What equipment do I need ? How do I do it ?

APK1 wrote:
> I'vetried that but can't seem to find anyone that knows about it! It
> is a large company, and getting through the layers seems almost
> impossible. As a test I can plug in and use, internet is fine but
> can't use e-mail, do I need to change my settings somewhere ?
>
> Tony

There should be a policy statement somewhere or else your company is
open to all types of abuse of service by their employees. You may have
access to the internet but is it via your companies own firewall, if so
everything you look at (& download) could/will be logged & quite
possibly used against the user at some later date....

APK1 wrote:
> Thanks guys for some very comprehensive replies, I think I now know what i'm
> looking for. Kraftee your comment about private usage rings alarm bells, as
> we connect through a VPN icon for evrything except internet explorer, does
> this mean it is in some way locked?

I'm not an expert on VPN, but as I understand it if you're using a VPN
then for most purposes it's as if your computer was plugged in in a
machine room at the office. Any company policies about what Web sites
you can look at and what other services like Usenet or native
(non-hotmail) email you can use will then apply, whether through "paper"
rules or technical restrictions. Whether this is a problem for you
depends on the company.

Pete

On Thu, 29 Dec 2005, Pete Verdon wrote:

> I'm not an expert on VPN, but as I understand it if you're using a
> VPN then for most purposes it's as if your computer was plugged in
> in a machine room at the office. Any company policies about what Web
> sites you can look at and what other services like Usenet or native
> (non-hotmail) email you can use will then apply, whether through
> "paper" rules or technical restrictions. Whether this is a problem
> for you depends on the company.

When using VPN, you have, logically, two different network interfaces:
your native ISP interface with its ISP-provided IP address, and your
VPN tunnel with its VPN-provided IP address.

Potentially, this could be a security compromise: steps have to be
taken to prevent traffic from the hostile Internet from being routed
into the VPN tunnel and thus into the company's network, thus
bypassing the corporate firewall.

It may be that some VPNs enforce this by disabiling native access to
the ISP's network. From what I've heard of our own campus VPN (I
don't use it myself), it doesn't go that far, although it does take
certain precautions to avoid the VPN client leaking in such a way.
Additionally, it won't enable the VPN unless the antivirus
installation checks-out as working and up to date.

AFAIK, users who have enabled this VPN are still free to browse the
rest of the web, for example, directly via their ISP. Only the
traffic that is specifically destined to/from the VPN goes by that
particular route. But, as I say, other VPNs might apply different
rules.

h t h