Online banking... security versus liquidity while traveling

[defixated]

When I was in Thailand last year I took a bootable USB stick with Damn Small Linux and Firefox to log onto financial accounts. This obviously doesn't protect from hardware keyloggers or physical observation hacks but did make me feel more secure than using a random Windows box. Smoking fast, too.

I would show the USB stick when I walked in as a way of asking permission. Most places don't lock down USB (this in itself is a pretty big security hole), but on the rare occasions that the entire internet cafe consisted of special-purpose web-browser-only kiosk machines I'd just go down the block since public internet access is so widely available outside the US.

You can buy a preloaded stick for about $70 shipped or set it up yourself in about 20 min. I think you can actually squeeze the install onto a drive as small as 64MB if you have one lying around. 1GB drives are about $10 these days.

P.S.: don't forget the stick! Put the cap between your teeth or something. Given my security concerns I couldn't believe that I once left it plugged into a hotel's public terminal the morning I checked out. 30 min rt taxi ride that evening to find it still glowing green at the back of the PC.

Edited: missed the part about using your own laptop. Just be careful with it; you're much more at risk for laptop theft than someone decrypting your https connection. Also a good idea to make sure your email is secure, as the default is to send email as plain text, and that is easily snooped by anyone on the same network.