[colug-432] VPN types

[Rick Hornsby]

There are multiple VPN types out there - PPTP, L2TP, SSTP, OpenVPN (and subtypes UDP, TCP, "Proxy", and IPSec).  I have an L2TP VPN server at home here in Kansas City, which I when I'm not at home.  While I'm at work, however, I still use a VPN on my personal laptop that's connected to the (employee permitted) wifi.  For that, a StrongVPN location in Chicago works out better and is faster.

I'm using a VPN because the only WiFi I trust is my wifi at home.  Everything else I treat as potentially hostile.  Secondly, my personal traffic is none of my employer's (or really, the network people's) business.

>From what I've read:

* Stop using PPTP, it is based on very old Windows-era stuff that's weak and cryptographically broken
* OpenVPN is the new hotness, and uses some kind of SSL tunneling.  I don't understand the subtypes or why one subtype is better than the other.

One of the downsides with OpenVPN is that it requires the StrongVPN client.  There's no native support for OpenVPN in OS X.

Otherwise, I don't really understand the different types or subtypes or why I would choose one over the other?