10 tips for using the internet whilst on the move

Cloud computing, smartphones and netbooks mean more of us than ever before are free from a desk-bound PC.To make the most of your mobile experience, check out these essential tips for computing on the move…

1. Tether your phone

If you aren't away from a wireless network often, then getting a broadband dongle might not be worthwhile. Instead, try tethering your mobile phone, provided your network supports it.

Essentially, your laptop uses the mobile's internet connection for its data. Most modern phones include tethering options, although you may need to activate it by contacting your mobile provider.

 2. Use MiFi

A MiFi dongle is a little gadget that’s about the size of a compact mobile phone. you can connect multiple laptops and other devices to the mobile internet via a 3G Wi-Fi connection

Mobile network '3' seem to be leading the way in the UK with MiFi although all the major mobile networks will be offering them in the near future 

The MiFi creates a mobile wi-fi hotspot that any wi-fi enabled device can connect to for access to the Internet

 

3. Call with Skype

Save money on expensive hotel phone bills by making your calls over Skype.

If you have a decent wireless connection and a laptop with a microphone, you can buy flat-rate calls to landlines using Skype for £2.24 per month, or use your Phone with the skype app to make and receive calls using 3G

4. Find Wi-Fi hotspots

Check out where you're travelling in advance to see if there are any free Wi-Fi hotspots about. To find them, simply browse to jiwire.com and enter a postcode or location. It will provide a list of nearby hotspots and connection details. They currently list 381,611 free and pay Wi-Fi locations in 144 countries

5. Get local SIMs

Call and data charges for roaming can be steep, even when you take EU caps into consideration. With an unlocked phone, it could be much cheaper to buy a local pay-as-you-go SIM. Check out the providers' websites before travelling to see which company offers the best data plans.

6. Buy a Skype number

A further way to save money on phone calls abroad is to invest in a Skype number. You can get one free if you buy a month's landline calls.

Give this to your contacts and they'll be able to call you at a normal UK landline rate. If you're not on Skype when they call, they'll be able to leave you a voice mail. When you call them back using Skype via Wi-Fi, you'll only pay the cost of a UK landline call.

7. Install Dropbox

Whether you're home or abroad, it helps to be able to get access, at any time, to the most recent version of whatever documents you're actively working on. Dropbox provides online storage and synchronisation with as many computers as you install it on.

The first 2GB of storage is free, which is enough for most people's active documents. When you make changes and save them to your Dropbox folder on your computer, these are uploaded to Dropbox and then replicated on your other machines as soon as you log on. there are also apps for your phone that allow you to get to any of your dropbox documents

 8. Use Portable Apps

If you're on the move and your laptop dies, then you need a way to access your data and most common programs. Install Portable Apps on a USB flash drive alongside your most useful files and you can enjoy your own virtual desktop on any public PC

 

9. Secure your passwords

Keepass is an open-source password management program that stores your passwords in an encrypted file.

Install the program on your laptop and then save the password database file in your Dropbox folder. Do the same on any other computers that are running Dropbox and you can access your most up-to-date passwords from any of your PCs. 

Ensure that Dropbox is secured with a strong password. If your laptop breaks, you'll still be able to get to your password database using the Portable Apps version of Keepass and web access to Dropbox.

  

10. Use the cloud

Dropbox is a good example of a cloud-based service that can be invaluable when you're on the move, but it's worth considering using other services to increase your storage. You can use a combination of photo services, such as Flickr, Picasa and Photobucket, along with Google Docs, Zoho and gOffice for documents.

Then you can get general storage at Humyo or Carbonite, which both offer a lots of space. Remember to select encrypted providers for sensitive information. Most of these services also provide sharing options that make sending someone else a document as simple as passing on a URL.

Firesheep - A scary prospect for facebook and twitter users

A new freely downloadable tool known as 'Firesheep' has been making the headlines over the past few days, and for good reason.

If you use your laptop on a public wi-fi hotspot, such as Mc Donalds, restaurants, trains or major cities and most coffee shops you are leaving yourself open to this exploit.

Firesheep is a Firefox extension that makes it ridiculously easy to log into certain sites as another user. It's as simple as this:

1. Launch the Firesheep extension in a Firefox sidebar
2. Click the Start Capture button
3. See who's connected to which sites
4. Double click on one of those connections
5. That's it! You're logged in as someone else on that site

This will work on any website that doesn't use the https prefix, which is most websites out there, including facebook and twitter.

PCWorld has a good explanation of how Firesheep works.

