Project: SecureMe
Will start to write some posts on how to get things up and running with the project that I mentioned last week, thanks for the wait.
In order for everyone to be on the same page, let's call this project "SecureMe", hopefully this would increase the basic protection you'd get when surfing from a public hotspot.
I can't (and won't) guarantee that you will be 100% safe from all those bad guys out there, but with this it would make it a lot harder for any Tom, Dick or Harry to sit down in the same cafe/MacDonalds/BK/your-favourite-hangout-place and start looking into your Facebook account and whatnot.
If your machine has been compromised with a virus/malware/adware/botnet, all bets are off. This would require a cleanup before you can trust what your machine does (unfortunately).
This is a simple VPN tunnel + HTTP proxy + DNS resolver, so that your traffic will not be modified, or listened to by the fellows mentioned above. As such, no anti-virus screening/protections for now. One thing that might help is that I'm using OpenDNS to help resolve the DNS queries, and it automatically comes with a certain amount of protection against phishing sites 
You won't be totally anonymous with this service: I won't hesitate to turn over information if you have been found to be using this service to do nefarious deeds against other people/servers, of if you use it to access stuff that's illegal anyway.
I'll be using this project to learn, so I will need to keep some logs for my own analysis and accountability (see above). But I will not use this to infringe on your privacy (duh!), not as if I'd want to anyway. 
Lastly, though this is workable, it's not perfect yet. I'll be changing things here and there from time to time if needed to improve this service, so no promises that you won't ever have to change anything ok? It's a free(/donor) service anyway, so no one has to be obliged, ok?
Hope this helps you whoever you are, and pleaseeee do give me feedback ok? Have fun!
PS: Signups are still available for now, for those who wish to help trial this free service
If only they taught maths like how he did…
I might have actually had a better grasp of (crazy) maths concepts like Galois Fields and such. :O
Technology as it really should be like
If technology is supposed to enhance the way we do things, rather than force people to move away from the "usual" way of doing things, then SixthSense is definitely moving in the right direction in terms of portable device interfaces: using technology to augment our interactions with the physical world, yet without having to make robots/cyborgs out of people like in the world of Ghost In The Shell.
Pranav Mistry demoed the SixthSense technology at the recent TEDIndia conference. If you're a designer, technologist, geek or even just a layman, you really should look at this.
(SixthSense was also talked about in TED by Patty Maes and Pranav in the video posted March 2009.)
The first part of the video may be boring to some, but hang on, it gets pretty exciting when he shows what it could be capable of.