cyber cafe privacy security

Hello. I know there are many threats about privacy on public areas (cyber cafe, hotels etc) but is it impossible to check emails or doing online shopping on public areas with safety? I mean, is there any measure to make the environment safe?

Thanks.

 

Cyber cafes are the most dangerous:

You have no control over the machines. Who set them up? Are
they qualified? If the security is lax can someone have installed
keyloggers or even rooted several stations? Its anyone's guess.

Hotels are not much better. When you are not in control of the machine
it is always a risk and you should always assume that something is
wrong. Updates are probably not downloaded regularly and the
operating systems are not audited for security very often (if ever).

The only way to engage in protected surfing in public is to use
a laptop you have installed yourself with an encrypted connection,
SSH or VPN. The obivious choice for hotspots would be VPN because it
encrypts all connections without separate setup.

Personally I would never check my webmail from a cyber cafe, library
or any public terminal. It would be next to impossible to stop
thinking "..did they keylog..did they keylog.."

 

Thanks @AnonG. You clarified very well the case for me. But can I ask another question? Can installing a virtual machine inside those public computers may help? Can those keyloggers detect the keypress in virtual machines?

 

Installing a vm could help defeat software keyloggers but not hardware ones like
those inserted between pc and mouse cord. Also bear in mind that practically
all public terminals forbid and have disabled software installation.

 

Thanks @AnonG. You helped a lot.

 

Do you have any specific suggestions? I read something about Hotspot Shield and iPig and asked about these in some other thread but so far had no response. These solutions appealed to me as I do not have a "fixed" VPN installed at my home or office.

 

I doubt theres anything you can do to ensure safety on a public machine. I suppose you could carry around a linux livecd or flash drive and ask the internet cafe if they'll let you boot off it.
Personally i've never trusted a public machine. If i'm going to be staying in a hotel i make sure that they have facilities for me to use my own laptop for web access. If i'm out in public i just use my mobile phone for web access.

 

Maybe Neo's SafeKeys could help. Last time I checked (1 year or so) it defeated all keylogging methods from aklt.

 

hi guys new to the forum but i have a couple of suggestions for you.one if you are using a public terminal like at a library than you can download one of 2 products.1 is called www.hikanoos.com and the other is www.mightykey.com
both these products can be installed on a flash drive and give you a 30 day trial.both products are an anonymizing service with the latest release of firefox.now if you are worried about keyloggers than you can install the firefox addon called keyscrambler personal which will defeat almost all known keyloggers by encrypting your keystrokes.and if you have your own laptop and use public internet cafes alot and are uber paranoid like me than you can run multiple anonymizing products together.i suggest a new free vpn product which is in beta but is still fully functional.its called www.alwaysvpn.com and offers 256 bit encryption so it is much more secure than most free products offered out there,but just a heads up,it restricts your access to alot of websites so depending on what kind of surfing you are doing it might not be good for you,but you can run one of these other anonymizing products from your flash driver this vpn and than it will defeat this and give you double the protection cause you are using 2 anonymizing products together and because they are both free there is no information about who you really are so its as safe as you are going to get.
good luck and feel free to ask questions.

 

When using always.vpn (same as with other providers like I mentioned in my early post) the question remains "do you trust this server?" I had a look at always.vpn and was unable to determine even where they are located (ie which country). Sure you are encrypting your traffic from anyone in and around the cybercafe but what happens once your data reaches the server?

 

well beethoven i think they are american based cause there ip comes up as being based out of st.louis missouri and its like i said if you are uber paranoid which it sounds to me like you are than you can run either tor or jondo or a number of other anonymizing products over the vpn and that way it will be nearly impossible for anyone to know whoi you are except maybe the SS or the dept of defense but if you are doing **** that has attracted their attention than your done cause no matter what you are doing to hide yourself they will eventually find you.outside of those 2 agencies i would say you are safe.
also you might try cyberghost vpn which is very good and is german based and gives 10 gigs of bandwitdth a month to free users and you get 3-4 different ip's that it rotates thru.all german based of course but still good.however if you are not using vista than it will install framework 3.0 on your computer if you do not have it.for some reason it requires it to run.but it does install the latest version of open vpn and the tap 32 adapter driver.
basically its like steve from xerobank said in an earlier post he made.do you want to trust your information with a lare reputable company or a smaller unknown or free service that anyone has access to.there really is no winning here unless you set up your own vpn server and run it yourself so than you are the only one who has access to the information flowing thru that vpn tunnel.if i had the money that is exactly what i would be doing because than i could also make sure there were no logs being kept.because not to sound overly paranoid but who is to say some law enforcement agency isn't behind one of these free vpn or anonymizing services and they are analyzing all the traffic.i mean it is possible and its not like the bush administration cares about violating our rights.

 

http://www.techsupportalert.com/improving-public-terminal-security.htm