Setting up an encrypted connection.. for use at hotspots and such..

[XA04]

How would I go about this?

I'm thinking, something on my laptop, which when using a hotspot, all the data sent across the network is encrypted and sent to a computer on my home network, and then use the internet connection at home to do what I need.

Is this possible? - Setting up some sort of VPN server looks like the solution at the moment, but I don't know if it's going to do what I'm looking for.


I suppose, I could just set up an encrypted connection between my laptop and a computer at home and control the home computer using VNC and just do it that way... but I'd rather do it directly on the lappy.


Cheers!

[mrbanana]

If you just want to work on your home pc while away from home tightvnc will be fine.

If you want to vpn to home (to access your shared folders, or go out over your home connection) you can get a cheap router like a linksys wrt54gl, install dd-wrt and setup pptp. It's very easy.

If you only want to encrypt data so no one at the hotspot can hack you then just use a vpn service like anonybrowser (openvpn) or hotspotvpn. Your traffic will be encrypted from your pc to their servers and then it'll go out over the internet.

[pak000]

if you are just wanting to surf the web and check emails, then you could ssh in to your home box and use tunnels.

for websurfing just set up a dynamic tunnel and configure it as a socks proxy in your browser

[XA04]

Rightio, will look into those later.

Thanks guys.

[chrestomanci]

if you are just wanting to surf the web and check emails, then you could ssh in to your home box and use tunnels.

for websurfing just set up a dynamic tunnel and configure it as a socks proxy in your browser

If XA04 has a linux or unix box handy, I would agree that will be the best method. I use tunnels all the time and they work well. Now that Cygwin has a decent X server, I often run GUI linux apps remotely on my windows laptop (via my W-LAN) and it works a treat.

Snag is, most people don't have a linux box handy.

[luke284]

the way i would do it is to set up a VPN to my home router (I have a Billion 7404VGO) and set the defult gateway be my router at home. this way i can also access network shares on my home PC and use RDP to control any PC within my home network via RDP.

of course you would need something that you can VPN into.