Freeware February: SSH Tunnel Manager

Today’s pick is more a public service announcement. Anyone who ever uses their computer on a public wireless network, like a T-Mobile Hotspot, for example, needs to download and configure SSH Tunnel Manager NOW.

If you think your email, chat or browser traffic is safe from prying eyes when you’re on a public wi-fi network, think again. Your usernames, passwords, email messages - even chat transcripts - are freely available to anyone who knows how to intercept them (and believe me, it’s not all that difficult), in real time and in clear, unscrambled text. Scary, eh? What’s scarier is that people who SHOULD know better, are leaving themselves vulnerable every day.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a screenshot of some POP3 email traffic taken in the Press Lounge at Macworld last month. [The person who initiated this eavesdropping session did so specifically to prove this point. Nothing nefarious was done with the information and all logs were destroyed.]

My freeware pick today doesn’t make your whites whiter or your brights brighter. It isn’t sexy, it’s very serious and it won’t make your Mac do tricks. What it does do is keep your personal information safe(r). That makes this freeware priceless.

Douglas Bowman at Stopdesign has an excellent tutorial for setting up SSH Tunnel Manager 2.0b3 and a more in-depth look at other things you can do to secure your wireless data transmissions.