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Starbucks’ WiFi goes Google
- VLM 13y ago"you’ll know your new network is ready to go when you can log in to the “Google Starbucks” SSID." LOL either the real one will be up or someone running a MITM attack. It is an interesting area that has not been tackled by a startup. I have no idea how they'd tackle it. But it would be nice to know when I connect to some random network if I'm on the real thing or just some spoofed SSID. Yeah yeah connect to your VPN... but another layer of security, or a reduced level of threat, never hurt anything. Maybe a free VPN would be the point of the startup, "Don't trust your internet access? Connect to us!" Also this would have been a cool place/idea to roll out guaranteed working IPv6 connectivity. This may very well be the case, although unpromoted.
- gizmo686 13y agoIn order for that to work, I think you necessarily need the cooperation of the network owner, and an informed end user. Given that, it seems like the technical solution is basic public key cryptography. Give the access point a public key (possible the same key it uses for https), then all the user has to do is validate that the access point is using the appropriate certificate. You could provide software that automatically validates networks when you connect, and/or provides a more user friendly way to do so. The biggest problem I see is that their is no way to automatically distinguish between a MITM, and the vendor simply not participating.
- VLM 13y ago"informed end user." Or it could be a free automatic feature of Android 4.4. The almighty GOOG has the unusual situational advantage of being the same guy doing the WIFI and doing the phone/tablet OS. The only place AAPL has them beat is they sell the wifi access point devices too. They could release an ITMS app for iDevices, I suppose. My relatively new android phone is running 2.3.7, so somehow shoehorning it into an android app would be more useful than adding to a OS I probably won't have access to for years. Its going to need to be cross platform for the laptop users anyway. Note that as a startup idea you don't need to be .mil grade and encrypt and verify every packet. Something as simple as a notification pop up along the lines of "Holy Cow you are in Great Danger!" would be more useful than the present nothing.
- rikkus 13y agoLast time I went to Starbucks, couldn't get onto my vpn. Do they block them?
- rikkus 13y agoLast time I went to Starbucks, couldn't get onto my vpn. Do they block them?
- bcoates 13y ago802.11u and Passpoint (the WiFi Alliance's implementation of 802.11u) do this.
- anologwintermut 13y agoThis is more of a standards problem then a start up problem. Minimally, you need to get something standardized using public key Identification. Another option is to deploy something like secure in band wireless pairing[1] which prevents anyone trying to spoof an access point while you are in range of the existing access point. Essentially, the access point uses transmit/not transmit as an encoding mechanism for secure announcements. Anyone attempting to jam that can't because forging an announcement requires you to not transmit at key points [1] http://people.csail.mit.edu/nabeel/TEP.pdf http://people.csail.mit.edu/nabeel/TEP.pdf
- mkhalil 13y agoA MITM would steal your VPN credentials would it?
- asperous 13y agoI don't know how all VPN systems work, but if you are using ssh -D I believe that your first connection creates keys for your computer pair in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys and then future connections are fairly secure regardless of who is eavesdropping.
- mkhalil 13y agoCool thanks for the insight! As oppose to others who just down voted me...
- acdha 13y ago> LOL either the real one will be up or someone running a MITM attack. Your big mistake was thinking that you should ever trust a network instead of using secure protocols like HTTPS or SSH.
- mikeash 13y agoThat's no different from how it is today, except the SSID will be slightly different. You have no way to tell whether you're logging into the official Starbucks WiFi or some black hat's stand-in. There are quite a few VPN products out there advertised specifically to protect you while connecting to untrusted public WiFi networks.
- subsystem 13y agoI'm not sure that people having to do their homework at places like Starbucks and McDonald is something to be proud of. Edit: I'm of course refering to the linked WSJ article. It's of course good that the option exists, but sad that the poor basically has the same access to the internet as someone hit by a hurricane.
- gk1 13y agoI hope you don't mean for the students themselves. I live in NYC and know at least two people who don't have a connection at home... I'm sure there are thousands more. Most (if not all) of our public libraries have Wi-Fi, but at any given location you're more likely to be near a Starbucks than a library.
- bluedino 13y ago> I hope you don't mean for the students themselves. I live in NYC and know at least two people who don't have a connection at home... The low-income areas around me don't have a Starbucks, so it doesn't do those kids any good.
