Subject: Re: VPN definition (Re: can vpn's extended to mobility)

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 09:06:11 -0600

At 02:13 AM 9/29/00 +0200, Harald Alvestrand wrote:
>At 09:42 26/09/2000 -0700, Paul Hoffman / VPNC wrote:
>>At 4:09 AM +0200 9/24/00, Fred Baker wrote:
>>>A VPN is, by my definition, any case where one overlays the global 
>>>Internet with another private Internet using tunneling. Tunneling 
>>>procedures today include MPLS, IPSEC, IP/IP, GRE/IP, and probably 
>>>several others.
>>
>>Others might have a very different definition of VPN. The "P" in "VPN" 
>>stands for "privacy", which requires encryption. Without a lower layer of 
>>encryption, it is trivial for someone to snoop on your MPLS or IP/IP or 
>>GRE/IP tunnel.

I think you'll find it stands for "private", which means about anything you 
want it to mean. If that implies encryption to you, then you want IPSEC 
either in the tunnel or as the tunnel. I think you will find, though, that 
people compare VPNs to frame relay or ATM networks, or leased lines, but 
running over an IP infrastructure. In that case, whats private about them 
is the addressing architecture (you can use 10.0.0.0/8 address space within 
a VPN) and that sort of thing.