacked a long time ago.
Without such protection, all info is sent out in the clear and anybody with some basic knowledge of packet sniffing can intercept your data. One exception would be SSL connections to websites.
Oh, and another thing, I’d be wary of any open access point with names like “free internet” or “free wi-fi.” These access points could be honeypots designed to capture any confidential information you send out over the internet such as user-ids, passwords, and emails.
In those instances where an open, unencrypted access point is your only choice, you can protect yourself by using a virtual private network (VPN). In using a VPN, all of your data is transmitted through an encrypted tunnel. This renders any information going between your computer and the VPN server unreadable by a third party.
You can setup a VPN server on your home computer and connect to it securely whenever you’re on the road with your notebook. You’ll basically be surfing the internet remotely through your home computer.
For those who don’t want to deal with this hassle, there’s another choice. For a small fee, you can subscribe to a a VPN service provider. With this service, you can safely use open access points by connecting to their VPN servers.
Here’s a short of list of VPN prodviders:
I signed up with PublicVPN a couple of days ago and it’s been running smoothly so far. Leopard already has a very good VPN client built-in so all I had to do was fill in a few details to set up a L2TP/IPsec VPN connection. There is a bit of a bandwidth hit due to the extra hop the data has to take through the VPN server but the connection still felt reasonably fast and usable.
Instructions on how to setup a VPN connection with PublicVPN can be found here. These instructions are designed for Tiger users but they can easily be adapted for people using Leopard. The main difference is that you have to setup the VPN through the Network section of your System Preferences. A special note for Leopard users, under the “Advanced…” button for your VPN settings, make sure that “Send all traffic over VPN connection” is checked. It’s strange that this isn’t done by default.
Previously, I was happy with my 802.1x connection to Starbucks. This whole snafu with Leopard and 802.1x has forced me to go with VPN. I’m happy I made this choice since I now have more connection options available via other open access points.
Do you use VPN? How were your experiences with it? And out of curiosity, were any of you able to use Leopard and 802.1x with a Starbucks access point?
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