wire Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 After seeing how easy it is to get useful information out of wifi packet sniffing each week on Hak5, I'm now using a VPN whenever I'm using public wifi. I run one at home, sure, but with ADSL the connection is little better than dialup. My other option would be to use a VPN that my university provides. I already use it a lot to access servers on campus that are not available from off-campus IP addresses, but it also provides a connection to the internet. So here's the question: is it ethical to route *all* my traffic through a corporate or educational VPN? Is that preferred by institutions with the hope of preventing sniffing of their secrets sent over the internet? Or is it a bad idea that will slow down everyone else's access? I can't see the college encouraging every student in a coffee shop to give this a try, somehow. But what do you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
decepticon_eazy_e Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 After seeing how easy it is to get useful information out of wifi packet sniffing each week on Hak5, I'm now using a VPN whenever I'm using public wifi. I run one at home, sure, but with ADSL the connection is little better than dialup. My other option would be to use a VPN that my university provides. I already use it a lot to access servers on campus that are not available from off-campus IP addresses, but it also provides a connection to the internet. So here's the question: is it ethical to route *all* my traffic through a corporate or educational VPN? Is that preferred by institutions with the hope of preventing sniffing of their secrets sent over the internet? Or is it a bad idea that will slow down everyone else's access? I can't see the college encouraging every student in a coffee shop to give this a try, somehow. But what do you think? The VPN configuration will define if that is even possible. If they configured it to do so, then (I feel) they are giving you their blessing. If it's configured for "split-tunnel", they won't allow all your traffic inbound. They will only allow traffic bound for their internal network. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barry99705 Posted June 21, 2009 Share Posted June 21, 2009 The VPN configuration will define if that is even possible. If they configured it to do so, then (I feel) they are giving you their blessing. If it's configured for "split-tunnel", they won't allow all your traffic inbound. They will only allow traffic bound for their internal network. If the sysadmin is worth a damn that's how it's configured. I would be pissed if I found some dumb ass was passing all his off campus internet traffic through the vpn. Think about it. You're doubling the bandwidth you're using. All your outbound traffic becomes inbound traffic on the vpn, then outbound traffic on the internet connection, it reverses on the way back to you. I bind all traffic on my home vpn, it's a 6Mb adsl connection. Works just fine. I wouldn't game over it, but email and surfing works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mshenoy Posted June 22, 2009 Share Posted June 22, 2009 If the sysadmin is worth a damn that's how it's configured. I would be pissed if I found some dumb ass was passing all his off campus internet traffic through the vpn. Think about it. You're doubling the bandwidth you're using. All your outbound traffic becomes inbound traffic on the vpn, then outbound traffic on the internet connection, it reverses on the way back to you. I bind all traffic on my home vpn, it's a 6Mb adsl connection. Works just fine. I wouldn't game over it, but email and surfing works. Well my school VPN allows such access. I often log in when I am online via some unsecure access point and I use VPN to secure my connection jus like "wire" said.... So I donno if that is wrong... but I am keen how can the system admin make the network differentiate between the types of traffic ? jus curious Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barry99705 Posted June 22, 2009 Share Posted June 22, 2009 Well my school VPN allows such access. I often log in when I am online via some unsecure access point and I use VPN to secure my connection jus like "wire" said.... So I donno if that is wrong... but I am keen how can the system admin make the network differentiate between the types of traffic ? jus curious A split system will tell your machine to pass internal network traffic through the vpn. It's not that hard really, just a little bit of dns look up. Basically if you are connecting to say SchoolFileServer, it's ip would be in the private range, 10.whatever, 192.168.whatever, 172.16.whatever to 172.31.whatever goes through the vpn. Everything else bypasses the vpn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beakmyn Posted June 22, 2009 Share Posted June 22, 2009 A split system will tell your machine to pass internal network traffic through the vpn. It's not that hard really, just a little bit of dns look up. Basically if you are connecting to say SchoolFileServer, it's ip would be in the private range, 10.whatever, 192.168.whatever, 172.16.whatever to 172.31.whatever goes through the vpn. Everything else bypasses the vpn. My work has a split tunnel. All corporate traffic goes through the VPN. All internet traffic doesn't. Which is opposite of the VPN I have at home. I route alll traffic through my VPN. That means I bypass any and all restrictions set by the ISP I'm using at the remote location and all my traffic is encrypted. It can be be helpful at times, especially if you're in a country that is not so friendly with regards to Intellectual Property and such. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barry99705 Posted June 22, 2009 Share Posted June 22, 2009 My work has a split tunnel. All corporate traffic goes through the VPN. All internet traffic doesn't. Which is opposite of the VPN I have at home. I route alll traffic through my VPN. That means I bypass any and all restrictions set by the ISP I'm using at the remote location and all my traffic is encrypted. It can be be helpful at times, especially if you're in a country that is not so friendly with regards to Intellectual Property and such. Damn commies! ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beakmyn Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Damn commies! ;) You should see how fast they can get across 5 lanes of traffic after you've taken a forbidden picture. It had to be <i>deleted</i> off the camera. Remind me to show it to you some time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barry99705 Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 You should see how fast they can get across 5 lanes of traffic after you've taken a forbidden picture. It had to be <i>deleted</i> off the camera. Remind me to show it to you some time. You did. Remind me to never take a bus over there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.