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A guy at the coffee shop in Tulsa watched me log into my bank on their wifi and asked if I minded him reading my screen
This happened on a Tuesday. I was sitting near the window, plugged into the outlet, doing the usual morning stuff before work. He was two tables over, older guy, laptop open too. After I finished he leaned over and said he could read my whole balance from where he sat, and that the shop's wifi had no password.
I shrugged it off at first. Then he pulled up his own screen and showed me how easy it is to see everything on a network like that. Took him about 30 seconds. No weird software, just the basics.
I still think about it. I don't do banking on public wifi anymore, but I'm wondering what else I should be doing. Do you all use a VPN on coffee shop wifi or just tether off your phone? Is there something simpler I'm missing here?
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perez.thea4h ago
My buddy had almost the same thing happen at a hotel lobby in Dallas, some dude just casually mentioned his flight info and email were visible. He went out and got one of those cheap travel routers you plug into the ethernet, but honestly? The easiest fix is just tethering off your phone. Your cell data is encrypted, nobody on the shop wifi can touch it. He also turned on his bank's app instead of using the browser, since the app wont load on open networks without a secure connection anyway. Costs nothing and takes like two minutes to set up.
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