As if we needed more reasons to be wary of public wifi hotspots, here’s Justin Watt with a disturbing discovery:

In short, the Courtyard Marriott is using [a wireless hotspot gateway product built by RG Nets, Inc.] to inject JavaScript into the HTML of every webpage its hotel customers view for the purpose of injecting ads (and in the meantime, breaking YouTube).

This sort of thing is why I always use VPN on public networks.

I used Witopia for years before switching to Cloak last winter. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend either to a friend[^1], but Cloak’s simpler to to use (and even activates itself when it detects an unsecured network). They also offer a limited free plan and make it very easy to switch between free and paid[^2].

Via Daring Fireball.

[^1]: I wish I could also recommend running your own VPN server using Apple’s OS X Lion Server, but I’ve found it to be too unreliable.

[^2]: It’s nice to only have to pay for the the months that I need Cloak.