Sleep Is For The Weak

Dear Senator Gard / Representative Richardson,

I previously wrote you regarding the Herald Times in Bloomington, IN and their publishing of the License To Carry a Handgun database on their website.  I expressed how this issue causes serious privacy concerns for law-abiding citizens.  This provides an avenue for criminals looking for streets that are easy targets, either with a low number of known gun owners or a high likelihood of finding firearms in the home they can steal, making our streets far less safe.  Allowing the list of people who are licensed to carry a handgun to be public is no different than publishing a database that says fourteen African Americans live on Brookschool Road or seventeen Jews live on 126th street.  Would making such a list serve the Public’s interest at all?  It would certainly make it easier for those who wish to commit hate crimes against others easier.

This database is required to be made available to the public under Indiana Code 5-14-3.  I humbly request that you author or support legislation to change this code to make private the database for use by Law Enforcement Officers only in relationship to a case under investigation.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to a concerned citizen in your district.  I look forward to your thoughts on this issue.

Sincerely,

It’s no secret that Free WiFi connections are everywhere.  It’s easy today if you have a laptop or smart phone to get online virtually everywhere.  It’s convenient, too.  What could be better than being able to get a little work done or checking your e-mail while drinking a redeye at your favorite coffee shop?  However this free access comes at a pretty hefty expense to the security unconscious.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m paranoid, although I’m pretty sure they’re watching me right now……  Ok, seriously I’m not exactly paranoid.  I’ve just been working in this industry long enough to know what is and what is not safe.

I’m going to start with a brief lesson in technology.  When you are at home, connecting your laptop to your personal WiFi connection, chances are you are using, at a bare minimum, WEP, possibly WPA, and if you’re using a new computer on a new access point, WPA2.   These links require you know some code in order to access them and establish encryption between your wireless device and the access point.  This prevents your neighbors from seeing what exactly it is your laptop is accessing on the internet and prevents them from stealing your internet connection to download their pirated warez.  (If you’re not using some form of encryption, go find the manual that came with your router and fix it right now.  This article will be here when you get back.)  So, WEP, WPA, and WPA2 all provide encryption between your device and the router.  Very rarely are your Free WiFi links going to be running any form of encryption though.  This means anyone with a laptop within range of where you are, who would like to, can see everything you’re doing on the net.  If you log into your mail using standard POP or IMAP they can capture your username, password, and mail server information.  This doesn’t require anything terribly special on their end either as you are transmitting it for the world to see.  The other concern you should have is the owner of the Free WiFi.  If I set up an access point in my home and configure its SSID as “Free Public WiFi,” what is to prevent me from using packet capturing techniques on the router itself?  Do you trust the hotel you’re staying in to value your privacy?  How about the guy running the trendy coffee shop?  I sure don’t, and I don’t think you should either.

So what do you do about it?  There are a few ways to mitigate the risks associated with public internet access.  In the next series of articles I will try to present them in more detail.  In brief you can use a VPN, SSH Tunneling, or the Tor Onion Router.  These aren’t the only solutions, however they are all supported on all three major platforms, Windows, OS X, and Linux.

Thanks to: Tim D for the image