[meinhimmel]

It's an interesting concept, but having a known wireless password really won't protect anyone. I'm perfectly able to capture all of your traffic over the air and then decrypt it. If I go the other route with a MITM attack, then it doesn't really matter. Heck, I can even run my own wireless AP from my laptop and simply use SSLStrip, etc.

With that being said though, I brought these concerns up to a friend about why public APs have security, and his belief is that if it stops even one person from sniffing your traffic then it's a success.

It'd be a lot easier if most people were, at the very least, familiar with the word VPN.