Sample Question:

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JSR Notes:

JSR point: network pictures or videos reminder.

This assessment statement is for sure, at least about the implications of using a VPN, as seen by the Teaching Note, so:

Businesses/organizations

Benefits:

• Security
  • The main overall benefit is added security. Whether at home or when traveling, an employee needs to know that the data they are sending and receiving is secure.
    • (Hackers tend to prey on unsuspecting people in coffee shops, hotels and airports, but a VPN provides the security to stop them.)
  • And at a corporate scale, it helps prevent industrial espionage.
• Remote work
  • Secure remote accessibility allows people to work at home, or on the way to work etc. The pandemic of 2020, along with Zoom and security technologies such as VPNs have totally changed the way the world works.
• Cost savings
  • Cost savings on IT equipment. Less expensive than building a physical WAN.
  • Cost savings on office space needed, if people are working significant amounts at home.

Issues:

• Distractions
  • if working at home or some place other than the office, many other distractions while trying to work, so possible overall decreased efficiency.
• Less person-to-person contact, and so
  • more inefficient since group work is less rich
  • & Interpersonal problems are harder to resolve.

 

Individuals

Benefits:

• After the birth of a child, the stay-at-home mom or dad can transition back to work from home.
• Allows for a much more healthy work environment, in which, at home, a person can go out for fresh air and a walk etc. very easily.
• On-line commerce can now occur without people worrying about theft of credit card information etc.

  

Issues:

• People can become much more anti-social, since they no longer have to work at the office etc.
• The potential illegal uses of VPNs in which people can attempt to hide what they are doing.
• People can do more easily things which they later regret, or which are against their morals, through the temptations that the inherent privacy of VPNs can provide.

 

 

 

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Note that this assessment statement can actually be taken two ways. From the Teaching Note, it seems to be more geared toward a general assessment of the changes in work patterns. But from the assessment statement itself it could be interpreted as evaluating ***a particular*** VPN, such as:

• Express VPN vs. PureVPN
• or Express VPN/PureVPN etc. vs. a full corporate VPN suite, complete with PPTP server

For these comparisons, you could the following criteria:

	Product X For example Logmein.com	Product Y For example HideMyAss.com
Security (Trusted vs. Secure)	"Secure", not just "Trusted	Only "trusted"
Price (and or cost/benefit)	A little more expensive	Cheaper
Ease of use	Not quite as easy to use	Easier to use
Speed of connection & data upload/download speeds	same: good	same: good
Compatibility with current systems/computers (Mac/PC for example)	same: good compatibility	same: good compatibility
Scalability (how easily can it be expanded or used to a greater extent?)	same: not scalable	same: not scalable

 

Note that for your Mac computer, the Opera browser has some great privacy features, including a built-in VPN:

My own evaluation of using the Opera VPN would go something like this:

• I feel more secure using it.
• You can't beat the price! Opera is free.
• It is certainly easy to use - you just enable it in the Preferences.
• And, I do like where it indicates it is on or off, with a quite noticeable red/blue/green rectangle just to the left of the URL.
• For sure connections are slower when on than when it is off.
• It does not work at school, behind the school's firewall, so this is frustrating, and it means turning it on and off, and sometimes I will go home and forget to turn it back on.

 

Why to use and how to choose a VPN

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VPN Summary 

- VPNs secure your computer's Internet connection to guarantee that all of the data you're sending and receiving is encrypted and secured from prying eyes.

- And this allows secure remote work.