Google Secure Access Released

[hagrin]

Download the client here:
http://wifi.google.com/download.html

Read the FAQ here:
http://wifi.google.com/faq.html

Generate Your Google Secure Access Password:
https://vpn.google.com/getpass/
- The output of the GetPass HTTPS connection gives you:

Code: Select all

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
- <vpn>
- <auth>
  <server>66.28.250.27</server>
  <user>0842956979</user>
  <pass>w5asvoZVwd8C6cPN9a0L</pass>
  </auth>
  </vpn>

So far, I can't get mine to work, so I would be interested if anyone can get theirs to work. Sure, they said it was released for San Francisco only - but if you think about it, it should work over an ethernet line, connect to vpn.google.com and you should have an encrypted connection.

[hagrin]

WhoIS Info of the IP used for GSA:
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=66.28.250.27

Edit - I'm not sure how relevant this information is, but it is interesting to see that this record hasn't been updated in almost 4 years and not assigned to Google (if they in fact do own it now). Otherwise, do they have a deal with Cogent?

Location: United States [City: South San Francisco, California]

NOTE: More information appears to be available at ZC108-ARIN.

Using 0 day old cached answer (or, you can get fresh results).
Hiding E-mail address (you can get results with the E-mail address).


OrgName: Cogent Communications
OrgID: COGC
Address: 1015 31st St NW
City: Washington
StateProv: DC
PostalCode: 20007
Country: US

ReferralServer: rwhois://rwhois.cogentco.com:4321/

NetRange: 66.28.0.0 - 66.28.255.255
CIDR: 66.28.0.0/16
NetName: COGENT-NB-0000
NetHandle: NET-66-28-0-0-1
Parent: NET-66-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: AUTH1.DNS.COGENTCO.COM
NameServer: AUTH2.DNS.COGENTCO.COM
Comment: ADDRESSES WITHIN THIS BLOCK ARE NON-PORTABLE
Comment: Reassignment information for this block can be found at
Comment: rwhois.cogentco.com 4321
RegDate: 2000-10-12
Updated: 2001-12-05

TechHandle: ZC108-ARIN
TechName: Cogent Communications
TechPhone: +1-877-875-4311
TechEmail: ***@cogentco.com

OrgAbuseHandle: COGEN-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Cogent Abuse
OrgAbusePhone: +1-877-875-4311
OrgAbuseEmail: *****@cogentco.com

OrgNOCHandle: ZC108-ARIN
OrgNOCName: Cogent Communications
OrgNOCPhone: +1-877-875-4311
OrgNOCEmail: ***@cogentco.com

OrgTechHandle: IPALL-ARIN
OrgTechName: IP Allocation
OrgTechPhone: +1-877-875-4311
OrgTechEmail: *******@cogentco.com

[hagrin]

As you can see, after installing the Google Secure Access client, a VPN connection is made on your Network Connections screen. This screen is important currently as right clicking on the systray icon doesn't allow you to do much and doesn't offer you these options.



So, it seems that you can use PPTP or L2TP as your VPN types. By default, PPTP is selected (not automatic which I think is a tad bit strange, but maybe due to the "Beta" tag).



Honestly, I don't have much experience with the items listed on this screen; however, a seemingly well-informed Slashdot user pointed out here ( http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=162794&cid=13603906 ) that these are seemingly outdated protocols (edit: referring to the CHAP protocols).



This is the current connect error that I am receiving. I do have a wireless router in play as well as my own VPN connection for work so I do have a few potential issues on my side preventing this from working.

[hagrin]

Ok, so being based in New York, I was able to get this to connect on my laptop without any problems after a reboot.



So, as you can see, the systray icon will display that you are connected and turn green.



A couple of interesting points here. GSA created a PPP adapter entry under an ipconfig /all and will assign you an IP address of 192.168.*.* - an internal, private IP address. This IP is able to connect to the vpn.google.com VPN server and will assign out DNS servers in two different subnets.

Now, the best application of this is that you now can browse the web anonymously. When I use my laptop to check my Forums here, I see the following user logged in -

Code: Select all

Guest   20 Sep 2005 04:02 pm   20 Sep 2005 04:04 pm   Poker 66.28.250.25

Notice the 66.28.250.25 IP address I was assigned and that the forums now sees displayed.

Now, only Google could really track your surfing habits and you now have a constant, dedictaed proxy to start wreaking havoc on. The applications of this are immense.

The real question is - how will Google help authorities in terms of tracking abusers.

[hagrin]

Some more technical information can be found here - http://blog.thetechgurus.net/?p=36 (The Techgurus Blog). Make sure to check them out as the poster did a good job of breaking down the app (plug for the additional info).

Points to note that they have identified:
- They have copied the Google Secure Access Terms of Use - you can read it here - http://blog.thetechgurus.net/?page_id=37 .

- http://wifi.google.com/verscheck - appears to be a version checker that isn't currently working (or doing anything of importance ... yet).

[hagrin]

https://wifi.google.com/welcome - This seems to be the Google Secure Access home page.

However, as The TechGurus Blog has pointed out, the full URL of - https://wifi.google.com/welcome?ap=%012 ... ml&_k=%08x actually leads to another XML file which contains the following -

Code: Select all

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
- <googlewifi>
- <location>
- <info>
  <name>unknown provider</name>
  <addr />
  <href />
  </info>
- <message>
  <text />
  <href />
  </message>
  </location>
  </googlewifi>

I'd be interested to see if any other users on different ISPs get different results. It isn't 100% clear how the welcome URL actually works with the current GSA implementation, but if a user manually goes to that page after connecting and then hovers over the systray icon, you see the following change -



Another tidbit from the TechGurus Blog is the following:

First, the IP address that the VPN client connects to appears to be from a set of four:

66.28.250.23
66.28.250.25
66.28.250.26
66.28.250.27

Finally, the TechGuru Blog has a "How To" to use the Google Secure Access software to connect to a different, user specified VPN server. You can find those instructions here - http://blog.thetechgurus.net/?p=38#more-38 . They have been doing some great work with GSA so far so I plan on checking back to see what else can be accomplished.

[hacker]

Update: GSA no longer works unless you are in one of the Google Free WiFi hotspots. If you are not in one of those areas, you are unable to filter your traffic through their VPN servers.

However, you could still use the software to route the VPN software to your own server, but there are much better options out there than GSA for that.