How to safely browse on an open wireless network

beckster · 22 Sep 2008 at 16:01

I am doing a fair amount of travelling at the moment and the only internet access I have access to is from public open networks (shopping malls, internet cafes, etc). However, I need to access my bank, email, paypal and various online accounts. What precautions should I take to make sure no one nabs my password? Unfortunately I don't really have any other choice (in Philippines at the moment!)

FrenchTart · 22 Sep 2008 at 16:03

https websites are secure-ish..

An alternative would be to get a VPS up and running and then SSH tunnel into it and route all your traffic through it. It'd be pretty watertight.

beckster · 22 Sep 2008 at 16:05

Can you point me to any sort of guide to do this? I could also buy a WRT54GL and connect to the network through that and to the laptop with a cable if that will help matters at all?

Burnsy2023 · 22 Sep 2008 at 16:08

beckster said:
I could also buy a WRT54GL and connect to the network through that and to the laptop with a cable if that will help matters at all?

No, that won't help. I'm sure there are web based services that allow you to VPN into for secure browsing. They're not free mind.

beckster · 22 Sep 2008 at 16:14

I don't mind paying if it's not too expensive and if it will secure my browsing on almost any open network.Will it impact speed? Philipino internet is already pretty shoddy

Dangerous Dave · 22 Sep 2008 at 20:41

When I am abroad or away from home etc I just VPN back to my home network and route all the traffic down it. Free and secure also has the added bonus of being able to access iplayer/ITV streaming etc from overseas. Also works fine with my laptop teathered to a iphone over 3g.

R4z0r · 23 Sep 2008 at 12:18

I'd use SSH tunneling (Google will show some guides through PuTTY, it's very straightforward). All you need is a box somewhere running sshd (Pretty much any Linux box).

beckster · 23 Sep 2008 at 13:57

https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/order.asp

Would something like that work? Which is the best service to use? I can't set up a box anywhere as I am busy travelling! I should have sorted out this beforehand but didn't think about it.

beckster · 23 Sep 2008 at 14:19

Basically I just need some way to securely browse my emails, bank, ebay and paypal. Anything else (downloads, general browsing and gaming) can be done on the normal unsecured network.

DavidS14 · 23 Sep 2008 at 14:53

Have a read of http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/01/openvpn_primer/ which is a step by step guide to setting up a vpn to use whilst roaming using open networks.