Concepts / Encryption and trust

Encryption and trust

VPN

Also called virtual private network, tunnel, WireGuard, split tunnel, full tunnel

Packets wrapped, encrypted, in UDP to a VPN server, which unwraps them on the far side.

A split tunnel carries only some networks (the office); a full tunnel carries everything, except the tunnel's own packets to the server. The local network sees only encrypted UDP to one address: it still learns that you use a VPN, when and how much. A full tunnel should fail closed, and carry DNS too.

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