How can I protect my device when I surf from a public hotspot

[victore]

I wanted to see what other people are doing to protect their devices when they are using public hotspots. Are you guys running firewalls or using encryption when sending and receiving information? I'm concerned that when I enter my password to check my mail, that someone may be able to sniff out the text as it goes by.

[nitestrike]

You would need to have encryption with the AP or a service that you proxy through that uses encryption is the only way to "hide" you password that I'm aware of. A firewall would only be able to block the password from going in or out. I usually am able to use encryption with the AP where I am at.

[Sven Johannsen]

That's some false security there. If you are using WEP or WPA to encrypt your transmission that, is only between you and the wireless Access Point. From there you are back on the greater internet with all it's insecurities. The only way to really secure anything from user to user is to use secure sockets layers or a VPN (which is sort of a dedicated encrypted link). The first part of that, is that lock thing you get when you visit a site that uses https. That implies your data is encrypted at your terminal and not decrypted untill it reaches it's destination. Anything like an e-mail password, or bank transactions are normally done this way.

So if you are not concerned about your data on the internet, because you feel it is protected when it needs to be by https, the same applies when using a public hotspot. The transmission is easier to intercept, but the data under https is as sevcure as it would be in the internet. For what it's worth.

[nitestrike]

I would like to apologize for assumption that I made in that it was the wireless portion of the network and more than just web traffic that we were talking about here. Sven is right, that to ensure that any data is encrypted when passing sensitive data over the network via the web making sure to have that lock icon and https is the best solution for your needs.