Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 76 posts

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

#11

Post by carbon8 »

For the past 4 or 5 years I've been using SSH tunneling. I set up a location in OS X network preferences using the exact technique described in this comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1828631. I usually tunnel through my router at home which runs DD-WRT. I use SSH Tunnel manager to manage the tunnel http://projects.tynsoe.org/en/stm/.

Once it's set up, all you need to do is switch your network location to the tunnel location before you leave the house, then when you want to get online, press the button for the appropriate tunnel in SSH Tunnel Manager.

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

#12

Post by [deleted] »

epochwolf wrote: post #10

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.

[deleted]

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

#13

Post by poink »

I used a FreeBSD box to setup Racoon and friends and wound up with a pretty decent setup that used certificates for logging in and was compatible with the built in OS X VPN support (L2TP + IPSec). The resulting solution is painless enough to deal with that I use it whenever I'm on wifi, even at home.

You pay the price with a pretty complicated setup (assuming you're not already an IPSec guru, which I certainly am not), though.

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

#14

Post by ax0n »

My long answer is here: http://www.h-i-r.net/2008/08/defcon-paranoia.html

The short answer: I back up my data. I encrypt all sensitive data on my laptop and don't access it in uncontrolled environments. I tunnel everything (usually with OpenSSH Dynamic Proxy) and then I run a firewall ruleset on my laptop that: 1) Permits tunneling to my server, 2) Permits anything on localhost, 3) Blocks all other incoming or outgoing traffic. Meaning if some program (Pidgin for example) isn't going through the tunnel, it can't even connect out.

It's worth mentioning that I usually operate this way all the time, whether I'm in a risky environment like DefCon or HOPE conferences, or my favorite small coffee shop. Tools like ProxySwitcher, small shell scripts, network locations and stuff that others have mentioned can be used by moderately-savvy folks to make the tunnel setup as painless as possible.

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

#15

Post by whyleyc »

carbon8 wrote: post #11

For the past 4 or 5 years I've been using SSH tunneling. I set up a location in OS X network preferences using the exact technique described in this comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1828631 . I usually tunnel through my router at home which runs DD-WRT. I use SSH Tunnel manager to manage the tunnel http://projects.tynsoe.org/en/stm/ . Once it's set up, all you need to do is switch your network location to…

Thanks - I'd missed that comment you mentioned. Any thoughts on the pros and cons of using this vs a dedicated VPN ?

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

#16

Post by zaa »

I bought a cheap VPS at linode.com, installed and configured pptpd and set up a PPTP connection to the VPS on my mac (using standard Network Preferences panel). When I need a secure connection I just connect over PPTP to the VPS. This enables pretty secure connection from the place with wireless access to the VPS for all tcp protocols (http, smtp, etc).

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

#17

Post by lhnn »

As a side note: Facebook has SSL access, but Facebook Chat doesn't work with it.

I use HTTPS Everywhere, and for any sites that don't use SSL (cough SLASHDOT cough) I just use non-standard passwords and take the risk, and be aware that what I say over unencrypted IM might be intercepted (though it's unlikely).

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

#18

Post by carbon8 »

whyleyc wrote: post #15
carbon8 wrote: post #11

For the past 4 or 5 years I've been using SSH tunneling. I set up a location in OS X network preferences using the exact technique described in this comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1828631 . I usually tunnel through my router at home which runs DD-WRT. I use SSH Tunnel manager to manage the tunnel http://projects.tynsoe.org/en/stm/ . Once it's set up, all you need to do is switch your network location to…

Thanks - I'd missed that comment you mentioned. Any thoughts on the pros and cons of using this vs a dedicated VPN ?

This is much easier to set up and works well. The router or server you are tunneling to needs no extra configuration beyond having ssh set up. On a VPS it will already be running and with router firmware like DD-WRT or Tomato it's just a checkbox in the settings.

VPN makes more sense if you need to access things on another network, like shared drives, and can be difficult to configure.

I've been working completely mobile and using tunneling for years. It works well. Set sshd on the router/server to use port 443 and you won't have issues with port restrictions.

Post reply on HN