Unencrypted WAP means all traffic over the wireless link can be
read by anyone. With an encrypted WAP, all traffic is encrypted
on the radio link, but anyone with access to the WAP's WAN port
can read the traffic even without the encryption key. With the
WAP's key, for WiFi, you can read all the traffic on the radio
link. The secure way to use a shared wireless AP is by using
end-to-end encryption; your traffic is encrypted before it is
sent over the radio link and is not decrypted until it arrives
at the destination. So, even with the WAP key or access to the
WAP's WAN port, end-to-end encrypted traffic is safe. A common
way to gain end-to-end encryption is to use an encrypted VPN.
The traffic using the VPN between your machine and the VPN
endpoint is encrypted, and so safe. One complication. A VPN can
use a technique called split-tunneling, which means that traffic
not destined for the network at the VPN's other side doesn't use
the VPN. And traffic that doesn't use the VPN isn't encrypted by
the VPN, so if