>
> I've used open connections myself before (Munich airport's a
> great place!),
> but only for checking E-mail.
Just remember that if any of the content of that e-mail is sensitive
or confidential, that you're sitting on a wide open party line, unless
you're accessing e-mail via SSL/TLS, or https.
Also, make sure you have a local software firewall enabled, so you
don't get any unwelcome visitors who might hack into your laptop
and walk off with your data.
off-topic a bit: read an article while back where a curious techie
made a survey of the various hotels where she stayed to see if they
used a hub or a switch to route IP traffic. Most used hubs, which
meant that with almost no work at all one could easily listen in on
everyone's conversation. Her statistics gathering program also looked
for occurrences of the phrase "password:" in the message traffic, and
there were very high occurrences of hits. She didn't keep the passwords,
but a less good-will'ed hacker could easily have collected them. This
speaks to a failure by users and web sites to use a secure/encrypted
method of communication for sensitive data.
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