Tuesday 7 August 2007

Nokia S60 VPN gone missing

Guys – how hard can it be to put VPN on a Symbian Phone

I do really love my new Nokia E90. Great screens – easy to use. My Roadsync is up and running with my exchange private certificates (see previous article). But the biggest missing object from my phone is ability to use VPN.

I'm constantly on non-encrypted Access Points everywhere. I don't check anything with passwords, unless I can get through a VPN connection on my computer.

But checking the built in Nokia E90 Communications tutorial – it states:

"For VPN usage..." (go through tutorial..) Contact your systems administrator." - Nokia – are you taking the piss?

But Nokia forgot to inform the world's system administrators on how to provide VPN access to a Nokia Phone. Hacks exists on the Internet on how to use "older" E series Nokia Phones Mobility VPN package, and install it on the E90. But that requires mechanical software skills most people do not have. You have to do a LOT of work to get your VPN up and running, including getting special security certification to "encrypt" the settings you send to the phone. And Nokia has strategically removed the "download" options around the world for the "old" VPN software, leaving even hard ball techy guys in need of VPN with only one solution – find a "pirate" copy.

MovianVPN used to be a solution. But Certicom does not offer that anymore. You can still buy the Movian VPN for S60 from anthavpn but despite 3 attempts to contact them about E90 compatibility I have so far to succeed. Not a single answer so we must assume they have gone bust or are to busy selling anthavpn solution for Microsoft Mobiles. And that is despite Microsoft Mobiles got VPN built in out of the box.

So dear dear Nokia, please wake up and make a good VPN client available for the S60v3 series of phones. I would not mind to pay – as long as it can connect to standard VPN boxes out there like Cisco or my Microsoft Server based VPN – or even OpenVPN. I just need something so I know my browsing is secure and no one can sniff my passwords – and when I am in "Protected" areas, where VoIP is blocked by network operators –that I can tunnel home and establish my phone connection anyway.

My only alternative is changing to the HTC Kaiser (TyTN II) when it comes out and once again be able to surf and call with piece of mind – which pretty much have the same specs as the E90. So Dear Reader – write your Nokia representative J and complain! I did!

Kaz911


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nokia is selling a product called Nokia Mobile VPN which is compatible with Checkpoint and Cisco.
This is part of Nokia Security product price list.

To by this you can contact Nokia Security reseller to find the list go to Nolkia for business site.

Kaz said...

That does neither class as simple or cheap does it?

Anonymous said...

hmm you right, have just checked every nokia site, and VPN is gone from all country sites, except one - http://www.nokia.com.sg/nokia/0,,98329,00.html#?content2

Only on singapur site is v3 client for N70

Anonymous said...

Hi Kaz,
How much would you pay for PPTP VPN client? Assuming it does not need any external services for configuration?

Kaz said...

I would not mind to pay $30-50 especially if I can set it as default gateway (all traffic through vpn) like my windows. :-)

Anonymous said...

It looks like that PPTP VPN client for S60 3rd is on the way. Check the post from 06-24-2008 (Post #9) in this thread:
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1347165

Anonymous said...

Here it is:
http://www.SymVPN.com/Products/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductId=17