The problem: Some companies still leave their wireless LANs wide open to any user. That's fine for a coffee shop, but less so if you're concerned about broadcasting sensitive information to anyone within laptop range.

The solution: New Wi-Fi gear is far more secure than the older stuff. Look for equipment with the Wi-Fi protected access (WPA) protocol, which uses stronger encryption and generates a different encryption key for each airborne packet. The best security is found in the sequel, WPA2, which has been included in all new Wi-Fi products since March.