Chris Pirillo’s Lockergnome email newsletter had a link to this article Travelers Who Use Laptop Computers: Beware and it made me realize that there are now even more people accessing Wifi hotspots than ever before and most of you are naked.

Back in January of 2005 I wrote “Are you naked?” as a post that had this paragraph in it: Security is an issue other than just at home…but it’s an underreported problem in internet cafes or public places that leave their networks wide open so it’s easy to get on them. Without a company Virtual Private Network (VPN) for your personal laptop, or some way to create a Secure Shell (SSH) to another computer for a secure tunnel, you’re vulnerable to prying eyes (email passwords go in the clear, etc.).

The latest discussions about the iPhone “hack” (which I posted about a couple of days ago here) is bringing more attention to the inherent insecurity of Wifi hotspots. While I know exactly what to do to ensure I and my loved ones have secure access when in a public hotspot, literally everyone else I know is completely clueless.

Case in point: while at the Web 2.0 Summit last October, I mentioned to several conference organizers that there were a significant number of ad hoc wireless networks setup (where a person sets up their laptop to act like a wireless access point) with names like “Free Wifi” or “Summit Wireless Access” placing attendees in jeopardy of nakedly exposing their data.  One conference leader who shall remain unnamed said, “Steve, of any group of people this one especially shouldn’t be stupid enough to connect to an ad hoc network.” You know what? In my informal poll of 20 people while there, every one of them had attempted to connect to one of these ad hoc networks since the main conference access point was either slow or they couldn’t get connected to it.

The good news? There are specific things you can do to make certain you’re secure when accessing a public hotspot.

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