Archive for the ‘Remote Access’ Category

Remote Access

Monday, April 28th, 2008

I have been interested in encrypting Internet traffic when acceessing the Internet from open WIFI networks. My investigations identified at least two classes of solutions: remote desktops and virtual private networks (VPN).

Remote Desktops
Although I did not follow through, it looked like a remote desktop server could be located on a home PC. Such a remote desktop could allow connecting to the home remote desktop in a secure fashion. The secure connection to the server would encrypt the traffic that is broadcast over the WIFI.

Logmein provides a service to connect to their Internet services and login to the home PC. This essential extends the desktop to the remote PC in a secure fashion, allowing you to browse the Internet or run any desired application on the home server. Logmein provides several securiy mechanisms – user names and passwords and a challenge code that is text messaged to a cell phone. The paid variation allows a few additional features, particularly easy file transfers, but I use a free Internet disk space to transfer files.

VPN
Windows provides a built-in VPN connection that can be used to encrypt the remote Internet traffi, route it to the home server where it is sent to the Internet via connectin sharing.