Technically, my opinion of public wifi like wireless@sg is that it’s pretty insecure as users use it occasionally and hardly bother to change their password. So while our country offers great convenience to internet users, free public wifi is littered with security mines.
A good article on Phsyorg discloses some anecdotal evidence to describe what kind of dangers lurks behind public wi-fi. Although in Singapore, you have a personal wireless@sg account, this does not mean your data is by any means secured. Wireless traffic is open and unencrypted and one should ensure sufficient protection is enabled on your computer like a valid antivirus software with a firewall.
This is by no means 100% secured. As long as you share a network with people you don’t know, your wireless data can always be sniffed, regardless if you have a password or not. So the wireless router must be encrypted, which is hardly the case for most public wi-fi. But even when someone has free access, anyone can see your information over the air once they’re inside the network.
How much time should you spend on public wifi? As little as possible. So if you’re outside, get a mobile broadband device or tether the internet using your iphone. This reduces the chances of being sniffed on because you need to pair the device before anyone can use the connection. Although 3G networks is still an open one, and cracking your 3G broadband is like tapping a phone line, you’re less likely to fall prey to someone trying to crack into your phone waves than on a wifi one.
situation: you’re at a free wifi spot with your laptop, can someone hack in to your lap top AND have it show up in your history that you loged on to the wifi, even if you didn’t, then show the pages you viewed, I should say the hacker viewed, in YOUR history on YOUR laptop?
no. u need to be connected to the wifi for any kind of hacking to happen.
the only such a scenario can happen is if the hacker is at the terminal himself.