Encrypting Packets

[Lofter619]

Is there such a program that will encrypt my packets when I send them out? Because I'm trying to figure out how I can protect my information if I'm on an unsecure wireless network, such as a hotel's. I'm just looking for packet encryption, I know GhostSurf has it, but I was wondering if anyone's come across any other programs? thanks.

[hesperus]

From what I read, Ghostsurf doesn't encrypt packets. This, as far as I know, can only happen over a secure connection. Encrypted packets have to be decrypted, which means whoever receives them has to have a key, so you can't just send out encrypted packets anywhere. They won't mean anything. Ghostsurf routes your packets through a bunch of proxies, thus obscuring their destination and source. The packets themselves don't change.

Tor does the same thing as ghostsurf, and its free.

Someone else will have better advice than I can give for the wireless bit, so hang on . . .

/edit : Looking at the Tor site, it seems they do encrypt data from link to link and remove the encryption for the last hop to the destination.

To create a private network pathway with Tor, the user's software or client incrementally builds a circuit of encrypted connections through servers on the network. The circuit is extended one hop at a time, and each server along the way knows only which server gave it data and which server it is giving data to. No individual server ever knows the complete path that a data packet has taken. The client negotiates a separate set of encryption keys for each hop along the circuit to ensure that each hop can't trace these connections as they pass through.

The question is : does this do what you want it to do ? It looks like it, but I am not 100%. Perhaps someone else can advise ?

[Lofter619]

thanks, seems to be working pretty well =)