Internet when travelling

NEVER use Internet Cafe' for on-line banking unless you have your own laptop. Your bank wuold have advised you on that.

I use my iBook but I need ISDN connection & not all I'net C's have this, so to be on the safe side, we have our son do all our banking at home. He emails us all a/c balances etc. every so often and we send him lists of transactions to be checked against statements.
And our CreditCard gets a flogging with fuel, c/parks etc, while we get cashout on eftpos when food shopping...
And the Q was? Oops.
Hope this helps a bit.

That is a bit dramatic ...

clearly many people are uncomfortable about using Internet banking at Internet cafes, but:

banks DO NOT advise not to use Internet Cafes, to my knowledge. That said, a number of the bank solutions (eg. St George) require a Java download, so they may not work on Internet cafes.

If you know a little about how https works and your bank has technology that allows it to happen you can use it safely.

Here's what the Commonwealth Bank say:

Be careful about using NetBank from other PCs, such as those at some Internet Cafe's, which may not have up to date virus protection installed. If you want additional protection when using unfamiliar computers, set up an additional login with restricted access. You can set up and change Additional Logins under the Admin & Services tab.
Make sure your online session is secure by checking:
- that https:// is displayed on your browsers address bar
- a padlock is displayed in the bottom right hand corner of your browser
- a valid digital certificate has been issued to the site you are visiting

When performing financial transactions online, never leave your computer unattended while the session is still active.
Select Exit NetBank when you are finished using NetBank. Exit NetBank if you leave your computer unattended, to avoid others accessing your account details.

Ciao for now
Andrew.

I think the main concern for net cafe computers is keyloggers (records every keyboard stroke you make) these will grab your bank's name, login and password without you ever knowing.
The most secure way of banking on pubilc computers is to use a bank that either: has tokens which will generate a code you need to put in when you login (like bendigo) or to click a number pad on the screen so you dont physically type your code into the keyboard (like ING, ANZ).
At the end of the day, ANYONE can come through even a week later and open up the computer's internet history and see the pages you went to, which will contain your bank name, account numbers and balances- be aware of this.

HiJack,

We used Telecentres in WA and they did allow the use of memory pens so this allowed us to create emails on the lappie and save it to the pen for sending when in town. Cost were never much, around $5 and we did our banking and checked on our home email account as well. We also saved our photos to the lappie so this and the diary allowed us to store and keep up to date our travels. Was simple to create an email to friends from this info. The only issue is to maintain the diary on a regular basis - a bit hard when the fish are biting.

Kind regards

Telecentres are great, and even free in places, although sometimes you will have to wait or make a booking. Some are even fast - they seem to use the Telstra Broadband Satellite service mostly.

Memory sticks will work one way or another at most Internet cafes. Sometimes you have to pay for the staff to load it for you.

Ciao for now
Andrew.

I agree with the telecentre, such as the one I am using now in Waratah Tasmania. It is federally funded and only $2 hour. Plenty time to check banking and emails and even get on to this site.

Cheers

Jeepster

Now Duncs.....
That was intelligent and straight to the point mate.....its unfortunate that with credentials like that you have no chance in hell of ever becomming CEO of telstra.