Ask HN: How do you secure yourself on public WiFi?

#1

Post by whyleyc » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 1:55 PM UTC

Following on from the FireSheep post (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1827928) how do HNers secure their InterWebs usage whilst on Public WiFi ?

It seems like VPN is a good way to go - I'm particularly interested to hear whether anyone can recommend any good VPN providers ?

The following were mentioned in the FireSheep post:

  WiTopia (http://www.witopia.net)
  OpenVPN (http://openvpn.net/)

Does anyone have any experience with them or others ?

Re: Ask HN: How do you secure yourself on public WiFi?

#2

Post by whyleyc » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 1:58 PM UTC

Ideally I'd rather not have to configure my own VPN server, but if I have to then so be it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you secure yourself on public WiFi?

#3

Post by yogsototh » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 2:01 PM UTC

What I do:

I have a reachable personnal computer with an ssh server. Then on my local machine I do:

    ssh -D 9050 username@host

Then in your web browser you should simply use localhost:9050 as SOCKS proxy. Now you're safe about the WiFi sniffers.

I made a short post about this:

http://goo.gl/zTQM

Re: Ask HN: How do you secure yourself on public WiFi?

#4

Post by jbeluch » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 2:11 PM UTC

yogsototh wrote: post #3

What I do: I have a reachable personnal computer with an ssh server. Then on my local machine I do: ssh -D 9050 username@host Then in your web browser you should simply use localhost:9050 as SOCKS proxy. Now you're safe about the WiFi sniffers. I made a short post about this: http://goo.gl/zTQM

Also, if you use firefox, there is a handy addon called "multiproxy switch" which makes handling lots of different proxies much easier.

Re: Ask HN: How do you secure yourself on public WiFi?

#5

Post by retroafroman » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 2:14 PM UTC

I have a very cheap, small, Linux VPS for ssh tunneling via SOCKS proxy. It's a couple bucks a month, and it can also host my blog/app prototype/whatever when I get around to putting it up.

Re: Ask HN: How do you secure yourself on public WiFi?

#6

Post by yogsototh » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 2:19 PM UTC

jbeluch wrote: post #4

yogsototh wrote: post #3

What I do: I have a reachable personnal computer with an ssh server. Then on my local machine I do: ssh -D 9050 username@host Then in your web browser you should simply use localhost:9050 as SOCKS proxy. Now you're safe about the WiFi sniffers. I made a short post about this: http://goo.gl/zTQM

Also, if you use firefox, there is a handy addon called "multiproxy switch" which makes handling lots of different proxies much easier.

Thank you. I didn't knew this one. It will be very useful.

Re: Ask HN: How do you secure yourself on public WiFi?

#7

Post by whyleyc » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 2:20 PM UTC

yogsototh wrote: post #3

What I do: I have a reachable personnal computer with an ssh server. Then on my local machine I do: ssh -D 9050 username@host Then in your web browser you should simply use localhost:9050 as SOCKS proxy. Now you're safe about the WiFi sniffers. I made a short post about this: http://goo.gl/zTQM

Great - Just tested, and it seems to work well (fooling FireSheep).

I downloaded "ProxySwitcher" for Chrome for easy switching between the proxy and direct connection:

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/caehdcpeofiiigpd...

Re: Ask HN: How do you secure yourself on public WiFi?

#8

Post by ronnier » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 2:20 PM UTC

I loaded Tomato on my Linksys router, then enabled SSH. I proxy through that when on public wifi. This is the best method for me because my Linksys router is always on and uses very little power.

It's also setup so I can use remote desktop through the proxy to my desktop at home. I wrote up some instructions on how I did it here:

http://ronnieroller.com/articles/rdp_over_ssh_with_a_linksys...

Re: Ask HN: How do you secure yourself on public WiFi?

#9

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 2:23 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do you secure yourself on public WiFi?

#10

Post by epochwolf » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 2:24 PM UTC

Easy, I open up a terminal and type:

    start_vpn

It's a script which fires up an openvpn connection to a vps I have.

Getting openvpn working took about a day of hacking around on my vps and my mac. (just read the openvpn tutorial and follow the steps.) I still haven't gotten openvpn working on Windows but it's not something I've never needed.