New York Times technology columnist David Pogue decided he wanted to see what was up when it came to the possibility of his computer transmissions being hacked when he used a public hotspot to do a bit of emailing and Web surfing. To do this he invited a technical consultant and they met in a Manhattan Wi-Fi coffee shop. Pogue, who says he doesn’t worry that much about privacy, says he was taken aback by how easy it was for the consultant to intercept his airwaves. The consultant sat a few feet away from Pogue with a PowerBook and Pogue worked on his Fujitsu laptop. Then Pogue began emailing and surfing the Web. The consultant was able to see every email Pogue sent and received. He was also able to produce a list of the Web sites Pogue had visited, and even the graphics that had appeared on the Web sites he visited.
 
The thing that surprised Pogue the most was that it didn’t take any special knowledge or fancy software to accomplish this. The consultant had merely downloaded a “packet sniffing” program that is free and widely available. The software then “sniffs” the airwaves and displays the data it finds being transmitted.
 
I personnally have not used my laptop at a public hotspot and after hearing about this it makes me wonder how secure are those places. So I pose the question to you—If you have used public hotspots, how secure do you think your information was?