PRIVATE ROADS

Road warriors and remote staff often need to access their corporate networks from arbitrary locations. Virtual private networks (VPNs) support private remote access via the Internet. VPN solutions use cryptography to protect Internet traffic from tapping and manipulation. Many VPN tools, however, are hard to set up and require changes to firewalls. SSL-Explorer [1] provides an easy alternative. SSL-Explorer sets up a Webbased VPN and only requires a Javacapable browser as a client (Figure 1). A practical Web tool provides a configuration front-end. SSL_Explorer tunnels TCP-based network protocols such as SMTP, POP, and HTTP across an SSL-protected connection.