Google prepares to launch WiFi service
Thursday, September 22, 2005
According to several pages on Google’s website, Google is launching a free WiFi service. This program, called Google Secure Access, creates a Virtual Private Network allowing secure access to the Internet. Google Secure Access encrypts all traffic to and from a user’s machine while the user is connected to the wireless access point.
Google provides its engineers with time to work on independent research projects. Google Secure Access was created as an independent research project by a Google engineer after he discovered that WiFi was insecure at most locations.
According to the Google Secure Access FAQ, the service is only available at "certain Google WiFi locations in the San Francisco Bay Area". According to some reports, the service is working from some independent (non-Google) WiFi locations in NYC.
Like many of Google’s other popular services such as Gmail, Google Secure Access is still in the beta testing stage.
Sources
- "Google Secure Access (Beta): Frequently Asked Questions" — Google, September 20, 2005
- Adam Pasick/Sinead Carew. "Google prepares to launch WiFi service" — New Brisbane's News1, September 20, 2005
- Nancy Gohring/IDG News Service. "Is Google Readying Wi-Fi Service?" — PCWorld, September 20, 2005
- "Google Readies for Wi-Fi" — Red Herring (magazine), September 20, 2005
- "Google Secure Access (WiFi & VPN) Released" — Talking Hagrin Forum, September 20 2005
The text of this article has been released into the public domain. In the event that this is not legally possible, this article may be used for any purpose, without any condition, unless such conditions are required by law. This applies worldwide. Copyright terms on images, however, may vary, so please check individual image pages prior to duplication. Please note that this only applies to Wikinews content created prior to September 25, 2005. All content created after that date is released under a Creative Commons license which is mentioned at the bottom of each article. This is currently the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. |