VPN Tunneling: An Untraceable Firewall

What is a VPN tunnel?

A VPN tunnel is a secured link between your device (computer/mobile phone) and an outside network. A virtual private network tunnel (VPN tunnel) can be used to conceal your online activities.

A VPN tunnel connects your phones, laptops or computers to different networks where your original IP address is hidden. So when you’re surfing the web, you will be anonymous and data will be encrypted.

By using a VPN tunnel when connecting to websites, you keep your data safe from hackers, governments and other snoopers from tracking your activities and viewing your IP address.

Why is IP address so important?

Just like your actual address, the IP address identifies your location when you’re online, your ISP, local time and much more.

How does tunneling work?

Before getting into VPN tunneling, you will need to sign up for a VPN service. After setting up your VPN, you can continue surfing the web. So what’s the difference?

Now instead of you directly accessing other websites using your IP address, you will use the VPN providers IP address. These connections are encrypted meaning that all data transfers are secured. Your internet service provider (ISP) will no longer see your IP address, instead they’ll see your VPN providers IP, helping to protect your privacy.

 Visiting sites, clicking on links or downloading files from sites will no longer be tracked back to you. The VPN provider builds a tunnel around your online activity providing a protective coating between you and everyone else.

 

While hiding your IP address, VPN providers also encrypt all the data. If a third party intercepts your data they will not be able to make sense of it because it’s encrypted and they will not be able to decipher it.

The combination of hiding your IP address and encrypting the data will keep your online activities anonymous and secured. Hackers, businesses, governments will no longer be able to track your online activity, files your download or videos you stream.

What is split tunneling?

While a VPN provides full anonymity and security, sometimes you will need to access the local websites. Split tunneling enables you to route some of your online activities through a VPN tunnel while accessing others through your ISP.

Not everything we do needs to pass through a VPN. For example you want to carry out online banking activities while using a VPN. Accessing the bank via a different location (due to the change of IP address) could be flagged as suspicious activity.

Split tunneling lets you gain access to web services which you want to use a VPN or to use the local ISP. Split tunneling will conserve bandwidth as the complete internet traffic doesn’t have to pass through the VPN servers.

VPN Tunneling Protocols

For the VPN tunnel to come into effect, it needs to follow some protocols. That being said, not all VPN tunnels are equally effective as it depends on the protocol being used.

Note that, not all VPN protocols are strong enough to provide the security and anonymity needed. Each protocol has its own pros and cons. There are five popular VPN tunneling protocols in use today. Here’s a comparison.

	Speed	Set-up	Security	Media Streaming	Compatibility
OpenVPN	Slow	Tricky	Good	Slow	Most platforms
IKEv2/IPsec	Very Fast	Easy	Good	Fast	Limited
SSTP	Fast	Easy	Good	Average	Windows
L2TP/IPsec	Very Fast	Easy	Average	Fast	Most platforms
PPTP	Very fast	Very Easy	Not secure	Fast	Most platforms

 

If you want to learn more in-depth about the VPN protocols, have a read.

Final Notes

A VPN relies on the concept of tunneling to protect your privacy. The degree of protection, speed and ability to bypass blocks and restriction depends on your choice of protocol. In order to make use of VPN tunneling is to actually use the service.

A VPN won’t be able to keep you anonymous and encrypt your data unless you connect to your VPN before accessing the internet. Don’t forget to also use the VPN when accessing through your phone. It won’t help if you keep your laptop secured by the VPN and surf the internet through the smartphone while chilling at your couch.