“This is Maxwell from Houston, Texas. I am planning a trip to New York city for the holidays, and I was wanting advice on how to keep my Macbook iphone and or iPod secure while using other people’s wi-Fi connections. I would also like to know about Bluetooth security when using my bluetooth earpiece or a wireless keyboard. Thank you. “
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First of all thanks Max for todays message. If your listening and you want to ask your questions, feel free to give me a call at:
541-215-4433
and yes that is a Google voice voicemail greetings, I just haven’t gotten around to recording a new one.
Congratulations on your trip in December max, I hope it’s an adventurous and life-changing one.
You asked about security, and I’ll be the first to admit that I am not the most secure individual. I’ll share with you my findings in this episode, things that happen to me, and what I’ve used in the past. Hopefully it’ll bring a little value to you.
Before I get into your answer Max, I wanted to tell everyone a quick little story. Two days ago, I received a push notification on my phone informing me that someone was requesting access to my iCloud account from Indiana. I wasn’t in Indiana, and I wasn’t trying to access any of my accounts either. I tapped don’t allow, and to the best of my knowledge the person was not able to access my account. I use apple’s two factor authentication, And you can learn more about it on the Two-factor authentication for Apple ID – Apple Support page.
That’s all weird and all however about 20 minutes later, I got an email letting me know that someone in Indiana had recently accessed my account. I wasn’t using two factor authentication on my Google apps account, now I am, you can learn more about Google’s two factor authentication options on the Google 2-Step Verification page.
These events cause me to be a bit more concerned about my online security, and i’m starting to learn more about the protection I have. This being said however, I am not a security expert and do not claim to be. However, I have found that the following can be useful.
In your situation, i suggest you look into a VPN. VPN stands for virtual private network, and it allows you to connected devices to a network that will encrypt the traffic going from the location you’re accessing to the Internet resources. This means that people who are on the same Wi-Fi network can’t Watch what you’re doing digitally, as all they would see it as an encrypted message of data. You can install a VPN client on your Macbook, iPod, iPad, or iPhone. Of course android devices are also supported as well.
The one program that i have experience with from my deceptive marketing days is a program called Hide My Ass (HMA).