But are they safe? To cut to the chase… No.

Public computers are ideal for web browsing, reading news checking the weather and accessing your favourite websites and that is about it.

They are not meant for anything that is private! So you shouldn’t be using a public Internet computer for:

• Checking your email
• Accessing you bank account
• Accessing membership sites
• Buying
• Transferring money via Paypal

In short if you are required to enter a user name/ password or credit card then it is not to be done on a public computer.

Many will be surprised at the first on the list.. checking email, as it is probably the number one use of public computers.

Logging on to your private email account from a public computer means that you have to enter a username/password combination.

This information can easily be obtained using free/inexpensive software or keyloggers on the computer.

If you are going to access email then access a non sensitive account like Yahoo or MSN and treat the information that you send/receive as if it was being sent on a postcard.

Microsoft offer safety tips on using a public computer. In my opinion they are next to worthless as you probably won’t be able to change the settings anyway and if you can, you may forget, and even if you do it is still not safe.

So don’t be fooled.. public computers aren’t safe, and you can’t make them safe so treat them as such.

Jim Stickley Demonstrates The Risks of Using Public Computers -Video

Other Resources:

Things To Know When Using a WiFi Hotspot Or a Public PC

There are two ways that the device can acquire an address. They are

1. Manual Address assignment
2. Automatic assignment.

Almost all networks use automatic assignment as it is easier and more reliable.

In order to have automatic assignment on your home network you need to have a dhcp server on the network. DHCP stands for dynamic Host configuration protocol.

All network devices come equipped with a dhcp client, and when they connect to a network they contact the dhcp server and request an IP address.

Provided everything is working Ok they get an IP address and now they can operate on the network.

On large networks an administrator must set up and manage the DHCP server but on home networks it is built into the router and doesn’t normally need any manual intervention.

Although on home networks you don’t have to configure the DHCP server you do need to tell the clients (computers) to use DHCP for IP addresses.

The video below shows how Windows XP is configured to use DHCP. If you are using windows 7 then the settings are similar.

Missing DHCP Server

If the client cannot find a DHCP server then It may auto assign an IP address from a reserved range 169.254.0.0-169.254.255.255 or simply have an IP address of 0.0.0.0.

In either case it is unlikely to work correctly.

You can find out whether or not your client (windows) has an IP by using the ipconfig command at a command prompt. See Finding IP Address