Devicescape's new "Wi-Fi Buddies" feature

In my Get More from Windows Mobile article in the current issue of Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine, I wrote about Devicescape, the free program for managing your paid and free WiFi networks (Read the original article). Today, the company that created Devicescape has announced an incredible new feature they've just added to this application that will provide you with more control over your own WiFi network and your friends, family and co-workers that you allow to access it. The feature is called Wi-Fi Buddies and it alludes to an entirely new way to safely and securely share your own network while maintaining complete control over your network security.

Wi-Fi Buddies

To get started, you log into the Devicescape Web site and enter the details of your wireless home network (SSID and any encryption information). Then click on the My Buddies section and click the Add a Buddy button. The web site will display a personalized E-mail (Fig. 1) and allow you to address it to several people at once. If the people you invite are already Devicescape users, then your network will be added to their list of "Personal Networks." If they are not currently Devicescape members, they'll receive an E-mail with instructions on how to sign up and get started with the Devicescape software.

Figure 1: Devicescape makes it easy to invite friends and family to access your wireless network by sending out a personalized e-mail with instructions on how to get started.

For each user who accepts your invitation, the Devicescape application manages all of the details to grant each person access to your wireless network. So if you have a hidden SSID (the network name), WEP or WPA encryption and any passphrase or encryption keys, they're all stored in your profile on the Devicescape web site. When a user launches Devicescape on their handheld, it downloads the information needed to connect to your network.

No one can actually see your encryption key or passphrase, so you are not compromising the security by disclosing the secret access information for your network. This also makes it very convenient if you frequently change your network's access information, as your users will always have the latest encryption keys and connection details. In addition, you can easily restrict individual users from accessing your network by visiting the My Buddies page (Fig. 2).

Figure 2: The My Buddies page allows you to grant and deny any user access to your network with a single click.

The Devicescape web site also lets you toggle whether or not your network is sharable (Fig. 3). This is a great way to temporarily deny access to your wireless network for all users, in case you have to perform maintenance on the router, or if you want to temporarily prevent other users from using high-bandwidth applications if you need to do maximize bandwidth for your own use.

Figure 3: The Personal Networks section lets you turn shared access to your network on and off and review the list of other networks that you can access.

Request Access

In addition to granting access to others, you can also request permission to receive credentials for someone else's network. Again, Devicescape provides an e-mail form that will be automatically sent to whomever you wish, prompting them to install Devicescape (if they haven't already) and grant you permission to access their network. This is a great feature, if you're planning to visit someone else's house and want to use their network with your laptop or PDA.

Availability

Devicescape -with the Wi-Fi Buddies feature- is available right now, at no-charge. It works on any Windows Mobile 5 and 6 device with WiFi capabilities as well as Windows XP and Vista PCs, Mac OS X, the Nokia N800 and 770 web tablets, Nokia E series and N series phones, and the Linksys WIP 300 VoIP phones. You can sign up and get started at www.devicescape.com. For more information, visit their web site, or click the Page 2 link below to read the press release they issued this morning.

DEVICESCAPE INTRODUCES WI-FI BUDDIES:
EASY AND SECURE HOME WI-FI NETWORK SHARING

Share Home Networks with Friends and Family for Expanded Coverage

SAN BRUNO, Calif. —July 17, 2007—Devicescape Software today announced Devicescape Wi-Fi Buddies—a new service that enables consumers to securely share access to home or other personal Wi-Fi networks with friends and family for expanded Wi-Fi coverage.

With the rapidly expanding Wi-Fi marketspace, consumers are looking for an easy and secure solution to connect their devices to the internet. Devicescape makes it easy for consumers to connect their devices to more than 100,000 hotspots worldwide, including commercial, municipal and free networks. However, the most important Wi-Fi network for consumers is in their homes. With Wi-Fi Buddies, Devicescape now makes it effortless to connect all of your devices to your home network and to easily and securely share access with friends and family.

“With more and more Wi-Fi networks and devices coming to market, consumers don’t want to think about how they are going to connect, they just want their wireless device to work wherever they are so they can access their email and other services quickly and easily,†said Dave Fraser, CEO of Devicescape.

With Devicescape Wi-Fi Buddies, people can now add their home network as a hotspot for their own devices, easily and securely share these networks with selected friends and family, and expand their own Wi-Fi coverage by requesting access to their friends and family members’ home networks.

“The home is the epicenter of Wi-Fi for consumers,†said Bill McIntosh, VP of marketing for Devicescape. “We want to bring the easy setup, control and security of Devicescape to the place where members use Wi-Fi most – their homes.â€

Using Devicescape frees consumers from the tedious login processes that most hotspots require and simply connects Wi-Fi devices whenever they are in range of a network. This saves having to launch a browser, land on a login page, remember and enter user names, passwords, email addresses and even credit card information and allows immediate access. Devicescape Wi-Fi Buddies expands Devicescape’s auto-connect service to potentially hundreds of millions of households and other personal networks.

“Sharing a home network is a challenging process that also creates a hole in the network’s security,†said Avi Greengart, principal analyst, Mobile Devices at Current Analysis. “There is a definite need for an intermediary to remove Wi-Fi complexity for consumers, enabling them to easily use new types of devices on their networks and share their connectivity with friends and trusted business partners.â€

Without Wi-Fi Buddies, to grant access to a secured home network, consumers typically have to directly access their router via its numeric URL, identify the network name (also know as an SSID), find login credentials (like a WEP key), and manually enter these into each device. Once these login credentials are handed out, even to the most trusted friend, security for this network is breached.

With Wi-Fi Buddies, people can now securely share access to their home network by simply sending email invitations to their friends. Once a friend accepts the email invite, they can gain instant Wi-Fi access to your network from their device anytime they visit. They can also share their home network as well. All this occurs without compromising the security of the network, since the security key is never released to others or installed directly onto their devices. Additionally, Devicescape Wi-Fi Buddies has easy web-based controls, allowing Devicescape members to turn sharing access on and off by clicking a button.

Devicescape Wi-Fi Buddies is available for free to consumers at: www.devicescape.com.

Devicescape is available for free via download for laptops that use Mac OS X, Windows XP and Vista PCs, Windows Mobile 5 & 6 Smartphones, the Nokia N800 and 770 web tablets, Nokia Eseries and Nseries phones, and the Linksys WIP 300 VoIP phones.

About Devicescape
Devicescape provides software and services that make it easy for consumers to access the content, applications and services of the internet via their wireless devices. Headquartered in San Bruno, Calif., the company is privately held and venture-backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, JAFCO Ventures, August Capital and Applied Materials Ventures. To learn more, please visit www.devicescape.com.

Devicescape is a trademark of Devicescape Software, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.