Identity Thieves Spying on Your WiFi?
The other day I sat down at my home computer, an iMac, and clicked on the Microsoft Word document where I keep all my important data: passwords, code numbers, URLs for work-related websites, and, of course, credit card numbers. But something weird happened when I tried to open it. I saw a message that read: "File is in use by another user." What could "another user" mean, I wondered? Could someone have hacked his way onto my machine? Slowly, I pieced together what could be going on. Someone might have remotely accessed my computer and read my personal records.
I have an Airport Wi-Fi wireless home network in my Manhattan apartment, and dutifully, I have activated password-protection software on it. No renegade wireless passerby can just "sniff" his way into my home network. However, my desktop sits farther away from the wireless transmitter than our other computers do. The signal strength, as these things go, varies. So sometimes I succumb to the temptation to log on to a neighbor's unprotected network, which sits there beckoning me, with its nice strong signal.
