[Durham] October meeting: anyone know anything about VPN?

[Dougie Nisbet]

At last month's (September) meeting someone, and I apologise for 
forgetting your name, (Ian?) was telling me about using VPN to access 
his home network. I've always steered clear of VPN because:

    - I have no idea what it is
    - I have no idea how it works
    - I can't see what use it is to me
    - it involves security and stuff

With the advances in mobile internet and broadband dongles and what have 
you I think I may try and find out a bit more. I'm motivated by having a 
couple of webcams at home that I'd like to keep an eye on. In the past 
I've written some unruly scripts for album 
(http://marginalhacks.com/Hacks/album/) and uploaded bits to some 
webpages. Why bother if I can just phone home? Like I say, I've always 
run away in the past as I think I'd need to change some settings on my 
router to allow certain incoming traffic. It should be apparent that I 
only have the vaguest idea of what I'm talking about here, but if anyone 
fancies giving me a piece of their mind on the subject tomorrow night I 
shall be all ears and beerfully grateful. If there's anything I could 
install (Ubuntu 9.04) on my laptop let me know and I'll do it before the 
meeting. Or to change on my router, an elderly Zyxel Prestige.

Talking of which; Richard - I upgraded the memory in the laptop to 2GB 
and took out the original 512MB piece that was in there. It's no use to 
me. I'll bring it along tomorrow in case it's any use to you, otherwise 
free to anyone else who wants it. (from a Tosh Equium A80-132).

cheers

Dougie