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A guy at the coffee shop in Austin showed me how he got my email
I was just working on my laptop, and this guy at the next table leaned over... he asked if I was on the shop's guest wifi. When I said yes, he opened his own laptop and in about two minutes, pulled up a list of network traffic that included my email login attempt. He wasn't being creepy, he was just a pentester having coffee and saw a chance to warn someone. I never use public wifi without my VPN now, not even for a second. Has anyone else had a wake-up call like that in public?
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mary_schmidt8d ago
Overreacting to a one-off scare seems paranoid. Most public wifi is fine for casual browsing, and constant VPN use just drains your battery for no real gain. That guy was showing off a party trick, not revealing some common danger.
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chen.james3d ago
Man, that would freak me out too. I had a similar thing happen at an airport lounge once. Now I just turn on my VPN before I even open the browser on any public network. It's a simple habit that costs nothing and stops that stuff cold. Calling it a party trick misses the point, it's a real flaw in how basic web traffic works.
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