Unsecure Wifi

Ectophile

lammy82 said:

Even if a shared-office required a password it would most likely be on a 'captive portal' type system where the WiFi network itself is unsecured and you then need to log in through the web browser on the WiFi provider's page before being able to access the internet. If your laptop is configured to only allow connections to WiFi networks that are directly password protected then you are going to struggle to connect in lots of situations.

I have seen similar things at hotels. The WiFi appears to be open to anybody. But the moment you try to visit any web site, it asks you for a password, or other details. Which means that if you want to do anything else, such as use an email client, you have to visit a web site first to log in. It's best to assume that any shared WiFi isn't particularly secure anyway. Any HTTP web sites aren't encrypted anyway. HTTPS ones should be secure because they add an extra layer of encryption. But don't install any extra security certificates on your PC unless you really know what they are for, or click through any security warnings from your web browser.