donnie wrote:

>
> "Anonymous Remailer (austria)" <mixmaster@remailer.privacy.at> wrote
> in message
> news:570a6dff0e99882eca9690ade72ef04c@remailer.pri vacy.at...
> >
> > donnie wrote:
> >
> > > If I am using a library or free AP to book a vacation
> > > with personal info, credit card etc.
> > > Would you rec using a 39.99 program along with
> > > Vista with all the security running.
> > > Or would Vista with all the security running be
> > > enough?
> >
> > What "39.99 program" are you talking about?
>
> A tunnel VPN program.
> I don't think being specific on a particular
> company is necessary.

You don't need to spend $39.99 to set up a VPN. There's several
completely free solutions available, and they're open source. Chances
are the one you pay for isn't OSS. In fact there's a fair chance you'll
be buying that same FOSS software, repackaged.

If you're talking about using some sort of commercial VPN service,
don't. Unless you're accessing sites through an end-to-end encrypted
connection (SSL/HTTPS/TLS), you're handing all your precious data over
to an essentially unknown third party. And if you are using SSL like
you should the single benefit you get for your $39.99 is hiding where
you're doing business from the people, on your end of the wire only.
The VPN server and everyone past them knows where you're going.

You can hide that level of information in exactly the same way very
easily and for for free using Tor, your own VPN/SSH tunnel, or even free
proxies. Changing teh apparent destination of otherwise secure traffic
is one of the very few things open proxies are actually good for.