INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
We could build houses made of glass
We could live in transparent buildings because we don't do anything wrong and have nothing to hide
Yet most people prefer bricks and mortar
Why Because of the fear that criminals and governments can use knowledge of their daily habits and activities in order to harm them or take
That's why I'm not worried about the future of VPN which plays the role of bricks and mortar in the online world.The Internet has not been
built with confidentiality in mind so people use VPN to wrap their online activity into an opaque box and this need is so fundamental that
But the world is not perfect and we strive for another ideal: transparency for the powerful and privacy for the weak
Sadly the reality looks different: the powerful have means to keep their secrets while the weak are exposed.In such light VPN is a simple
and accessible tool for the weak that allows reduce that imbalance
What may threaten the future of VPN Let's examine the alternatives.Alternatives to VPNsThere are plenty of trusted open source projects
and noble efforts that allow people to protect their communication
They come with their own problems: they only protect only specific activities like sending emails, have serious usability problems and since
they work at application level they inevitably leak tons of metadata.The second group works on the network level
The closest in functionality to VPN are TOR and I2P which are volunteer based overlay networks with multiple hops between nodes
These are true mesh networks with end to end encryption that try to rebuild the Internet from scratch.They are still in their infancy and
are fraught with hard technical problems but they are definitely doable and we encourage researchers looking for an interesting and
can play supportive role in securing your data.
