Also known as a “hot spot,” free Wi-Fi, as the name suggests, gives you free access to the Internet within a certain area. Coffee shops are now famous for being hot spots, for example. Places with Wi-Fi have become really popular since we all became dangerously heavy Internet addicts, and we carry our laptops around the way we carry our purses or keys.

Today it is pretty common to see someone sitting at a table in a restaurant, or on a bench in the park, surfing the Internet. The days are long gone when this seemed really amazing; kind of like the days we thought it was strange when we saw people talk on the phone in a car.

We think this is pretty cool, this whole “going mobile.” One minute you are walking around the city, the next minute you grab a seat at the nearest café, open your laptop and voilà: the whole World Wide Web is at your fingertips. You can pay your bills and order a latte all at the same time. In fact, there is only one thing we think that is totally not cool about this – those who would steal your personal information and peak into your private life. Call it a virtual peeping tom if you will, but the legal system calls it theft! Theft can occur in a couple of ways, so which one in particular are we talking about? We are talking about the theft some people ignore (or are unaware of) because let’s face it, using your laptop anywhere, anytime is so doggone convenient. And most of us still believe the fallacy that nothing bad will ever happen to us.

You can be hacked regardless of how you connect to the Internet, so here are some things to think about when that double espresso mocha mint hazelnut coffee beckons; or if you are at home “borrowing” the Internet from your neighbors. This leads us to a side note: Geeks On Site certainly does not approve of connecting to a wireless network that you have “borrowed” because you are actually “stealing” the Internet from somebody else (who is paying the bill too, mind you). While “borrowing “is not dangerous per se, it might be useful to remember that if you can connect to a wireless network, other people can too. And while you may not have bad intentions, you never know about the other basically anonymous folks that are hopping on that connection with you.

First, let’s look at some ways you might be able to deduce that another person or persons are on the same connection. Your computer takes forever to load. Is this symptom familiar? This doesn’t mean that every time your computer is slow, somebody got onto your connection, and if you are in a free Wi-Fi space, you simply don’t have control over who you share the connection with. If it is your personal line at home though, be mindful of a slow connection which could be a sign somebody is using your connection at the same time which makes the Internet connection get weaker. In this case, remember to lock/block your Internet connection.

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