VPNs and Chaining
Layered anonymity.
What a VPN Does
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) creates an encrypted tunnel between your device and a VPN server. Your traffic exits to the internet from the VPN server's IP, hiding your real IP from destinations.
Everything between you and the VPN server is encrypted, protecting against your local network and ISP from seeing your traffic content.
VPN vs Proxy vs Tor
These tools overlap but differ:
- Proxy: forwards specific app traffic, often no encryption.
- VPN: encrypts all device traffic to one server you must trust.
- Tor: multi-hop anonymity through volunteer relays, slower.
A VPN trades trust in many relays (Tor) for trust in one provider.
All lessons in this course
- Tor and Proxies
- VPNs and Chaining
- MAC and Identity
- OPSEC Mistakes