On Jul 23, 2013, at 8:38 AM, John Robinson <[email protected]> wrote:
> When I travel I may be in the middle of nowhere when I need to get data from > the internet. The Jeep we have has the ability to become a "hot spot" but > when you look at the U-Cponnect (Jeep's name for it's information brain that > runs the entire vehicle) you find the coverage is very limited, so my next > approach was getting a Verizon and AT&T WiFi hotspot. > > I started with AT&T, got a little black box that is about the size of my iPod > classic, fits inside my Bose earbud case. > > This puppy is amazing, so much so that I will use it during my 14 day trial > and if I am not eating up the 5 gig allowance for the $50.00 a month fee (it > cost $49.99 with a 2 yr contract) then I will get rid of the Time Warner > internet connection at the office that is costing $198.00 a month. This > allows 10 devices to be connected at the same time, it's got 3G, AT&T's > terminology for 4G and 4g lte, which is what I am running on now, at the > office as I type this. Have you tried using your phone or iPad in this way? Both the iPads with cell connectivity and iPhones can work as mobile hotspots. (Settings>General>Cellular>Set Up Personal Hotspot) They can pretty much do the same thing as the box you're trying out. I got a trial of it a few months back, and it works wonderfully. There are two reasons why I don’t have it on my account: (1) $50/month seems too steep for me; and, (2) if I got it, I'd lose my unlimited data plan and be limited to the cap on the new passthrough account. > The salesman also had a good point, he said they were selling bunches of > these for folks that wanted to protect themselves when in a coffee shop, > hotel, or other place offering WiFi, instead of using the WiFi from there > location, not knowing how well it's protected they simply use their own > hotspot. Not a bad idea. That logic is somewhat specious. They're both WiFi broadcasters. Anyone that can scan the WiFi in the coffee shop can grab the WiFi from the mobile hotspot. They are both likely to use WPA or WPA2 security, which is hard to break. The surest way to protect yourself from a local man in the middle attack is a subscription to a personal VPN service so all your traffic is strongly encrypted. I use a different approach in coffee shops. I make sure all my private communications are strongly encrypted. All my email is done via IMAPs and sent via secure SMTP servers. My email is always encrypted, when sent to those few people from whom I have a public key. I have SSL Everywhere and similar extensions installed on my Web browsers to automatically force a secure (https) connection whenever it's possible. PS/ Most public WiFi spots were forced to go with WPA or WPA2 after the advent of Firesheep a few years ago. You can check the security of your WiFi connection by holding down the option key while clicking on the WiFi icon in your menu bar. I always check this in a public location and, if there's no security, I pay close attention to what I’m doing.
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