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:
- Close all browser windows when you are done with these borrowed
PC's. Not just minimize the windows.
- Sign-out from services like Amazon. Click links like "if you are not
Mr Smith, click here" to sign out.
- Never check the "save password" checkbox when typing in user names
and passwords. It is easy to hit that by mistake.
