RunningWithBulls.com - The curse of Sanfermin

….but only in the Bay Area in the US. Sorry for keeping you guessing!

I picked this one up via The Community At Large. Ta for that..

[UPDATE II:]
After doing a bit of poking around on (funnily) Google, and technorati I found someone who is using the GoogleNet application:

I read with excitement all the hoopla about Google and free wifi access. Well, the hoopla is just that. There is no free wifi access, save a gym and a bus stop or some such over near the Google campus. Not to say that they aren’t working on it. It’s just not near reality yet. However, they are offering free VPN. I downloaded and installed it. It’s working smoothly. I’m a little nervous.

So, why am I a little scared? Well, by using Google as a VPN, every single little bit of data that passes from me to the Internet and back is going through Google’s servers.

I agree. I would be a little scared also in sending all my traffic over the wire/wireless to Google. Maybe they’re the big teddybears we all think they are, but they are a pretty big target for nasties too…

[UPDATE:]
I thought I was the only one (other than TCAL) with this zero-day info on GoogleNet, but apparently I am not. Gavin also had some information about it, and after I told him about the redirection page, he downloaded the .exe program with the following results:

Following Bernard’s tip I downloaded Google’s new Secure Access program, which connected on my wired connection to vpn.google.com. It is a small and curious little program, that directed me to the google.com page rather than google.ie. It also showed an ad for Gmail that I haven’t seen on a Google page before, but maybe that’s only meant for US users.

Hmm, interesting outcome. Let’s see what it brings for me!
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They have some good speculation on how and why Google would want to do this.

Firstly how:
- by buying lots of unused fiber, thus linking major cities. This would cut out the need for connecting via other ISPs, also saving them alot in fees, as their ad-services serve up more and more ads. Google essentially become a peering partner with other major backboneISPs.

- then by offering free WiFi hotspots, thus creating access points into their GoogleNet (which is an extension/VPN of the Google network). Google are “interested” and have been sponsoring free APs built by a company called Feeva, which has technology interesting to Google that allows the company to pinpoint the location of any client on their network (hmm, interesting for GoogleAds? Serve ads relevant down to a few m/Kms? hmm, probably also built using googlemaps!)

- this then gives them a captive audience

- also access to the demographics of peoples web usage

- and of course, alot of bandwidth with which to run their bandwidth heavy apps

As one commentor wrote: I think the coup here would be WiFi enabled phones. No cell contracts ever again.

i don’t think that WiFi enabled cellphones would supplant GSM/CDMA etc cellphones, but the possibility of using mobile phone communications over WiFi would be certainly applealing.

You can read background articles here, here, here and here.

A comment in the second URL talks about wifi.google.com/faq.html, which is still live. Also it talks about the download page for the client redirecting to the main www.google.com page. This is also true, *but* if you stick in the page name: RedirToGoogleSecureAccessInstaller.html after the wifi.google.com, the download for “GoogleSecureAccessInstaller.exe” (a 667Kb .exe file) begins automatically.

I will try this on a machine in work and see what it looks like.

So, will there be a Googlenet in Ireland? Some how I doubt it for the moment, but as always with Google, you never know…keep your eyes and ears open.