SSH was created as an encrypted version of telnet, one of the Internet’s original protocols, used to send character information between computers.

I prefer this approach because you don’t have to fuss with any firewalls back at home, and you don’t have to leave a computer running when you’re on the road.Īny inexpensive shared-hosting provider will do for your purposes, as long as the company provides access to a secure shell (SSH) server.

The easiest way to set up your own secure Web tunnel starts with paying a monthly fee for a hosting company to do all the difficult work of obtaining a server, installing an operating system, and making sure the server stays online 24 hours a day with plenty of backup generator power. Once you are at your tunnel endpoint, your Web traffic travels through the Internet via regular unencrypted methods (again, in red) to arrive at the destination Website. In the diagram above, regular users of the coffee shop’s wireless hotspot take the direct route to a Website (in red), but you use an encrypted tunnel (in blue) to shield yourself in the hotspot network. Of course, once the traffic is outside the tunnel, it’s subject to the usual potential scrutiny–from ISPs, law enforcement, or the like–but while your data is traveling through the public-access Wi-Fi hotspot, your Web surfing is secure. From there, the tunnel routes your Web requests to the public Internet. You can fix this problem by creating an encrypted tunnel through which you can send Web traffic that originates at your laptop and ends at a known location (the tunnel “endpoint”).

Secure telnet server