172: What is a VPN? - Virtual Private Network

hey there do-it-yourself technicians

today i want to talk to you about vpns

virtual private networks

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a vpn is a network that takes your

computer and places it in another

network how a vpn works is by simply

gathering up all of your packets just

before you send them out to the network

and then pushing them through a tunnel

to the other end of the vpn where they

appear out on the internet as if they're

coming from that location

now this is what i actually have mixed

feelings about it's technology it's a

tool

but it can be used for good or evil

i mean it's great for privacy

if you're in a coffee shop and using

unprotected wi-fi

then it's theoretically possible for

anybody sitting in that coffee shop to

sniff all of your network traffic

capture all of your passwords

and find out exactly what you're doing

not a good thing

vpns are also used to get around the

great firewall of china now this could

be a good thing or a bad thing

i mean it's technically illegal in china

but it's their country and they can kind

of decide the rules but it's also good

for freedom

you can use it to hide bittorrent now

bittorrent on its own is not a bad

technology but often it's used for

stealing of copyrighted material again

not getting into the politics or

anything just stating facts

it can also be used to circumvent some

of the country based features of things

like netflix

if your vpn terminates in the us then

netflix will think you're coming from

the us and therefore give you access to

all of the us content which technically

you're not supposed to have here in

australia again it's political and i'm

not getting into that

but it's certainly a grey area of the

law

one of the ways it affects me is with

kids using it at school it's effectively

making their computer part of the global

internet without going through any of

the school's filtering unfortunately it

also stops them using things local to

the school network you can't print to

one of the school printers if your

computer is technically or

technologically in a completely

different country that doesn't have

access to any of our printers you have

to be connected to and stay on the local

school network in order to be able to

use those facilities

on the flip side for work it's sometimes

really handy for your home laptop to

become part of the work network using a

vpn

that way you can use facilities local to

the office that you can't technically

access from home i can use a vpn to

connect to my work network and then

print to one of the local printers

like i said it's one of those things

where it can be used for good or for

evil and lots of areas in between

in many ways i prefer a world of

transparency but that's not how it is

and we just have to live with it

but the technology exists so i thought

you should know about it and know what

it is and a little bit of how it works

in fact it's even built into many

internet security suites although

usually only with fairly limited

features

question of the day do you use a vpn let

me know in the comments down below i

won't judge i promise

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you