2026-06-11
The dangers of public Wi-Fi: fake access points and certificate warnings matter more than sniffing
Public-Wi-Fi 'sniffing' is mostly mitigated by HTTPS and is lower priority now. The real risks are (1) connecting to an evil-twin fake AP yourself, (2) ignoring certificate warnings, and (3) exposing your device on the shared network. The most effective measures are simple: use your phone's tethering, trust HTTPS and cert warnings, and don't auto-join unknown SSIDs. A VPN is the next layer.