While we’re all so stoked among our own rights to privacy, some companies take it to the absolute extreme. A virtual private network (VPN) is a private network often used by companies or organizations, to communicate confidentially while the rest of the world remains blissfully unaware. VPN traffic can be carried over a public networking infrastructure (Internet) or over a service provider's private network with a defined Service Level Agreement between the VPN customer and the VPN service provider. While this is fine for those of us with access to the VPN, the trouble comes when your VPN service is terminated, either voluntarily or through a firing. Especially if you’re fired, you’re not thinking about all the cute things on your CPU’s desktop. So the lesson here is, if you’re operating on a VPN at work, don’t keep anything too valuable. Or don’t get fired. Or both!

A VPN can send data such as voice, data or video, or a combination of these media, across encrypted private channels from the network to either another within the network or usually, depending on the security levels, to a public destination. But when you send information back to that VPN you have no idea whether or not the information was received or whether it was screened and flagged as undeliverable.

If you’re talking about VPN tunnel mode data, this is the passing of data through a public network in such a way that routing in the public network is unaware that the transmission is part of a private network. Tunneling is generally done by taking the private network data within the public network so that the tunneled data is not available to anyone examining the transmitted. Tunneling allows the use of public areas of the Internet to carry data on behalf of users as though they had access to a 'private network', hence the name.

While the whole episode may seem silly to some, there is great private data being transported all the time that requires the encryption and safety of a VPN. And while you may not think much of the information you push around on your desktop from 9-5, your company certainly does if they’ve installed a VPN. So whether it’s limited access to the internet, the encryption and sealing of peoples personal information, credit cards, medical information, or court proceedings, so much of what we know is held on a network somewhere; that somewhere should be protected.