Mac Forum / General / Networking / January 2005

VPN = Virtual Private Network

This is a way to connect two separate networks, or a machine and a
remote network, together via a secure communications channel over the
Internet.  If your company has a firewall, you could be able to use a
VPN to allow your Macs to access the company network through the
firewall if it has VPNs configured.

VPN - Virtual Private Network - Sometimes called a "Tunnel".  A VPN
connection is an encrypted connection between 2 systems and everything
sent via the encrypted connection over the public internet is secure
from snooping (excluding sufficiently motivated governments :-)

VPNs can be setup in software on your Mac, via "Internet Connect", and
can do PPTP or IPSec VPN connections.

It is also possible to establish VPN connections between 2 routers.  For
example, companies that have remote offices that they want to allow the
employees to appear as if they are on the companies internal network,
but actually use the public internet to connect them.  They can setup a
pair of VPN capable routers that establish an encrypted connection
between the 2 locations and now the 2 offices can appear to be on the
same internal company network.

Many companies require employees connecting to work from home or when
traveling on business to use a VPN connection.  Frequently this is done
via software on the employee's PC or Mac, but depending on the type of
VPN protocol being used, sometimes it is possible for an employee to use
a VPN enabled home router to establish the secure VPN tunnel.

From what you are saying, it does not sound as if you need a VPN capable
router.  And if you think that maybe in the future you will need to use
VPN, that does not mean the company you are attempting to establish a
VPN connection to, will use the exact same protocol that your VPN router
supports.

So if getting a VPN capable router will add cost, then do not pay for
it.  If the most cost effective router for your home also happens to
have a VPN capability, you can always just ignore that feature and use
the router for the things you really need.

                                       Bob Harris