Free Public Wifi

If you ever wondered about the "Free Public Wifi" SSID being broadcast in many public locations like airports, NPR recently took the time to explain the plethora of wifi hot spots sporting this name. As I'm sure you already suspected these aren't legitimate wifi hotspots, and are instead PC's that have been infected with a virus and are acting like zombies, broadcasting an "ad hoc" network (rather than an infrastructure network). If you were to connect to the network, you'd be connecting your computer directly to the infected PC (and not a wifi hotspot), and of course, infecting your PC in the process.

It turns out there's an easy solution for most PC's running Windows XP to prevent yourself becoming part of this zombie network. According to Microsoft, upgrading to Windows XP Service Pack 3 should solve the problem, and prevent you from being affected by this virus. So if you haven't done it yet, there's now a good reason to upgrade your PC.