In many cases, each of these offices also has LANs. ![]() They have branch offices, departments, and divisions that are geographically dispersed. But many businesses don't run out of one location. That's the private network inside one physical location - be it a home, a corporate building, or a campus. Most of us are familiar with the concept of a LAN, a local area network. ![]() One of the most important issues in understanding the limits of VPNs is understanding where the endpoint of the VPN server resides. The VPN software on your end then sends those packets to the VPN server at some destination point, decrypting that information. The way a VPN works is by encrypting those packets at the originating point, often hiding the data and the information about your originating IP address. Eventually, it reaches the ZDNet infrastructure, which also routes those packets, grabs a web page (which is a bunch of separate elements), and sends all that back to you.Įach internet request usually results in a whole series of communication events between multiple points. That information is sent back to your browser, which then sends the request again through many computers on the public internet. A separate request is made to a series of name servers to translate the DNS name to an IP address. Once on the public internet, those packets travel through a bunch of computers. If you're in an office, those packets often travel through switches and routers on your LAN before they are transferred to the public internet through a router. To do this, your computer initiates a request by sending some packets. Suppose you're at your desk and you want to access a website like ZDNet. Let's start with the basic idea of internet communication. VPNs are powerful and important tools to protect yourself and your data, but they have limitations. The idea is that everything you send is encapsulated in this private communications channel and encrypted so - even if your packets are intercepted - they can't be deciphered. This leaves any internet user vulnerable to criminals who might steal your banking or credit card information, governments who might want to eavesdrop on their citizens, and other internet users who might want to spy on you for a whole range of nefarious reasons.Ī VPN creates a private tunnel over the open internet. Many still send their information without any security or privacy protection whatsoever. While some standards have developed, not all internet apps are secure. The applications you're accustomed to using, whether email, web, messaging, Facebook, etc., are all built on top of that Internet Protocol (IP) core. Most of the internet's core protocols (communication methods) were designed to route around failure rather than secure data. Networking across the country and the world was relatively new, and nodes often went down. When the internet was first designed, the priority was to be able to send packets (chunks of data) as reliably as possible. Here's the problem with the internet: It's inherently insecure. The purpose of a VPN is to provide you with security and privacy as you communicate over the internet. VPN is an acronym for Virtual Private Network. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form. ![]() If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. ![]() Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping.
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