If you’re smart, you probably think twice before using a WiFi network anywhere outside of your own home to log into things like your bank account and even your email. Being on a shared network notoriously leaves you more vulnerable to having someone else monitor all the details of your web browsing activity and access your personal data. But if you’re a remote worker, as more and more people are, lots of your time online is spent using relatively untrusted networks in places like cafes, airports, and hotels.
A new product from iTwin called the Connect is aimed at taking away those worries. The iTwin Connect, which launched today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, is a tiny 3.5 inch device that plugs into your laptop through the USB port, encrypts all your data, and routes it through the host server of your choice — either iTwin’s own secure servers, or your own computer that you’ve linked to the device. Essentially, this lets you freely browse the web through a secure VPN while utilizing an untrusted public or shared Wi-Fi network. This means that you can use it to access sensitive things such as online banking, and also get around certain site geo-restrictions.
The benefits here are pretty big and the use-cases are many, so it was great to have iTwin’s co-founder and COO Kal Takru stop by the TechCrunch on-site CES stage to show us the Connect and give us the product’s pitch first-hand. Check that out in the video embedded above.