3 ms·

VPNs were used primarily by companies to allow secure access to their network from the outside. It doesn't surprise me that documents aimed at businesses runnin

VPNs were used primarily by companies to allow secure access to their network from the outside. It doesn't surprise me that documents aimed at businesses running Windows servers would describe them in the context of that use case. It doesn't mean that was the entire point, or purpose. It's just one thing they were commonly used for.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
anyfoo 4y ago
> VPNs were used primarily by companies to allow secure access to their network from the outside. Yeah, that was the entire argument.
- autoexec 4y ago
  At the same time that I was working at an ISP on a product that would let employees from various companies connect via dial up and VPN into their corporate networks (whose gateways were also on our network) several of my co-workers were using a VPN of their own to connect to their home networks, but not to access the resources on those home networks (although some did that too). They wanted to use the internet from their machines at home in order to hide their internet activity from our IT department. This is basically the same thing people do with VPNs now, only instead of hiding their internet activity from IT, they hide it from their ISP. VPNs were always used for things other than connecting someone to a corporate network, it's just that most of the general internet population at that time (and I'm guessing you're old enough to remember this) were not aware of the technology and not tech savvy enough to set it up. This is true even for the employees of the companies we had as customers. We had to build entire software products that did nothing but hand hold people through setting up a dial up networking connection. It's not surprising that corporations were the majority users of VPN technology until the rest of the public (who don't have IT staff) caught up, at which point it became increasingly more common for people to use it to hide their internet traffic.
  - anyfoo 4y ago
    I don't doubt that, I was replying to this: > You are wrong on this, the private part indicates the privacy it provides not the destination. In your own recollection, what do you think "Virtual Private Network" stood for? Connecting private networks together, or privacy?
    - _8j50 4y ago
      It's not a question of recollection. Read the acronym carefully. It is virtual and it is a network. Not the destination but the tunnel itself is the network that is private. It was described as such from the start and in no networking context have I ever heard otherwise (correct me if wrong please). Let's say you have an IPSec tunnel between a branch location and HQ site. The typical solution was GRE where you encapsulate it inside another IP packet that has public IPs only for the destination to decapsulate it. When VPNs came along they added privacy hence the name. In networking you are not connecting two networks. You are interconnecting three networks! the branch would have its own subnet so would HQ but the VPN also would have its subnet all routed as separate networks. The tunnel network getting privacy because it traverses untrusted networks (back in the day it wasn't typically the interent but ATM, frame relay,T1,etc... "directly" between sites), that's where term cloud comes from FYI the untrusted magic ISP network in the sky.
      - anyfoo 4y ago
        This might be the most pedantic thread (on my part, too) I was ever part of. :) The earliest reference to VPN I can find in the RFCs, RFC2547, seems to call the "destination" (the network spanned by the tunnel) the VPN, not the tunnel itself: "If all the sites in a VPN are owned by the same enterprise, the VPN is a corporate "intranet". If the various sites in a VPN are owned by different enterprises, the VPN is an "extranet". A site can be in more than one VPN; e.g., in an intranet and several extranets. We regard both intranets and extranets as VPNs." That same RFC has only one mention of encryption at all, in passing, and as being optional (note the "and/or"): A security-conscious VPN user might want to ensure that some or all of the packets which traverse the backbone are authenticated and/or encrypted. It does not seem to me that privacy was implied. I still think that VPNs were invented to connect smaller private networks to a larger private network together, where private != privacy. (But rather related to authorities, such as using "private IP addresses" in e.g. 10.0.0.0/8, instead of publicly routable ones.) Privacy was a (good, likely popular) option, but just not part of the strict definition of what a VPN is (much unlike today).
- _8j50 4y ago
  Well companies used VPNs that were not site to site, since the first ASAs and probably before then. And even then it isn't like individuals did not VPN in the 90s at all.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

anyfoo 4y ago

> VPNs were used primarily by companies to allow secure access to their network from the outside. Yeah, that was the entire argument.

autoexec 4y ago
At the same time that I was working at an ISP on a product that would let employees from various companies connect via dial up and VPN into their corporate networks (whose gateways were also on our network) several of my co-workers were using a VPN of their own to connect to their home networks, but not to access the resources on those home networks (although some did that too). They wanted to use the internet from their machines at home in order to hide their internet activity from our IT department. This is basically the same thing people do with VPNs now, only instead of hiding their internet activity from IT, they hide it from their ISP. VPNs were always used for things other than connecting someone to a corporate network, it's just that most of the general internet population at that time (and I'm guessing you're old enough to remember this) were not aware of the technology and not tech savvy enough to set it up. This is true even for the employees of the companies we had as customers. We had to build entire software products that did nothing but hand hold people through setting up a dial up networking connection. It's not surprising that corporations were the majority users of VPN technology until the rest of the public (who don't have IT staff) caught up, at which point it became increasingly more common for people to use it to hide their internet traffic.
- anyfoo 4y ago
  I don't doubt that, I was replying to this: > You are wrong on this, the private part indicates the privacy it provides not the destination. In your own recollection, what do you think "Virtual Private Network" stood for? Connecting private networks together, or privacy?
  - _8j50 4y ago
    It's not a question of recollection. Read the acronym carefully. It is virtual and it is a network. Not the destination but the tunnel itself is the network that is private. It was described as such from the start and in no networking context have I ever heard otherwise (correct me if wrong please). Let's say you have an IPSec tunnel between a branch location and HQ site. The typical solution was GRE where you encapsulate it inside another IP packet that has public IPs only for the destination to decapsulate it. When VPNs came along they added privacy hence the name. In networking you are not connecting two networks. You are interconnecting three networks! the branch would have its own subnet so would HQ but the VPN also would have its subnet all routed as separate networks. The tunnel network getting privacy because it traverses untrusted networks (back in the day it wasn't typically the interent but ATM, frame relay,T1,etc... "directly" between sites), that's where term cloud comes from FYI the untrusted magic ISP network in the sky.
    - anyfoo 4y ago
      This might be the most pedantic thread (on my part, too) I was ever part of. :) The earliest reference to VPN I can find in the RFCs, RFC2547, seems to call the "destination" (the network spanned by the tunnel) the VPN, not the tunnel itself: "If all the sites in a VPN are owned by the same enterprise, the VPN is a corporate "intranet". If the various sites in a VPN are owned by different enterprises, the VPN is an "extranet". A site can be in more than one VPN; e.g., in an intranet and several extranets. We regard both intranets and extranets as VPNs." That same RFC has only one mention of encryption at all, in passing, and as being optional (note the "and/or"): A security-conscious VPN user might want to ensure that some or all of the packets which traverse the backbone are authenticated and/or encrypted. It does not seem to me that privacy was implied. I still think that VPNs were invented to connect smaller private networks to a larger private network together, where private != privacy. (But rather related to authorities, such as using "private IP addresses" in e.g. 10.0.0.0/8, instead of publicly routable ones.) Privacy was a (good, likely popular) option, but just not part of the strict definition of what a VPN is (much unlike today).
_8j50 4y ago
Well companies used VPNs that were not site to site, since the first ASAs and probably before then. And even then it isn't like individuals did not VPN in the 90s at all.