Analogy: VPNs Securely Connect IsLANds

Your network (LAN) is an island of sanity, order, and user services in an unpredictable ocean known as the Internet. You know thousands of other islands exist within this ocean; when you want to travel from island to island, you would hop on a ferry and travel to the next island that just also happens to be that website or the latest smartphone you had your eye on.

Now, you are on this ferry (using TCP/IP) traveling over the ocean (Internet) to reach something on an island (LAN) that is going to provide you with some sort of service (website). This makes perfect sense, right? Now, how many other people do you see on that ferry—perhaps a few, or perhaps many thousands? The potential problem is that you have ...

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