Using the Raspberry Pi to establish a Virtual Private Network (VPN) Connection to a Home Network

Because of the advances in technology, people are able to bring computer devices such as laptops, tablets, and smart phones with them anywhere they go. In addition, they are able to connect to various networks out there in the public to obtain internet access. With this luxury, these people run into, serious, problems. One of these problems is security. When accessing public internet, the data transferred from one's computer is not encrypted and is available to anyone who has some knowledge of computer networking. In addition, these networks may take away from our freedom of web browsing by blocking different websites. They can also view every website that one goes on while connected to their internet. All of these problems can be solved by setting up a virtual private network (VPN). A VPN is a network that uses encryption to securely connect two different networks together using public telecommunication such as the internet. To establish a VPN connection, one needs to connect to a server. In this paper, we will be describing how we used the Raspberry Pi (A cheap microcomputer) as a VPN server to a home network; in order to create a VPN connection between a home network and the public internet.