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In what way am I the product when using CloudFlare's free tier? (lemmy.world)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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[–] 1 point 10 months ago* (3 children)

Fundamentally, a host-to-host VPN is still a VPN. It creates an encapsulated L2/L3 link between two points over another network. The number of hosts on either end doesn't change that. Each end still has its own own interface address, subnet, etcetera. You could use the exact same VPN config for both a host-to-host and host-to-site VPN simply by making one of the hosts a router.

I see your point about advocating for other methods where appropriate (although personally I prefer VPNs) but I think that gatekeeping the word "VPN" is silly.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (2 children)

    If you have one of those cars that can be used as a boat. And you only ever use it in water and never on land, it doesn't really make sense to me to exclusively call it a car. Even though it factually is one, it acts as a boat. At least call it carboat.

    If I have a VPN, but it's sole purpose is to take all the traffic that knocks on it's network-adapter and shove it down a dev/tun and vice verca, why can we not say (with the goal of clear communication and precise descriptions) that it effectively acts as a proxy ?

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    You're arguing two different points here. "A VPN can act as a proxy" and "A VPN that only acts as a proxy is no longer a VPN". I agree with the former and disagree with the latter.

    A "real" host-to-network VPN could be used as a proxy by just setting your default route through it, just like a simple host-to-host VPN could be NOT a proxy by only allowing internal IPs over the link. Would the latter example stop being a VPN if you add a default route going from one host to the other?

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago*

    the only poiny I am arguing for is:

    if somebody is looking for a solution that is effectively equivalent to a proxy, they can enter into the search engine either "vpn" or "proxy" and they will find more results that will work for their usecase that way.

    While you are getting hung up on semantics that I technically agree on, but I find meaningless in the real world usecase of looking for a solution that effectively works like a proxy.

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