Open Wireless Security Questions

I am using a neighbor's wireless to access the internet and have turned on all the available security options in the Preferences Pane. After doing so, the Preferences Pane still states (at the top) that other computers on the network can access my computer. Why does it say this when all the security options are on?
Isn't the the firewall supposed to keep Everyone out of my computer?
Is it safe for me to use a credit card when I am using this network?

Access to https site for e-commerce uses strong encryption that would take the NSA many years to break. So unless you are are a known terrorist, you can be fairly sure that no one, not even Dick Cheney, will expend the resources to snoop on your personal business. With the constantly increasing power of computers, however, codes that were secure five years ago may be insecure five years from now.
E-mail is and has always been quite insecure on the other hand, no matter who your ISP is. An e-mail message probably passes through six to eight computers to get from you to its recipient, and any of those computers can see everything you wrote. In fact, the White House wants the NSA to scan the e-mail of millions of Americans to catch terrorists dumb enough to plan attacks openly.
If you are paranoid about this, you can encrypt your messages yourself with software like PGP, freeware downloadable from the Web. That means that your recipients have to be able to decrypt a message somehow to read it, but then you somehow have to send the key to them securely. To be really safe of course, you also have to change your keys about once a week. So, decide your own tolerance for inconvenience.
Computer security is not hard, but it requires paying attention to details. Fortunately, you put yourself a few steps ahead of 90 percent of people on the Web by not buying a Windows computer. Apple is not 100 percent secure, but it is in fact designed so that you can more easily make the right choices.
One right choice is for your friend to turn on WPA for his wireless router. To get on the network for the first time, you then have know its name (SSID) and the password. After that, your iBook will remember and connect you automatically.
Watch out for open hotspots, whether they are free or charge you an hourly fee. These send information back and forth without encryption, so that the guy next to you in Starbucks can pick up all your communications with the right software, downloadable from the Web of course.
Happy computing!

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