What is a VPN? How Does a VPN work?

February 18, 2019

According to Webopedia, "A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a network that is constructed using public wires — usually the Internet — to connect remote users or regional offices to a company's private, internal network."

In simple words a VPN is a network that helps you to use the internet securely using encrypted or protected tunnels between two locations so that the information send is not seen by anyone else other than you and your online destination.

While browsing the internet, your data is out in the open. As you might know that internet consists of many servers which are responsible for storing websites and they serve them to any user who wants to view them. Now these servers communicate with each other all the time by sharing your data with each other which in the end lets you browse a page. It is great that you are able to surf the internet in this way, but it creates privacy issues as anyone can hack into those servers and read your information that you don't want to disclose.

So here comes the role of VPN or the Virtual Private Network. When you start the VPN or the client software from your VPN service, the software encrypts the data even before your Internet Service Provider (ISP) sees it. The data then goes from the user to the VPN server and from the VPN server to your online destination. Thus, your online destination is able to see your data as coming from your VPN server and its location and not from your PC and your location.The VPN server is the third party that gets connected to the web on your behalf.

Connection Through a VPN Server

It is not a matter big privacy concern if you are looking for a fun website or any gaming website. In this case you need not to worry. But if the case is sending any undisclosed information, any business email or making any banking transaction, VPN becomes a necessity as it is more secure.

In short by using VPN:-

The destination website is able to see your data as coming from your VPN server and not from you

It becomes very difficult to identify you and your computer as source of the data and also what you are surfing on internet ― which websites are you visiting or what data are you transferring.

Your data is in encrypted form so even if someone tries to peep into it, they might just see the encrypted information and not the actual data.

VPN Protocols

A protocol is a set of rules governing the exchange or transmission of data between devices. VPN protocol defines how the service handles data exchange over a VPN. Here are the types of VPN protocols.

1. PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol)

PPTP originally designed by Microsoft is the oldest protocol which is in use. It is a part of Windows Operating system and works on old computers. It is easy to set up but by today’s standards, it is very insecure.

2. L2TP/IP Sec (Layer to Tunneling Protocol)

This protocol uses keys to establish a secure connection in each end of your data tunnel but its execution is not that safe. Adding the IP Sec protocol improves security abut that to can be broke.

3. SSTP (Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol)

This is another protocol built by Microsoft.. The connection is established with some SSL/TLS encryption which is standard for web encryption nowadays. SSL’s and TLS’s strength is built on symmetric-key cryptography that is a setup in which only the two parties involved in the transfer can decode the data within. Overall, SSTP is a very secure solution.

4. IKEv2 (Internet Key Exchange, Version 2).

This is also another Microsoft-built protocol. It’s an iteration of Microsoft’s previous protocols and a much more secure one. It provides you with some of the best security.

5. OPEN VPN.

This takes what’s best in the above all the protocols and does away with most of the flaws. It’s based on SSL/TLS and it’s an open source project, which means that it’s constantly being improved by hundreds of developers. It secures the connection by using keys that are known only by the two participating parties on either end of the transmission.

Now the question is VPN legal. The answer is yes. Initially, usage of VPN had many jurisdictions but most of them are morally questionable. In most of the countries like USA, Canada, UK and in the western Europe, VPN is okay to use. But in countries like China, Iraq, Turkey, North Korea, it is not okay.