Secure Internet Connections while traveling
How can you connect safely to the Internet from a Hotel or Internet Cafe? Meet two criteria:
- Setup a Secure SSL connection with a trusted site and then connect out from there.
- Get your DNS information from a trusted source.
I explained how a secure SSL connection prevents a "Man in the Middle" attack in the previous article. So, by setting up such a connection, you eliminate the snooping that could come from someone corrupting the Internet Cafe or Hotel. Then
you can browse out normally from that safer point.
If you already have a VPN setup to your office, you could use that to access your office computer and then browse out from there. If you use GoToMyPC or LogMeIn to work remotely from your office computer, then you could use that and use your office computer to access the Internet and Email.
Otherwise, I recommend Witopia's Personal VPN - SSL service for $59.99⁄yr. It is based on Open VPN which is very secure and well tested. They have been offering the service for over 5 years and have
proven they know what they are doing. When you purchase the product, you get a certificate for use with their product for a year. This allows you to VPN into any of their 37 servers world wide when you are away from the office and want to login to the Internet securely. So I right-click on their icon and choose the closest server (I normally use the one in Seattle).
It then logs me in securely and sets up the VPN. Essentially, I become part of their network. I can then continue through that connection to do whatever I like safely.
The second factor is to get your DNS from a trusted source. The DNS server is the place which translates your URL into an IP address. So, for example, if I enter http:⁄⁄www.Google.com in my web browser, it goes to the DNS server and finds out what that address is. The DNS server returns: http:⁄⁄74.125.19.99 which my browser accepts and then goes there. The browser cannot access google.com, it has to get google.com translated into an IP address. Clearly, if you are accepting whatever address the router gives you for your
DNS server, it could send you to a fake site that only looks like what you wanted. That is one reason I recommend changing your DNS server from the default ("accept whatever the router gives me"), to the fixed addresses of OpenDNS which are: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.
I wrote an article about it in my July 2008 Newsletter.
Their free service is quite sufficient for most use. Feel free to contribute or purchase their Deluxe service if you want to help support them. They have great instructions for configuring Windows XP to use OpenDNS here.
The clear instructions for Vista and Windows 7 are here.
Of course, I'd be glad to set it up for you. It only takes a few minutes.
If you want to use OpenDNS fully, not just as a safety measure for your notebook, they have a video tutorial here. Again, I'm happy to help you set this up as well.
Date: May 2010