Do you honestly think I was suggesting that such a use is the worst case for a mitm device?......
Once again however, it seems we are in a situation where people on HN do not recognize that there are two distinct meanings of "expect" (for the remainder of this post, the second will be emphasized). Consider the following:
A parent of a teenager in highschool finds their child watching
TV instead of studying for an exam. The parent shakes their head
and says, *"I expect you will do well on that exam tomorrow!"*.
They expect the child to do well on the exam, but they would be a
fool to *expect* the child to do well on the exam.
A user of public wifi can expect their wifi traffic to not be tampered with, but they would be fools to expect that.
...Now, back to the actual point at hand, in reality, tampering with public wifi traffic, not merely logging/dissecting it, is fairly rare. There is no reason to fault non-technical users (the majority of society!) for having technically unfounded expectations. Their expectations may be foolish (in this case, there is little doubt of that), but that does not give technically inclined members of society a license to prey on them.
Once again however, it seems we are in a situation where people on HN do not recognize that there are two distinct meanings of "expect" (for the remainder of this post, the second will be emphasized). Consider the following:
A user of public wifi can expect their wifi traffic to not be tampered with, but they would be fools to expect that....Now, back to the actual point at hand, in reality, tampering with public wifi traffic, not merely logging/dissecting it, is fairly rare. There is no reason to fault non-technical users (the majority of society!) for having technically unfounded expectations. Their expectations may be foolish (in this case, there is little doubt of that), but that does not give technically inclined members of society a license to prey on them.