Fun with public PCs

Fun with public PCs

Most airline lounges now offer PC’s with Internet access,
which is great for me. I can check email, chat, shop, even
code with those while waiting for a plane. But recently
this gets even better for me, definitely more entertaining,
when people using these PCs start to leave personal information
on those machines.

For example, my last trip I manage to first check “Bob”s
Amazon shopping wish list at the Logan lounge. It contained
toys (for his kids?), a few CD’s, some cookbooks, and two
instructional books that offer tips to improve his, well, you can guess.
I couldn’t help but add to his list a few healthy eating cookbook
to see if that will make any difference for him.

It got more exciting at first, as I got to Chicago. “Mike” left his outlook
web access browser open. Going thru his email and contacts
turned out to be quite boring. He must be a really important
guy. Most of his emails are from his assistant talking about company
parties and which Jaguar he is to get as a company car. I was tempted
to email his assistant for him and order a mini van instead but decided against
it.

So, unless you are the sharing kind of person, don’t forget to:

1. Close all browser windows when you are done with these borrowed
   PC’s. Not just minimize the windows.

2. Sign-out from services like Amazon. Click links like “if you are not
   Mr Smith, click here” to sign out.

3. Never check the “save password” checkbox when typing in user names
   and passwords. It is easy to hit that by mistake.