- tsumnia 13y agoLiving in a college town, you'd be amazed how many people meet up at Coffee Shops to work. Personally, I'm like that as well. Something about getting out of the house and dropping $2 on coffee makes me force myself to work without distraction; it helps get you in the productive mindset. Plus its a great way to retain customers; I'm more likely to go to my coffee shop of choice because of the hours I've sat there. Convincing me to 'move' shops needs a drastic measure (like putting Google in their store). ..now if my Starbucks would only have more outlets...
- zimpenfish 13y agoHopefully they'll bring this to the UK and we can get rid of BT Openzone.
- disputin 13y agoAnd get something back for the unpaid tax.
- zimpenfish 13y agoNone of their tax was unpaid - they paid exactly what they were legally obliged to pay. (Note that I don't agree that they were paying a morally satisfying amount of tax but ...) Blaming Starbucks for a broken tax regime where the government bends over backwards to create obliging tax rates and structures for big companies is dumb.
- untitaker_ 13y agoDoes that mean i will have to log in with my Google account now?
- bluedino 13y agoAnd be asked to join G+
- username223 13y agoDoing so will allow you to take advantage of valuable products and services available exclusively on Google Plus (TM)!
- hunterwalk 13y agoFacebook's experiments with wifi in Bay Area coffee shops encourage you to both login w your FB acct and check in to the location publicly on FB timeline.
- Sami_Lehtinen 13y agoErr, usually the slowest part of connection is WiFi. I never use wifi if I want to get reasonable throughput or ping. I don't even live where the WiFi band would be unreasonably congested. (connection 1/1 Gbps FTTH)
- jon-wood 13y agoI'm not sure having a synchronous 1Gbps connection really counts as "usually" in most of the world, but I guess in that case you'd want to avoid wifi to get the best out of it. For the rest of us, wifi is far from the bottleneck. I'm currently working from a holiday home in the country where I'm sharing 2Mbps down with 4 other houses.
- bitwize 13y agoI'm not sure having a synchronous 1Gbps connection really counts as "usually" in most of the world, but I guess in that case you'd want to avoid wifi to get the best out of it. You must be American. :) Seriously, most of Europe has had gigabit fiber, flying cars, and robot maids for nearly a decade now and in South Korea they're slowly phasing out the government in favor of a benevolent AI.
- dalore 13y agoUsually the slowest part of the connection is 3G (or worse 2G) via a tether or dongle. Wifi is an order of magnitude more
- ghshephard 13y ago
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- sdkmvx 13y agoWhat does this even mean? Google provides the leased line to the store? The store obtains an Internet connection the normal way, but then tunnels to Google? Or is Google's level of involvement that they have paid for an ad in the SSID? Google Fiber is a nice business opportunity for them, but that requires infrastructure. This comes with none of that. It's not even a precursor to Google Fiber rollout. Either they are getting a similar-quality leased line to _one_ place, or it's just an ad. And even if the Starbucks uplink is "Google Fiber", the wireless connection itself will be a huge bottleneck, as it always is when you have more than around five devices communicating at once.
- MatthewPhillips 13y ago> Or is Google's level of involvement that they have paid for an ad in the SSID? They're paying for the increased speeds in exchange for the ad, yes. It seems pretty clear to me that Google wants to brand itself with the word 'fast'. This goes as far back as the original Chrome commercials. I think it's rather smart.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago> It seems pretty clear to me that Google wants to brand itself with the word 'fast'. And it's rather peculiar that we all associate AT&T with 'mediocre' thanks to their Starbucks wifi sponsorship.
- sangaya 13y agoI've actually never thought of AT&T as 'mediocre' because of a Starbucks relationship. I view them as 'mediocre' due to a decade of terrible, unreliable, and spotty cellular service. It's amazing what service we'll put up with just because all of our friends and family are using that same provider.
- minimax 13y agoIt sounds like Google is outsourcing the connectivity to Level 3. Essentially you'll have Google branded L3 wifi.
- dchuk 13y agoThank god. As someone who routinely visits coffee shops to help maintain some semblance of sanity as I work from home most of the time, entering a nearly full Starbucks almost always means the internet will be sluggish. Hopefully this means I can actually stream music and work at the same time now.
