Sigh. This day came way too soon, IMO.
NYT has published a story on firesheep, an extremely user-friendly piece of software that allows anyone to easily collect wireless data on an open WiFi channel, in order to pretend to be any person that the software can follow and collect data from. In order to have a secure connection via WiFi, you need to use either a virtual private network (VPN) use only sites that have complete HTTPS, or HTTPS Everywhere in conjunction with Firefox.
Now, I'm sure most people probably already suspected that a free (or any) WiFi without passwords or one with the same password for every person, means that the communication between your computer and the internet is not very safe, but Firesheep makes it easy for any novice to gain access to other people's identities online.
That free WiFi at the coffee shop is no longer free.
:P
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