Firesheep is basically a packet sniffer that can analyze all the unencrypted Web traffic on an open Wi-Fi connection between a Wi-Fi router and the personal computers on the same network. The extension waits for someone to log in to any of the 26 sites listed in Firesheep's database. When you log in to Amazon, for example, your browser's Amazon-specific cookie communicates with the site and contains personally identifying information such as your user name and an Amazon session number ID.

As your browser swaps cookie information back and forth with the Website a third party can hijack that communication and capture info including your user name and session ID. Typically, the cookie will not contain your password. But even without your password, the fact that Firesheep has snagged your session cookie means that a hacker can, at least in theory, access your account and gain virtually unrestricted access. If the hacker got your Yahoo Mail cookie they could send an e-mail; if it was Facebook they may be able to post a message; and so on. Any operations that require your password, however — such as accessing your credit card information on Amazon — should not be possible using Firesheep.

The following is an excerpt from an article written by Gary LosHuertos who ran a little experiment using firesheep, it's an interesting read

I thought I'd spread the word and help some laymen out after work since there's a large Starbucks near my apartment. I dropped in, bought some unhealthy food, opened my laptop and turned on Firesheep. Less than one minute later, there were five or six identities sitting in the sidebar. Three of them were from Facebook.

This wasn't at all surprising; Firesheep is not magical, and anyone that's been to a Starbucks knows that a lot of people mindlessly refresh Facebook while sipping on their lattes. I thought I'd give it more time, so I listened to some music, talked to a few friends, and most importantly (and difficultly) did not navigate to anything sent over vanilla HTTP (including, of course, Facebook).

Around half an hour later, I'd collected somewhere between 20 and 40 identities. Since Facebook was by far the most prevalent (and contains more personal information than Twitter) I decided to send the users messages from their own accounts to warn them of their accounts' exposure. I drafted a friendly, generic message that stated the location of the Starbucks, what the vulnerability was, and how to avoid it. I sent messages to around 20 people.

I cleared the sidebar, took off my headphones, and waited. I heard one expletive muttered a few feet away, and wondered if my message was the cause. Over the next 15 minutes, I didn't hear anyone talk about what had happened (and folks at Starbucks are usually not ones to keep their conversations private). However, what I did see happen was a sharp decline in the number of identities I was collecting when I restarted Firesheep.

This was relieving -- these people got the message. Hopefully they'll tell their friends, hide their kids, hide their wives. I cleared the sidebar once again, and after another twenty minutes of mindless conversation I saw five familiar names had returned to my herd.

This was somewhat puzzling. Did they receive the first message? I logged into their accounts, and surely enough, they had. One of them was even on Amazon.com, which I had warned about in my first message. I targeted him first: I opened up his Amazon homepage, identified something he had recently looked at, and then sent him a "no, seriously" message on Facebook from his account including the fun fact about his music choices.

I cleared again, waited for ten minutes, and after resuming Firesheep's collection it appeared that he was gone. Yet the other four remained persistent. Perhaps, I thought, they thought the message was automatically generated and randomly targeted (despite mentioning their location within 100 feet). So, one last message was in order.

I drafted a very short message (perhaps the first was too long?) and sent it to the four, once again from their own accounts:

Really wasn't kidding about the insecurity thing. I won't send another message after this -- it's up to you to take your security seriously. You're at the [XYZ Street] Starbucks on an insecure connection, and absolutely anyone here can access your account with the right (free) tool.

Twenty minutes passed, and all four were still actively using Facebook. Again, I considered that they may not have received the second message, but after viewing their accounts it was clear that they had.

This is the most shocking thing about Internet security: not that we are all on a worldwide system held together with duct tape that has appalling security vulnerabilities; not that a freely available tool could collect authentication cookies; and certainly not that there are people unaware of either. What's absolutely incomprehensible is that after someone has been alerted to the danger (from their own account!) that they would casually ignore the warning, and continue about their day.

So what can you do to avoid being caught out by firesheep? 

NetworkWorld suggests subscribing to a low-cost VPN service that provides a secure connection anywhere on the Net. However, that may be a layer of complexity that's daunting to some users.

Another solution is to fight the Firesheep extension with another Firefox extension. HTTPS Everywhere lets you sign in to many mainstream sites using an https connection. The downsides are that it doesn't cover every site, and it's only available for Firefox, not chrome or Internet explorer.

You could, of course, avoid public Wi-Fi altogether, which is inconvenient but secure. Or, you could opt for a mobile data plan, which is expensive.

There's no easy answer, at least not until all Web operators wise up and offer fully encrypted access to all their sites.