- cantbecool 13y agoI bet this doesn't please AT&T one bit. I always thought Starbucks internet connection speed have been considerably faster. It always felt like I was surfing in the internet on DSL circa 2001.
- brianbreslin 13y ago2 years ago I would have been excited at this news. Today I see it with a sense of trepidation. Times have changed.
- taopao 13y agoWhy?
- minimax 13y agoIf you were nervous about Google knowing all of your search history, e-mail, and youtube activity, how do you feel about them being able to snoop on literally every packet you send and receive? Also as a bonus they can now track you by your MAC address.
- brianbreslin 13y agominimax summed it up.
- xcmm8 13y agoGreat, so now you can get a NSA probe up the backside while you drink your coffee. No thanks, Google.
- keithpeter 13y agoWell, the only way to avoid that appears to be to go off grid. Perhaps some coffee shops will begin to advertise lack of wifi, and perhaps even relocate to areas without any mobile phone coverage?
- geekymartian 13y agoand without customers?
- keithpeter 13y agoPlenty in the cafes I go to Just not the ones on HN. UK:Note mobile coverage is generally very good in UK but there are surprising dead spots, especially in 60s vintage office buildings.
- josefresco 13y agohipsters will surely find it /snark
- rdouble 13y agoCoffee shops already do the no wifi thing. There's no wifi at Blue Bottle, 4 Barrel, Sightglass, etc.
- jaynos 13y agoBecause AT&T is so trustworthy in comparison?
- Symmetry 13y agoIn fact, AT&T is much less trustworthy: https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2013 https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2013
- bluedino 13y agoThis is big. Well, not that big, but kinda big. Starbucks and the Barnes and Noble cafes near me both use the same incredibly slow AT&T wifi. The most I can pull down when the place is completely empty is ~ 150kbs, so I'm assuming they have a T1 circuit for internet. To make it worse, the router they use appears to not do any traffic-shaping at all. So with just one person streaming video or downloading app/OS updates, it becomes excruciatingly slow. It's kind of rude to other guests when you use the wifi to catch up on the last 4 episodes of Breaking Bad or torrent something. There's also the wifi congestion when the store is very busy but what can you do about that? With that said, I'm curious as to what the up to 10x faster than before means. If they offer a 10/15mbs connection, that would be a huge improvement. All the independent coffee places in town either offer wifi backed by 20-30mbs cable or 6mbs DSL, so they are much better destinations if you know you're going to need decent internet access. Nothing like running 'bundle install' and after 45 minutes you just pack it up and leave because you're getting dial-up speeds.
- EdJiang 13y agoThis was a bit shocking to me, but I found out from an employee that attwifi is actually off a 4G modem. Any wired connection should be better.
- tnuc 13y agoIt would be nice if google provided free wifi to public libraries. The announcement talks about kids doing homework. They are more likely to be in the library or McDonalds than starbucks.
- maneesh 13y agoHead over to a public library after school, then head over to a starbucks, and tell me which one has more high-school aged children in it.
- superconductor 13y agoI can tell you: it's the library.
- spjuza 13y agoIt might depend on the location, but I have seen it both ways. Sometimes coffee shops are much closer than a library to the student's house or school.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- hnriot 13y agoWhy would they do that, your state taxes pay for the libraries.
- VLM 13y agoLocal prop taxes pay most of the library budget here, and why yes, they do have free wifi. And it rocks. I'm usually logged into ancestry and google docs while I do genealogy stuff with the microfilm machines. Although as more "stuff" goes online over the years, there's less need to use the microfilm machines. I like the historical map collection and the local history reference books. They also have almost a century of phone books, which is interesting.
- 13y ago
- joonix 13y agoWhat is Starbucks' incentive for making wifi faster? Do they really want to encourage the people who sit there all day on laptops? Will the Google wifi require a login via web browser before given internet access? My phone is always auto-connecting to attwifi but it ends up paralyzing my phone because nothing works until I go to the browser and agree to their terms.
- corin_ 13y ago> Do they really want to encourage the people who sit there all day on laptops? Presumably they do. Sure there are arguments against it, but on the pro side: if people are going to spend a day on their laptop, do you want them buying your drinks every X minutes/hours, or do you want them elsewhere?
- x3c 13y agoStronger argument against this is they'll lose customers due to lack of seating space.
