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I've simplified the beginning as a start to your marathon editing here. I think the following sections (the technical sections) need a lot of work and it's a bit beyond me. It's far too techie. Much of it seems to be written either by a Cisco employee or someone who's swallowed the Cisco bible. I hope I've helped and haven't made things worse but I do think a simple plain English start will help. If I've oversimplified I apologise but you shouldn't need a Phd to understand this and we also need to know about how we got here and how the market is developing (not just the nitty gritty tech). I also think that having China called out for anti VPN stance looks really biased - need to give a rounder picture of regimes that object to VPN use...SandrinaHatman (talk) 19:12, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Your edit to the opening of the article, in my opinion, paints an incorrect picture of what a VPN is. A VPN is *private* because it encapsulates *private network* traffic, not because it is inherently private. As such it is my intention to rewrite (at least) the opening of the article to better reflect the actual and intended purpose of the technology. As the intro currently stands, it provides a vague description of the technology that lends credence to the unfortunate misuse of the term in marketing circles. This is dangerous, misleading, and it should be considered wikipedia's responsibility to better inform readers. HighPriestDuncan (talk) 20:13, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies if my first reply seemed cranky. On one hand it is important to have a generally understandable opening; however, on the other hand one must consider that it is simply impossible to easily describe networking technology without relying on existing terms and concepts. I've re-written the introduction to more precisely describe (in technical terms) what a VPN actually does, and have included a small bit that I may expand about the common (incorrect) use of the term. While I recognize that we must accomodate individuals trying to determine what a "VPN" is (when they really want Proxy server, or maybe Anonymous proxy), it is important to recognize that everyone uses wikipedia - technical and non-technical. I think that a good compromise would be to include an accessible description of the term use and its nature, while retaining the technical nature of the article - after all, we cannot simply ignore the actual technology. Having read over many of the discussions on this page (which really ought to be archived) it is my belief that many people come here under the wrong pretense. Having been exposed to material promoting "VPN" services, they intend to do more research to determine if that thing is relevant and useful to them. Unfortunately, because many rather disgusting organizations have executed a most succesful campaign to hijack the term, they are instead presented with an article detailing a complicated technological concept using appropriately technical terms. With that having been said, I do not believe that WP:COMMONTITLE warrants that this article become a description of such dubious services, but that it remains an article strictly about the technology itself, touching on such services where relevant. HighPriestDuncan (talk) 00:04, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this badly needs major improvement. I couldn't understand "it encapsulates *private network* traffic" nor "tunneling protocols over existing networks". And I gave up altogether on reaching "Typically, individuals interact with remote access VPNs". Deipnosophista (talk) 11:20, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly as HighPriestDuncan said, I came to the article to help decide if I should subscribe to a VPN. I am an educated (MS degree) writer, but I don't understand the jargon-filled article at all. Mr.Slade (talk) 22:23, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The article seems to be written for those with sufficient knowledge not to need the article in the first place. Mr.Slade (talk) 22:42, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Many of our technical articles have this problem. I have tagged the article for improvement. ~Kvng (talk) 12:56, 24 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We need a section on the origins and history of VPNs including when it became available for consumer/home use. Plus we need to know the limitations. The wiki page is not only incomplete but too technical. In its present form it's geared mostly toward computer scientists and IT Professionals 2604:3D08:4E7C:CC00:6DBB:478A:B422:58CC (talk) 08:13, 24 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of details, but nowhere in sight a description of how packets are actually routed in/between networks. 77.119.206.161 (talk) 17:23, 1 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The self-congratulatory article also fails to explain how “VPNs” that are installed only on the user’s machine can possibly provide site-to-site encryption. There has to be software on both ends. If the “answer” is that you connect through some remote “relay server” that has a matching client preinstalled, then that’s pointless, as your data exists in clear text at a point OTHER THAN your machine and the intended fecipient’s. Alas, yet another junior guru posts a buzzword-filled article that glosses over and/or altogether omits critical points, thereby demonstrating only the superficiality of his understanding. 2601:14B:4181:BF30:B58C:A6E9:E32D:DAE5 (talk) 20:55, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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