The internet has done many things to provide new communication possibilities for people across the nation and across the world. But the internet itself inherently does little in regard to protecting the privacy of people and businesses that need to share information. VPN’s or Virtual Private Networks are using existing infrastructures such as the internet to address issues dealing with centralized data compiling and sharing from a remote access point. This private method of sharing and accessing information is precisely what VPNs were designed to do. They are most used by businesses to allow other offices or other computers to share information with a central office or location. This network of computers allows their employees to work from different locations and access the central database from laptops or other devices off-site. Most networks require some sort of authentication before they allow access to any information on the network. Prior to the internet, computers connected to a network of other machines required extensive and costly use telecommunications lines that were typically on lease to cover broad areas.

The leased lines or dial-up connections from the earliest models of networks did not provide efficient service. Virtual Private Networks, or those existing using the virtual space afforded us through the internet, were able to do away with physically leased lines that had been used to connect individual users and offices. The early form of a physical network is described as an Intranet, short for the term “internal network.” The spin off from this terminology gives us the now universal term, “internet” for the virtual network space that we all spend so much time in now. Users are still able to achieve the same ends as those possible through an intranet system and with relatively the same amount of security. The security mechanisms in place are widely varied and constantly being updated and changed. VPNs can be classified in several different ways depending on characteristics such as the level of security, the protocols in use to direct traffic, or whether the network uses site-to-site or remote access only connectivity.