- willis77 13y agoWhy is that argument stronger? You think Starbucks hasn't run the numbers/experiments to test whether a warm body on a laptop is better than the same body ducking in and out? I would bet money they have done a frightening amount of analysis on this question. Also, to your specific point - when people choose restaurants they often go where there's a crowd (the food must be good here), not to an empty restaurant. The situation is a little different because Starbucks is so pervasive, but don't discount the customer draw of a bustling store full of people.
- nknighthb 13y agoI've spent hours in a few different Starbucks in the south bay before. My observation has been that most people either get their order and leave, or stick around for an hour+. The number of people who sit down just long enough to eat a muffin or something is pretty small.
- 13y ago
- rokhayakebe 13y agoThis is part of a bigger plan to turn Google into a mobile carrier. 18 months from now, you will be able to ditch your T-mobile, Verizon, Sprint subscription and connect to Google Wifi nationwide using their Starbucks mesh.
- jusben1369 13y ago"Google has long invested in helping the Internet grow stronger, including projects to make Internet access speedier, more affordable, and more widely available." Speeding up the wifi at Starbucks seems like it's about a 20% fit with this mission statement. Ie - if this mission statement was really your goal there'd be a LOT more options that Starbucks. Why try and paint this as anything more than a mutually beneficial commercial agreement between two parties?
- illdave 13y agoTo be fair, they have to start somewhere and Starbucks are extraordinarily widespread. Don't forget about all of the other things Google are doing to get Internet access to everyone they possibly can (for example: http://www.google.com/loon/ http://www.google.com/loon/)
- Recoil42 13y ago>Why try and paint this as anything more than a mutually beneficial commercial agreement between two parties? I think you answered your own question. Why paint less, when you can paint more?
- geekymartian 13y agoat least they are doing something right?
- willchilcutt 13y agoSo you wouldn't be happy unless they provide internet EVERYWHERE at the SAME TIME? Seems like a ridiculous request.
- znowi 13y agoStarbucks’ WiFi goes NSA :)
- MrKurtz 13y agoYou seem to forget that they are replacing AT&T. I guess being cynical is understandable but you shouldn't over do it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2013/jun/19/google-chief-legal-officer-david-drummond-live-q-and-a http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2013/jun/19/google...
- tswartz 13y ago>If you’re in a Google Fiber city, we’re hoping to get you a connection that’s up to 100x faster. I look forward to seeing how this new competition begins driving Comcast and the other larger services to improve. In SF, if I had the choice to switch from Comcast to any other company that could offer similar speeds I would. Seems like Google Fiber makes Comcast and ATT's speeds look laughable.
- miket 13y agoHope it's less flaky than the Google-provided wifi in Mountain View
- bitwize 13y agoDoes that mean their hotspots won't go to shit the second there are more than two people in a given Starbucks location? If so, way to go Google.
- pawrvx 13y agoCan only access Google's search engine.
- volandovengo 13y agoWhy is Google doing this?
- obilgic 13y agoI wonder how much it is worth for Google to write "Google Starbucks" instead of "Starbucks Google"
- zmmmmm 13y agoIt's interesting that this is (apparently) a big draw for people to come Starbucks. I kind of wonder what the big use case is. I assume most people showing up at a Starbucks have smart phones with data plans. So it's probably not for phones, but tablets and laptops. But then I also assume the speed is not that great as the Wifi will be super heavily congested. So you are probably not getting high bandwidth and a lot of stuff will probably be blocked or throttled anyway. Which means most people could probably just tether to their phone and get the same performance. So then it's for a) those people who can't tether or b) those who can't be bothered tethering? These days I've virtually stopped using any kind of free public Wifi because I don't trust the security and my data plan is enough for most of the things I want to do anyway.
- tadfisher 13y agoYou've hit the nail on the head. Tethering is somewhat of a black art in the US, as carriers have started clamping down on tethering users in order to charge them $20 or more to access the same bits via another device. Most Android users don't even have the standard tethering options here, as carriers mandate that be removed and replaced with their own tethering apps that enforce this restriction and protect their revenue stream. And besides that, most users aren't technical enough to understand that you can access the Internet from your laptop through your smartphone. And besides that, most carriers have limited data plans, so getting lots of work done over a tethered connection is not exactly feasible.