Student creates tool to fight Facebook hacking on WiFi
It may be a little safer to log into Facebook at coffee shops again.
A student at the University of Iceland has programmed a potential antidote to Firesheep, a hacking tool that can access social networking accounts over unsecured WiFi networks. It's called FireShepherd and it aims to stop Firesheep, which was apparently created with good intentions but has the potential to wreak havoc.
Seattle-based software developer Eric Butler released Firesheep as a way of informing Internet users about the dangers of using public WiFi networks that aren't password protected. Hackers have long been able to intercept data that crosses open WiFi networks, but Firesheep makes it simple for virtually anyone to do it.
