Free wi-fi in Starbucks and other such places

[mungbeanz]

You occasionally see in the news that trolls on facebook and stuff have had their ip address traced and get in trouble for their behaviour, but if they had gone to use free wi-fi are they anonymous?

I mean, what's to stop people using free wi-fi for less than legal activity? Don't worry I'm not planning on conducting illegal activity! I am just curious as to how this works.

[deggers316]

as far as i can gather you cant trace anyone that's used a free wi- fi
i suppose if anyone has to be traced by authorities they could get the time of the free wi fi use and look at cctv of the place that provided it if that could help
to find a known suspect

[hc4361]

That is one reason you should make sure your own wifi is secure. You don't want neighbours and strangers up to no good on your network - it will be traced to you.

[hc4361]

Don't forget your pc's MAC address can also be traced.

If you wanted to be totally anonymous you should not use your own pc or laptop or smartphone. You should use a computer in a cyber cafe, public library or wherever.

You should create a new email address from that computer, using fictitious details and use that address to register on the sites you want to access.

You should never log on to that email address or those sites from your own machines.

This doesn't mean you would never be caught, but it would make it a lot more difficult.

Quite a few fraudsters have been arrested in internet cafes.