[jba]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, but they still have to break SSL encryption. That's not a trivial task. It would obviously be easy to intercept your packets on free wifi but they still have to get at the "meat" inside them. You are risking just as much if you use cable internet, as those are flat networks and sniffing your neighbors packets is nearly automatic, since you recieve them anyway. So:

- You are security minded and use WEP, etc on your wireless network connected to your cable provider
- Your neighbor is a hopeless wank who just plugged his linksys router in and let it run.
- I come along and leech his network, a few minutes later I can see everyone on the cable node
- I now have your and all of your neighbor's packets I want

[/ QUOTE ]

this is the absolute truth. The fact of the matter is even when sitting at home with your bada firewall, your data is open and vulnerable to many many people between your laptop and the online poker site. If their implementation of SSL is flawed, it is possible for your info to get cracked anywhere, and if hackers are going to the trouble to do this then open WI-FI isn't really all that much worse.

Unless someone cracks their SSL encryption -- which is completely implausible unless the online site is totally incompetent. If that happens god help us all.