How safe is your info when connected to a public network?

Particularly when ordering something online when at an university?

 

Zero, nada, zip, zilch.

 

None at all? You can't even get any protection whatsoever from a firewall or anything?

 

why do you believe so

 

I just read the title, didn't read university. At a university, it's relatively safe, though I would still wire myself up and not use wireless. However, if you connect to some random open connection, don't pass out your credit card info.

 

It isn't safe you don't know who or where any of the people who have admin rights to that network are.

 

If you can establish a SSL or VPN connection you stop the attack in the middle. Otherwise you have none. I do not recommend using wireless for banking even though you have a ssl connection. Mainly you have 2 places for intruders to penetrate. Now if you setup the wireless correctly and use a random generated key consisting of all printable chr, and max length (63 chr) long, the odds are your safe.

 

Not safe... just assume someone's beside your notebook watching you. That's what you're dealing with when connected to some random public network.

 

I only do shopping/banking/sensitive info at home when connected to my own private home network which is pretty damn secure I believe.

-Running WPA2 with randomly generated key.
-Mac Address Filtering
-Max number of DCHP users = 3 (Desktop, Laptop, Video Game Console)
-Block anonymous Internet requests enabled
-Default router admin password changed
-Hardware firewall enabled

I reckon I am pretty safe....at home that is.

 

You may be able to stop your router from broadcasting your SSID as well.

 

Well, WPA2 is like a 1000 times more useful than hiding the SSID from basic wifi finders.

 

True. As it is, I also use a randomized WPA2 key with MAC Filtering as well.

 

Yeah, I should, but then its a pain when setting up the wireless and I don't remember the SSID.

 

If you connect to the network via WPA or WPA2 then the transmissions between your PC and the access point are encrypted. What happens beyond the access point is at the mercy of those who set up the network.

However, as long as you run an adequate software firewall, the only information that will be accessible is the standard information (e.g.: browser, OS, machine name, ...) and whatever you decide to give up yourself via information you enter into web pages and allow as cookies.

 

IP and DNS and Gateway will all be accessible too.

 

Well, how can you hide the DNS then? The DNS always visible to the network anyway. I don't see how can you hide the DNS. Visible DNS doesn't mean unsecure DNS. The traffic that reaches the DNS is the one that matter.

You still haven't reply my qustions on another post yet. I am still waiting. The school that you are working for using Novell?

 

Those are not really "yours" as they are usually assigned by DHCP which is a function of the network, not the PC.

 

I didn't say that it meant it was unsecure, I was just informing him of all data he would be sending over the internet. I did respond to the posts and Novell is what was used until recently. Novell and Microsoft are Interoperating anyways and share a lot of the same.

 

Are you just a desktop tech at the high school? I have a feeling that you might work for a high school, and your posts show that you have a little experience on your field. You say a lot of things, but none of them from your experience. You also don't understand the different between stolen and hacking on Windows XP code.

Let me tell you that programmers never work on the whole project. They will work only for specific module of the software like they have only 3-4 pieces of jigsaws. Even you manage to steal the code, you aren't going to get very far with the code anyway since most of the programs have to call specific functions or modules in order to complete the task. It is difficult to understand if you aren't the programmer or you never write a program before.

Don't get me wrong. I am not offend you in anyway. I wish I can talk instead of typing. I know what I am talking about because I have been there and done that. The public network isn't entirely dangerous as many people think. It isn't like someone is going to wait and capture your packet on the wire anyway.

Novell is based on Linux and MS is proprietary, so they are different. They use diffrent concepts even coding and application aspect. I hope you will achieve your CCIE soon. Just don't be a paper engineer.I send couple CCNAs back home because they don't know what to do on the real thing.

 

I'm actually doing tech support as an intern at my university, while studying for my CCIE exam. I'm not a big programmer so I'll take your word for it since I only got to the basic in C++ and Visual Basics and a little Pascal. Not my cup of tea. I only have around 4 years experience with networking as I am only twenty and still learning a lot everyday. I would recommend taking the DDoS threat a lot more seriously if I were you, but you run your network how you want to.
Oh and feel free to send pointers my way, currently waiting for a shipment of CITRIX and some more CCIE books and MSCE to get here. Also investing some money into some cisco switches and routers for in house labs.

 

What is your major anyway? I am just curious since you aren't taking any programming courses, so you are not in computer sciences. You are CIS or MIS, but I think they are the same thing to me. You will be surprised that I am not much older than you.

 

My wrote down major is nothing at the moment as I'm just taking networking classes to take my ccie certification. I think they had to put down university transfer or something.

edit- awesome just order some free microsoft programs since im a student.

another edit- since you still haven't let me know exactly what you do / what your got certs. for how about a little enlightenment?

 

Another thing who would have thought Iowa would be a good place for an IT person, but google and microsoft are both building server farms here that will bring over 2000 jobs total. Not bad not bad.

 

I have computer science degree. I have certifications from Microsoft and Cisco, but it doesn't really matter since they are just a piece of papers to me. Right now, I am a network engineer who supervise desktop techs and some help desks. I can't tell you the company since it is a public forum, but I support 4500+ people, 1500+ desktop. I also plan, implement, and control firewall from Cisco PIX and MS ISA 2004. I also mange Active Directory Domain, DNS, DHCP, Certificate server, call manager server, SQL, and etc. I lost count how many servers we have. I also manage Cisco devices such as switches and routeres. I am in the process from moving OSPF to EIGRP, but it is going to take a while because our network is so big. We have 255 VLANs. This should be enough for you right about what I am doing.

 

I got my IT start in Iowa back in the 1970's

Isn't Death Moans (Des Moines) still in the top three for Insurance per capita? London and Hartford being the others?

 

You must be an old man. What do you think about my argument with my buddy here?

 

I am older than some; younger than others, and just about exactly the same age as me.