I\'m renting a bedroom in a house with shared wifi, and I\'d like to secure myse
ID: 658838 • Letter: I
Question
I'm renting a bedroom in a house with shared wifi, and I'd like to secure myself against any network snooping. I know that using the wifi network basically opens me up to snooping of any unencrypted traffic by anybody who knows the PSK. I'd like to use ethernet only, but I have devices that are wifi-only (like my phone).
I want to install a powerline adapter and run it into a gateway router in my room, then use that to establish my own secured wifi connection. My question is, will this work to secure me against any network snooping? The router is placed in a public area, so I can tell if someone sets up a hub between the router and the cable modem. The router is a Linksys router, but I've yet to determine if DD-WRT is set up on it or not.
Renting a bedroom in a house with shared wifi, how to secure myself?
Explanation / Answer
Your best bet for security would be a secure tunnel between the gateway router you will insert into the network and a 'safe' outside point. This could be a server you've rented, or you could use one of many VPN providers who exist.
Of course the 'safety' of said server/VPN provider is variable, but it means any traffic you send via that gateway router will be encrypted until it reaches the end point and anyone viewing it won't be able to see the cleartext.
You could also try routing over something like Tor via your gateway however I have no personal experience with this and can't advise on how useful/suitable it'd be.
Finally you could use a 'secure' proxy service too however most of these of are questionable realiablity (when using 'free' services - I've not used paid services in this regard.).