1. (c) David Strom Inc. 20021 VPNs and Telecommuters David Strom (david@strom.com)david@strom.com Connected Home 5/02

2. (c) David Strom Inc. 20022 My background Author of “Home Networking Survival Guide” book from Osborne/McGraw Hill Senior Technology Editor, VAR Business Founding Editor-in-Chief, Network Computing Tested numerous networking and security products

3. (c) David Strom Inc. 20023 Why bother with VPNs? Small business branch office Encrypted communications between business partners Remote network access

4. (c) David Strom Inc. 20024 Pre-VPN choices Email and attach documents FTP files back and forth to a common site Use PGP or other email encryption tools Security by obscurity (why would anyone hack my network?) Expensive, dedicated frame relay networks

5. (c) David Strom Inc. 20025 Role of integrators with VPNs Help with their rollout and configuration Help with remote support and troubleshooting Recommend equipment and configuration Include as part of overall telecommuting application

6. (c) David Strom Inc. 20026 Issue #1: Ease of use VPNs still vexing Matched pair problem Hardware or software choices not always obvious

7. (c) David Strom Inc. 20027 Issue #2: Cable providers don’t like home networks Getting static IPs can be a problem Changing MAC addresses is an issue Administering and supporting a home network is sometimes beyond their abilities or interest … Yet all cable modems come with Ethernet!

8. (c) David Strom Inc. 20028 Issue #3: Providers hate VPNs Well, maybe they are more ignorant than hate them Some don’t include VPNs in their TOS Some do everything they can to discourage their use (frequent IP changes, for example)

9. (c) David Strom Inc. 20029 Issue #4: Remote support Coordinating a VPN roll out for telecommuters can swamp a small tech support department Variations in Windows OS, and non- Windows PCs can be difficult! What if users require more than one tunnel?

10. (c) David Strom Inc. 200210 Overall market trends VPN hardware is getting cheaper (Linksys and CheckPoint are two notable examples) Getting cost competitive with a dedicated frame relay network now Better integration with OS (started with Win2k) IPsec interoperability getting better (if you know how to configure things) Web-based service provider networks coming into vogue

11. (c) David Strom Inc. 200211

12. (c) David Strom Inc. 200212 State of VPNs Software now comes included in residential gateways like Sonic and Netgear Still too hard for the average consumer, and the average business computer user But wider support is inevitable Costs too much and requires some careful justification VPN.net: A new way of establishing VPNs