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Unsecured Internet purchases could prove disastrous |
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Thursday, 21 February 2008 |
 Students should be aware of the potential risks associated with public wireless connections. “If you are using your laptop in the student union, I could sit there with my laptop and passively look at everything you are sending and receiving,” sophomore Nick A. David said. Photo by Derek DeSha
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by BRANDON BROWN
News Reporter
Students who regularly make online purchases from campus computers or from the university’s wireless network might want to take some precautionary steps before punching in their credit card numbers.
“If [students] are using the encrypted wireless [network], I think that’s fine,” said James Shook of Technology Support Services. “[But] I don’t think I’d be doing that on the visitor’s [network], which anyone can get on.”
Students can obtain a password for the secured wireless network at www.nss.appstate.edu.
Appalachian State also offers free anti-virus software with built-in
firewall and anti-spyware protection at www.antivirus.appstate.edu.
Students transferring data should do so from secure Web sites, which
are signified by “https” in the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or a
secure lock graphic, said Director of Technology Support Tom M. Van
Gilder.
Students may be familiar with Appalachian State’s e-mail censor program
that disallows messages from questionable companies and disarms the
messages of others.
“[Appalachian State has] e-mail protection for phishing scams,” Van
Gilder said. “We are blocking a lot of that…and stripping messages if
it’s known that a blacklisted company [is sending messages].”
Van Gilder said there has been talk of the university making the
transition to a virtual private network (VPN), which is a private data
network that maintains privacy through the use of a tunneling protocol
and security procedures, according to the Virtual Private Network
Consortium.
Nick A. David, a sophomore biology major, started his own
Internet-based business called Theoryshare when he was a sophomore in
high school.
David’s company is based on modem optimization and router modification,
in which he takes devices that have been abandoned and develops new
software to expand them.
Recently, Theoryshare has begun to sell a new VPN service called
Relakks that encrypts all communication coming from a computer and
routes it oversees to Sweden – where privacy laws are much stricter –
before transmitting the information to the desired location.
David said Relakks keeps people from snooping on an individual’s activities while he or she is on a public wireless connection.
“If you are using your laptop in the student union, I could sit there
with my laptop and passively look at everything you are sending and
receiving,” David said.
David said the service guarantees that the transmissions to and from Sweden are 100 percent secure.
“It’s basically adding a detour on your communications,” David said.
David said Theoryshare has had 50 new subscribers to the program in the last week.
Currently, David is the only full-time employee of his company, but he said he is looking to hire two more part-time employees.
David said the service is “instantaneous” after the 5-euro purchase and the sign-up procedure.
“Most people probably aren’t going to be worried about big brother
looking at them online, but there is a very real threat that you can
get your identity stolen with careless security practices,” David said.
David’s mom was a victim of identity theft, which, in conjunction with
his passion for civil liberties and Internet technology, was his motive
to pursue the Relakks service.
“I think our privacy in the past few years has really gone downhill
with the current administration,” David said. “I’m just a little
worried about some of the things that I might send. If they are
politically charged, I don’t want to end up on an FBI watchlist.”
The Theoryshare office is located beneath the Pads for Grads building
on Howard Street and more information can be found at
www.theoryshare.com.
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