[PLUG] wifi security

[Joe Pruett]

> I find myself spending a bunch of time in coffee houses with wifi. I'm
> curious about the security. Most of the time I don't care. If someone
> wants to read my email, they're welcome to it. But what about a credit
> card purchase? I have not done it, but what if I bought something over
> the Internet using my credit card and the wifi at Bella Espresso or
> Jax? Would I be foolish to do that?
>  -ted

if you give your credit card to a site that uses ssl and you don't accept 
ssl certificates that don't fully validate, then you're as safe as you can 
get.  ssl provides end to end encryption (from your computer to the server 
a the other end) so anyone in between can see the bits, but not decode 
them.  but that is all predicated on the fact that the certificate is 
signed by an authority that your browser trusts.  if you see a warning 
that the certificate isn't valid for any reason, then you shouldn't trust 
it and shouldn't give sensitive information to that website.