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Google WiFi+VPN Confirmed
An anonymous reader writes "Google is actually (confirmed!) rolling out their wifi network, first in the San Francisco bay area (see the FAQ for details.) They are also including a Secure Access program for use in conjunction with this. So far, as per usual, it's in beta, and only for the San Fran bay area. Soon the entire US, perhaps??"
Not surprisingly, it doesn't work unless you're in that area :)
Here is a link to a CNN article about it.
From the FAQ: "Why did Google develop Google Secure Access?
One of our engineers recognized that secure WiFi was virtually non-existent at most locations. As a result, he used his 20% project time to begin an initiative to offer users more secure WiFi access. Google Secure Access is the result of this endeavor."
That guy would need slightly more that 20% project time to help extending the service to the entire US..
Attitudes make the difference between Space and Time: we want to MAX our temporal, and MIN our spatial extension.
To those commenting on how hard this is...
The announcement is not about rolling out hotspots. They are just providing an easy-to-set-up VPN connection using downloadable client software. Extending it to the rest of the country would just require distributed VPN host nodes.
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
It is a VPN client.
You download the software and it creates a VPN to vpn.google.com. It doesn't even have anything to do with wireless other than using this with wireless allows you to encrypt all your traffic on each end instead of with weak WEP or otherwise.
I just downloaded the client and just using my normal network card in my PC I was able to successfully connect to google and an ipconfig reveals a second connection:
PPP adapter vpn.google.com:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description : WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
Physical Address : 00-53-45-00-00-00
Dhcp Enabled : No
IP Address : 192.168.201.8
Subnet Mask : 255.255.255.255
Default Gateway : 192.168.201.8
DNS Servers : 66.51.205.100 66.51.206.100
I only hope they'll create a server version too and give it out. I must say there was zero configuration and a monkey could have installed it. If they release a server version and allow a small amount of configuration this could come in handy.
I guess one side effect is that I should be able to anonymously browse the web through google.
Consequently, they must be having DNS issues or something of that nature because nothing seemed to resolve while connected.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
They've done this many times without any fanfare: each result URL is a link to a Google wrapper, but they use onMouseOver='' to pretend to show you the real URL in your status bar. Here's one write-up about what was being done recently.
For more information, click here.
There's an article in the current issue of Business 2.0 that speculates as to the business model.
1 093558,00.html
http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,
Part of it is not a revenue generation thing so much as a cost savings. Google has been buying up a lot of dark fibre... They're trying to eliminate a middleman for IP transit fees. "Millions of dollars per month in savings" etc.