Security on Unprotected(Public) WiFi

The dangers of unprotected Wifi are great and SSH can help by encrypting your packets so you don’t get exploited, be a strong user read this article and follow the instructions to be more secure on the Internet. SSH uses an extremely secure encryption and is very very stable it has been used and trusted greatly as a replacement for lesser insecure protocols. Plus OpenSSH has a very awesome logo.

The Open SSH Website Logo

Going on unprotected WiFi is always  dangerous and you should take precautions so your computer, identity, passwords and other data doesn’t get compromised and abused. One easy way to protect yourself is to use SSH or Secure Shell which is mainly used in Linux and Unix computers.

If you run a server for a website or other uses you have probably used SSH. Using SSH you can also route all your web traffic through a server/computer that you own or have access to so that your packets are encrypted and used on your home or servers network.

SSH is commonly run on port 22 and it is an Application Layer Protocol. SSH it is all about encrypting your packets which is where it becomes useful if your using unsecured WiFi because no one can easily steal your info. The First step would be to set up your SSH Server which can be set  up on both your computer or if you have one your server

Note: Macs can run Cygwin too but its more efficient to run Mac’s SSH Server

1. To run OpenSSH on Windows all you have to do is download Cygwin which is a Linux emulator for Windows basically letting you install apps that run on Linux to Windows (Cygwin)
2. Then You can follow the instructions at Lifehacker for more information

Note: This is Debian/Debian based systems only at least for the installing part your distro might handle it differently

For Debian/Ubuntu Linux you can use the command

sudo apt-get install ssh

After that command the server and client are installed and pretty much preconfigured unless your paranoid and want to look through the config file but just to test it to make sure run this

ssh localhost

now that SSH is up and running you can control it through these commands:
STOP

sudo /etc/init.d/ssh stop

START

sudo /etc/init.d/ssh start

RESTART

sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart

Now you can control and start the server on your home computer or server. The last step is to connect to your computer or server from an outside Internet source thus protecting you.

When out in the wild you would probably be using a Windows computer (i.e. School, Library) or on your Linux laptop (i.e. Cafe, Airport) in which case you would need an easy little client to use to connect to your home server this is where the AMX project comes in. You can get it here at The JMX Project site. Now all you need to do is download and run the exe file or python script (the client program will still work when copied to  a USB sticks.)

So now you have a SSH server and client setup and you have all the instructions so go and get some encrypted packets going!

-John