Question about VPNs and Hotspots....

[Crow550]

Like Chris is saying: http://chris.pirillo.com/2008/...-public-wifi-hotspots/


Should you use something like Hotspot Shield if you own a laptop and hotspot seek?

 

[Crusty]

Anything you do over an unencrypted wireless can be read in plain text by anyone sitting nearby with the right software(wireshark). So if all of your traffic is encrypted through a VPN then people can still see your traffic, but they won't have any idea what's in it unless they can decrypt the information inside the packets.

I don't know how Hotspot Shield works, but whenever I'm forced to use an open wireless connection I always SSH into my home network and tunnel everything through SSH which in effect encrypts my traffic so nobody can read it.

 

[Alienwho]

In that link you posted, the guy talks about using hamachi as a VPN. I wasn't aware that Hamachi acted as a traditional VPN in encrypting your regular traffic. For example:

I know that traditional VPN's do encrypt your data. Whenever I'm at a hotspot I will connect to my work VPN to prevent my neighbors from reading any sniffed packets. I already have Hamachi installed on all my computers simply for file sharing between them. I didn't think that it encrypted all your data, I just thought it encrypted data shared explicitly between the two computers (eg I browse to my home computer from work). Can we get any confirmation on this?