It seems like every day there’s at least one post by someone who wants to use a VPN to work somewhere their company doesn’t allow. Be it another city, state or even country.
As a systems administrator, I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen get terminated over the years, with a few even facing legal action due to breaches in consumer privacy laws. That’s not even from me having strict network monitoring and security either, even the most basic network management software has VPN detection built in and most are adapting the same datacenter IP blocklists that Cloudflare protected websites use.
I can’t be the only one tired of seeing these posts every day asking the same question over and over again. Some have no idea what they’re doing but they heard “VPN” is the key to the internet. Others have a pretty good understanding of how networks work and how the VPN can work, but aren’t sure how to get up and running.
Even with a completely bulletproof setup, there’s still methods of finding out where you really are and its only a matter of time until your company finds out.
tl;dr We need a sticky or rule about remote work and VPN’s. Unless you don’t care about losing your job, it’s not worth it. With remote work becoming a standard and more accepted, more and more corporate network management tools are evolving to detect if you’re using a VPN or not. You might be able to pull it off for a day, a week, or even a year, but they will find out you’re using a VPN. Best case you get warned and told you need to relocate. Worst case you get terminated on the spot or even face legal action.
tl;dr We need a sticky or rule about remote work and VPN’s
Agreed. And while at it, can we do the same for “getting around” parental controls or any other form of using VPN to circumvent laws/rules/regulations?
Agreed.
Yes, it’s possible to pull it off, but the odds are against you.
No, you can’t have the setup explained to you like a 5 year old.
No, you can’t do it by yourself.
Yes, it’s an insult to those of us with $45K in student loans when brokies ask for an advanced custom setup to be handed to them for free with DM support.
Yes, even with professional assistance, the landscape is evolving, deep packet inspection techniques are becoming more widespread, and you can still get caught.
Yes, we are all sick of seeing these posts every damn day.
People are well aware they can lose their job. If they want to risk it, i’m all for it.
hi
what if my “remote work” is hosting a vpn server at home on my router and VPN+rdp to the work laptop that’s at home, from my personal laptop that actually has battery life.
hows that?
and
if all im remote from is another part of the same city. like, somewhere scenic vs my home.
I just ignore them now and let them figure it out on their own instead of encouraging their lazy asses who can’t even Google search… If you got time to make a thread on reddit you got time to read results on Google or ask an AI chat bot. People are so helpless and get upset when you try to teach them to fish instead of always coming and asking to be spoon fed food.
None of our business if they are fired.
If they ask for VPN questions, I will help them to the best of my knowledge.
By asking about VPN, they agreed to the risks using VPN.
Hi! What if the issue isn’t with the company but the country blocking VPNs. For example Egypt is blocking openVPN but I need to use openVPN.
Dear @OP. Why not solve this issue and make money. You think you know? Pack it and sell it. We will buy it. 3 questions a day? Hm… that’s a lot of money 
This is Reddit. People come here to talk about whatever they want to. If you don’t like it, tough.
Do you think you can tell if they had something like this instead of a VPN?
It allows remote access from outside the computer you are accessing.
I’m sure there are scenarios where this won’t work (PC has a hardware failure and you have to travel back to fix it) or internet is down but something might help like a ezOutlet5 resetting network equipment when a connection is lost and a Kasa Smart Plug Power Strip to Power Cycle a computer that is set to turn on when power is restored.
Only thing I can think of is if the “monitor” details windows reports might give it away.
Getting the same vpn questions all the time is annoying but much more annoying are those people who keep writing the same comments “they will find out” “you will lose your job!” “It’s not allowed” - first of all it’s not a fact they will lose their job, it’s just a risk that those people clearly are willing to take. Besides they probably know best the individual risks in regard to their specific company. Second the legal consequences just aren’t part of the question. Just answer the question if you want to. And if you don’t, just scroll on.
Disclaimer I wrote this exactly for this purpose. So nobody has to exhaust themselves anymore. Feel free to add it to the Wiki
This. It’s the same 3 questions being asked every day
You’re assuming your work will allow you to RDP to their computer. And even if it is something they haven’t specifically blocked, they’ll have metrics showing port 3389 is active whenever you work. Eventually, someone will disable RDP or that port in general.
On top of that, the IP of your personal computer will show up in the RDP connection history and will have a latency much greater than it would if it were on the same local network, which means you’re actually using it from another location but using a VPN to connect back to your home network.
I need to get better at this. It just sucks trying to be part of this community and contribute actual insightful input to all things VPN, but every time I jump on there’s the same damn questions every single day. Its bad enough people are trying to potentially break policy or law, and that they don’t know what they’re doing, but they also can’t just search and see that its been asked and answered literally thousands of times on this sub.
These are all brokies who aren’t willing to pay for two customized routers, two high speed ISP accounts, and labor. I’ve asked them all.
They just want me to “explain it like I’m a 5 year old” for free.
Because in order to design and sell a solution you need a universal product. You’re assuming that every corporate network, device, user location, user home network setup, user computer, user router, etc, etc. Is all identical and that all company network monitoring software and policies are the same. On top of that, I don’t want to be responsible for telling people how to do something that may be against company policy or even law.
Something that may work for you won’t work at all for someone else. Or something that will work for you now may not work next week when your company changes the way their network operates.
This works by generating a local hotspot to connect the viewing app. It doesn’t work out of network as a cloud service.
Any updates to your guide?
