On vacation ?s

[tjrose91]

Im from the united states, but finally got the wifi password for the hotel, main ? as google is not helping is that i am using my phone to recive the wifi signal and USB tethering to my laptop is this more secure daisy chaining like this or am i just being paraniod and just use the straight up wifi to my laptop

[spacepickle]

Yeah you're pretty much being paranoid. If you're using their wifi they can *maybe* see what domains you're visiting, but they almost certainly don't care. 

 

I'm honestly not sure if USB tethering like this adds a layer of security or not, my suspicion would be no. Doesn't really matter anyway.

[Blue4130]

48 minutes ago, tjrose91 said:

Im from the united states, but finally got the wifi password for the hotel, main ? as google is not helping is that i am using my phone to recive the wifi signal and USB tethering to my laptop is this more secure daisy chaining like this or am i just being paraniod and just use the straight up wifi to my laptop

Tethering isn't going to help you at all. You are still passing all of the data through their wifi.

[Eigenvektor]

As long as the Wi-Fi is encrypted, no other user of the Wi-Fi can see what you're doing (assuming it is using a modern encryption standard, I'd want at least WPA2).

 

If the site you're visiting is using HTTPS, the only thing the Wi-Fi's operator can see is which host (e.g. linustechtips.com) you're visiting. They cannot see what topic you're looking at or what you're writing.

 

If that's still not secure enough for you, you'd need to use a VPN. In that case they can't see anything other than you connecting to a VPN.

 

6 hours ago, tjrose91 said:

is this more secure daisy chaining like this

No. Tethering provides no additional security in any way, shape or form.

 

It's like using a second person to relay messages over a phone for you, because you're worried the phone is wired. Whoever is listening in would still hear the message, it's not more secure because a person other than you is talking.

[Needfuldoer]

If you want your browsing on public WiFi to be more secure, set up a VPN solution like Tailscale. As long as you have a machine at home that's powered up and connected to your Tailnet, you can set it as an "exit node". This will pipe all of your client devices' network data over the secure tunnel and back to your place, then it reaches out to the Internet from there. Then you're just exposed to your ISP.

[tjrose91]

5 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

As long as the Wi-Fi is encrypted, no other user of the Wi-Fi can see what you're doing (assuming it is using a modern encryption standard, I'd want at least WPA2).

 

If the site you're visiting is using HTTPS, the only thing the Wi-Fi's operator can see is which host (e.g. linustechtips.com) you're visiting. They cannot see what topic you're looking at or what you're writing.

 

If that's still not secure enough for you, you'd need to use a VPN. In that case they can't see anything other than you connecting to a VPN.

 

No. Tethering provides no additional security in any way, shape or form.

 

It's like using a second person to relay messages over a phone for you, because you're worried the phone is wired. Whoever is listening in would still hear the message, it's not more secure because a person other than you is talking.

yeah i dont plan on purchasing anything while on wifi, i got 5gb of international data so if i need to do that i rather use my cell service for that more secure info

[Eigenvektor]

4 hours ago, tjrose91 said:

yeah i dont plan on purchasing anything while on wifi, i got 5gb of international data so if i need to do that i rather use my cell service for that more secure info

As long as the shopping site is using HTTPS and your browser doesn't complain about its certificate, you're fine.

 

The most the hotel would be able to see is that you're visiting the shopping site, that's it. They wouldn't see what you're buying or any credentials or credit card data.

 

If a shopping site isn't using HTTPS in this day and age, I wouldn't trust it no matter what

[tjrose91]

1 hour ago, Eigenvektor said:

As long as the shopping site is using HTTPS and your browser doesn't complain about its certificate, you're fine.

 

The most the hotel would be able to see is that you're visiting the shopping site, that's it. They wouldn't see what you're buying or any credentials or credit card data.

 

If a shopping site isn't using HTTPS in this day and age, I wouldn't trust it no matter what

i mean i guess its good to have some paranoia when traveling abroad keeps you more alert than being how we are we we are in our home countries

[DraconisMaximus]

You can (should) also enable DNS over HTTPS (DoH) if your device supports it.