Bit-Shift.Net

I don't know how many times this has happened to me. I'm am sitting at work and suddenly I remember I have to do something online at some web site that requires a password. I have the password securely stored on my home computer. But a fat lotta good that does me sitting at work. Running home is out of thequestion because it'll take me an hour and a half round trip.

If only there was a way I could log onto my computer securely from work. If only I had a VPN at my disposal. I looked at getting a firewall that supported hardware VPNs from companies such as Sonicwall but those solutions were expensive which is not at all what I'm looking for. Recently on LifeHacker I found a post for some zero configuration VPN software from a company called Applied Networking Inc. called Hamachi.

The way the system works is really simple yet amazingly functional and secure. When you log on the first time you are given a unique IP address from Hamachi's pool of IPs. This address is guarenteed to be unique and will not collide with any IP you may already have. Also during the initial connection and on all subsequent connections a handshake is done where the server authenticates itself to the client and vice versa, then the server acts as an intermediary, negotiating sessions between peers of the VPN.

Once you are logged into Hamachi you have the option of joining an existing network or creating your own for others to join. When someone has joined your VPN it will be like they are plugged directly into the hub or switch located in your home or office. To keep random people from joining your VPN network you must specify a password (so make it a strong one, atlesat 12 character alphanumeric with mixed case and punctuation. If you don't trust any password that you make up you can use an online password generator such as WinGuides).

One of the things I like about this software when I was first researching it is their security model is open, so anybody can review it (which could be a weakness if a flaw is found and not acted upon) and make comments about its strengths and weaknesses. I like this approach because it allows people that know a great deal about applications of cryptography to make comments and give feedback about this implementation making the product much more secure.

Download the software here.