[OpenWireless Tech] On VPNs

["Andy Green (林安廸)"]

On 07/28/2011 09:23 PM, Somebody in the thread at some point said:

>> against malicious APs.  If APs wish to transmit nothing but VPN traffic, it
>> could also protect the APs against clients that do questionable things with
>> the network.
>
> Have you run this statement past a lawyer, or are you one? I don't

That's just FUD.

> Who is going to host these VPNs? Will they offer them for free? How
> will they afford to provide the service? How will they provide
> security at the termination point? How will they provide technical
> support? How will they deal with the liability that may then be
> shifted to them?

Well this will be the third or fourth time I proposed that home routers 
provide VPN service on the WAN side literally "for free" since it's part 
of the router firmware then, and in a massively distributed way since it 
would just be another router firmware feature.  So, the user connects to 
his own home router as VPN server.

> And that's only once you've gotten past the technical hurdles.
>
> Bottom line, VPN just isn't a good solution for the problem. You need
> to add security at a lower layer.

Waving your hands around is not argumentation.

VPNs work securely today on unencrypted WLANs in Starbucks or whatever, 
without operating at "a lower layer": if you believe that is not true 
please go ahead and explain why.

-Andy