Quote:Your mixing everything up.  Being "on the network" means you have the correct security key, which means your password can be validated and you can decrypt the data correctly.   It's the same thing.   On a secure network, the data is encrypted.  Every packet.  THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF IT.

 

You could decrypt the data with any security key but unless you have the right one, the output is just garbage.  The key is a hash of a password string.  Getting "on the network" is just validating that you have the correct key and can decrypt the data correctly. This is done by comparing the hash of the entered password string plus an arbitrary string with a stored key that was generated with the actual password and an arbitrary string.  I'm not even pretending to be some kind of expert on encryption, but this is the  most basic explanation of how encryption ususally seems to work.  

 

The stuff about FTP is irrelevant.  That's like saying a wired ethernet connection is not secure if a hacker is plugged into your switch.

 

Which leads me back to yet another statement of you saying cracking the password is easy.  How is it easy?  The only way it's easy (as far as I know) is if the password itself is stupid, or if you use a bad encryption scheme.  But you didn't even mention anything about password strength or type of encryption, so i'm assuming you're saying ANY wifi password is easy to crack.  If that is so, please educate us so we can protect ourselves, instead of just saying don't use WIFI because it's unsafe for reasons you can't disclose.  You should also contact all the million businesses worldwide who are perfectly fine with using WIFI.

 

As far as the WIFI at starbucks being safe.  It sorta is.  I may be even more paranoid that I should be by avoiding doing banking or purchases there.  That stuff is always encrypted through https. Anything a legit website thinks is sensitive information goes through https.  So even that is encrypted.

 

But seriously, why even hack these people.  All their information is on facebook anyway.   :thumbsup:

 

Great info.

Most public wifi networks are fairly secure with client isolation and various security protocols. Be sure that websites where you enter any info into, uses https.

The biggest security threat to wireless connections to public hotspots are rogue access points

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_twin_..._networks)

 

http://www.rt.com/news/222891-pirate-hac...e-network/

 

Hard to detect and a massive pain for network admins. However, https still keeps you secure.

 

And yes even knowing that my security likely wont be compromised on public hotspots, I will not login into any websites that would have or use sensitive data. The paranoia is too strong.

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