Most people don’t really realize the risk of leaving their wireless network wide open. I think they understand that it means that anyone can use their internet connection, but I don’t think they understand the issues beyond that. Honestly, here’s what an open wireless network allows a hacker to do:

1. One can sniff all of your information going out to the internet including credit card numbers, social security numbers, pictures, chats, everything.
2. One can browse through your files, email, etc. Let’s hope you don’t have any risqué pictures on your computer of yourself, because if you do, one can have them, too
3. One can take over your computer, your web cam, your mic. So, not only will one can see all of your communications, can also be able to listen to you and watch you when you’re not even ON the computer

Security is the means by which one makes it difficult for another forcibly to obtain information, whereas privacy is the means by which one makes information unavailable. Privacy and anonymity have been taken for granted in daily life since time started. We buy groceries and movie tickets with cash, we browse at store windows without showing any identification, and we look at newspapers without anyone knowing which particular article we are reading. Lovers have always whispered sweet words in each other’s ears in private, and even some formal written and oral communications — such as privileged discussions between lawyer and client – have enjoyed legally sanctioned confidentiality in civilized societies

This is all changing very rapidly simply because technology makes it easy to break confidentiality. The incentive to violate individuals’ privacy exists both in commercial and in government sectors. Commerce has realized the cost-effectiveness of directed advertising to those already known to have an interest in what is being peddled, and has been deploying increasingly sophisticated technical means of identifying who likes what. Repressive governments, which have