Well I guess I wasn't paranoid after all. My email account was hacked using wifi at the hotel. Possibly facebook too. If anyone knows how to use wireless securely when traveling I would appreciate the help.

 

I'm not saying your lying, but I find that hard to believe considering hotels wifi's are generally safe, I'm wondering did you click a pop up?  I travel a lot and use wifi on my laptop and tablet and have never been hacked.  If you had been hacked, it would have happened while you were on property.  You would have know immediately.  Change your passwords to all accounts.

I did not click on any pop ups and do not have an easy password. I have never been hacked before and I have had this email address for like 20 years. There is just simply no other explanation. I left the ipad on and charging in my room when I went to dinner and it happened then. And no, nobody was in my room as I placed things on top of the ipad in such a way as I would have known if anything was moved when I was away from the room

 

I did not click on any pop ups and do not have an easy password. I have never been hacked before and I have had this email address for like 20 years. There is just simply no other explanation. I left the ipad on and charging in my room when I went to dinner and it happened then. And no, nobody was in my room as I placed things on top of the ipad in such a way as I would have known if anything was moved when I was away from the room

 

 

Again, you would have known right then and there that you were hacked.  In order to be hacked you have to click on something that looks legit, which, based on what you say above, is what most likely happened.  What email provider do you use "aol", "yahoo"?  I would suggest switching to gmail ASAP.  You can switch you email account to gmail and it will move all your email and contacts and alert those you email of your new email address automatically.  Spam/junk mail will be a thing of the future.

It doesn't sound like it's all that uncommon or impossible.

 

"Be VERY careful when using open, unencrypted Wi-Fi hotspots. Sniffing wireless traffic is simple with the right tools and is impossible to detect unless you are looking over the interloper's shoulder as he's doing it."

 

More: 

"Here are some ways to tell whether the e-mail your friends got from you was hacked or spoofed:

 

Look at the "From:" on the junk mail your friends received. If your e-mail system normally sends your mail showing your full name followed by your e-mail address in <angle brackets> on its "From:" line, then if it is hacked and used to send junk mail, the junk mail will also show your name and address in the same way. Conversely a spammer spoofing just your address wouldn't know your name and could not do this."

 

The spam people got from me showed my name and the email address in brackets, so it was hacked, not spoofed.

 

"Your address book used

If many of your personal correspondents are simultaneously getting the same junk mail from your address, that's a pretty sure indicator that it's coming from your account, because the sender has access to your personal address book. (Someone otherwise forging your address onto their "To:" line would not be able to target all of your friends at once, and would be very unlikely to hit any of them at all.)"

 

This is what happened to me. People I haven't emailed in YEARS got this.

 

More stories:

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=3454066&page=1

""If you're using Wi-Fi in a public place and you're not getting hacked, it's only because there's nobody around bothering to do it," says Robert Graham, CEO of consultancy Errata Security."

 

And:

Hotel Wifi Hacking is on the Rise

http://www.privatewifi.com/hotel-wifi-hacking-is-on-the-rise/

According to a 2008 study by Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, events like that aren’t unusual. The study concluded that most hotel wireless networks were not secure. Twenty percent of the hotels surveyed admitted that malicious activities had taken place on their networks.

 

A 2006 report on hotel hotspot security found that guests connected to many hotel networks could easily view each other’s fileshares or attack each other’s computers. “We tested 27 hotels in three major cities. Just one quarter of them prevented wifi users from being hacked by guests connected to the hotel’s wired network and attackers on the Internet,” said Lisa Phifer, president of Core Competence. “After hotspot login, most guests are on their own to protect themselves,” says Phifer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to many, many pages loading slowly or not at all, I could not access iTunes store at all since I installed the router. Turned off wireless on the main laptop, no dice. No dice using wireless either. I couldn't get the store to load until I unplugged the router completely and plugged the cable modem directly into the laptop like it used to be. Worked perfectly. Now WTF. Is the router just shitty? Should we return it? It's not acceptable to have to re-route the cables and turn on the wireless every time I want to use the iPad. We did buy a policy so we could return the router. And it is not the slowest speed router either, it is a Belkin N300 that says it's the "fasted N300 router" vs. other brands. WHAT THE EFF?

In addition to many, many pages loading slowly or not at all, I could not access iTunes store at all since I installed the router. Turned off wireless on the main laptop, no dice. No dice using wireless either. I couldn't get the store to load until I unplugged the router completely and plugged the cable modem directly into the laptop like it used to be. Worked perfectly. Now WTF. Is the router just sh!tty? Should we return it? It's not acceptable to have to re-route the cables and turn on the wireless every time I want to use the iPad. We did buy a policy so we could return the router. And it is not the slowest speed router either, it is a Belkin N300 that says it's the "fasted N300 router" vs. other brands. WHAT THE EFF?

 

I have that exact router and don't have any problems.  I would guess that you got a dud, unfortunately. 

 

I think we are going to return it and get a different one. Things were lightning fast once again once I took the router out of the mix last night.