At 2:19 PM -0700 9/26/00, Dave Crocker wrote:
>At 07:56 PM 9/26/00 +0100, Lloyd Wood wrote:
>>Beg to differ. Encapsulation makes the VPN virtual.
>>Encryption ensures that the VPN is private.
>>
>>All networks are privately managed, whether virtual or not; referring
>>to that explicitly seems a bit pointless to me...
>
>
>while your explanation is entirely logical and reasonable, it does
>not match the actual history of the term.
The "actual history" is not what is important here; what the "actual
customers" expect is important. We are seeing more an more ISPs
offering VPNs, some using IPsec, some not.
>the term vpn has always been independent use of encryption.
That was true up to about three years ago, but it shifted when IPsec
became widely deployed. VPN-as-frame-relay pretty much fell out of
the public mind. Now some ISPs are trying to resurrect the old
"private management" definition because it is much cheaper for them
than to offer actual privacy.
>historically there was -- and pretty much still is -- a distinction
>between public (open) and private networks. When the network runs
>on top of another network, rather than using its own wires, it is
>called virtual. hence the composed term "virtual private".
This sounds a whole lot closer to Steve Kent's "virtually private".
It makes sense in the old "we own the wires" world, but not in
today's "we care about someone seeing our data" world.
--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium
