With frequent access restrictions making headlines in our country, the increase in VPN usage has become inevitable. This trend has not gone unnoticed by international companies, resulting in some VPN service providers launching special campaigns tailored for our country.
What is VPN?
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, connecting you remotely to a physical network located elsewhere. While some use this technology to connect to their company’s local network as if they were physically present, due to certain necessities, ordinary citizens have had to learn about VPN as a miraculous solution that allows access to otherwise restricted sites, similar to DNS.
How Does VPN Work?
Although VPN uses many different protocols and technologies, it fundamentally opens an encrypted tunnel from your computer’s physical location to the target network. The information transmitted through this tunnel is encrypted, making it unreadable from the outside. Security experts can see encrypted data is being transmitted but cannot understand its content unless very weak encryption is used. VPN solutions install a specialized network driver on your computer or mobile device (or it comes embedded in mobile devices) and act as a virtual network adapter, providing you with an IP number from the target network. This allows you to access permitted applications or local addresses.
What Types of VPN Systems and Usage Areas Exist?
There are three popular VPN usages today. One is the basic mechanism we described, which allows you to connect from your home computer to your office systems, services, or computer. This way, you can securely access and operate on a remote network as if you were physically present.
The second usage, which is quite common in our country outside of business use, takes all traffic collectively and exits to the internet from a different location (usually another country). This VPN technology is especially useful on public networks. For example, if you connect to a wireless network with or without a password, other computers on the network (if there is a password) or everyone in the vicinity (if there is no password) can see the data flowing here and use social engineering techniques to create attack vectors related to you or your company. A VPN system steps in at this point, removing the data flowing from your computer or mobile device from the “sniffable” network and providing almost complete security by exiting to the internet. You can then browse the internet, synchronize your files on cloud services without showing which service you use, and send files more securely over unsecured FTP services.
The last type of VPN, particularly crucial for gamers, reduces high server response times (ping) caused by routing issues with specialized systems. These systems solve the problem of your internet service provider bouncing game data indiscriminately from point to point, drawing a shorter route for you, and having a noticeable impact on massively multiplayer online (MMO) games. These VPN solutions may be cheaper or more expensive than previous ones but are lifesaving due to their continuously updated settings according to the game.
How Do I Use VPN?
For VPN systems to access your company, you should consult your system administrators. They will likely set up your computer and/or mobile device according to various security standards. For other types of VPNs, you generally need to purchase a service and then install software on your system. VPN systems will require administrative rights on computers since they operate by adding a driver to the system. If you use VPN systems for games, you need to locate the game on your system and define it to the software (sometimes this is done automatically) and start the game through this software.
Can I Disappear with VPN?
While you can make yourself indistinguishable on the network you are on, various logging systems are used on the service provider side for general VPN services. These logging systems vary according to many countries (i.e., the country of the service provider). You can learn this from the service provider from whom you purchased the service. In systems that take you to another country and then to the internet, the internet regulations of that country can affect you positively or negatively once you exit. For access to your company or through your company’s network, if you have a good system administration team, a log will be kept of where you connected via VPN. Therefore, VPN technology does not make you invisible; it allows you to do your work more securely.
Update:
Have VPN Services Been Blocked?
Recently, after some incidents, the use of VPN services increased significantly to bypass access restrictions and internet slowdowns on social media platforms. However, some VPN users are currently experiencing issues accessing social networks with VPN services, prompting comments that VPN programs are not working. This has raised the question, “Have VPN services also been blocked in Turkey?”
It is claimed that internet service providers have imposed access restrictions on VPN and Tor services due to broadcasting bans related to recent unfortunate events. Popular VPN services like Hotspot Shield VPN and Zenmate VPN cannot access blocked websites and content.
However, it is observed that some services are still working without any hindrance. This is attributed to the alleged blocking of PPTP and L2TP protocols used by VPN services.
Can Access to VPN Services Be Blocked?
It is challenging to give a definitive “yes” or “no” answer to this question. VPN services can be blocked, but maintaining such a block continuously is technically difficult.
To better understand VPN services and their blockability, one must examine the protocols they use. VPN software uses protocols such as Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP), Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP), or Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP). Most personal VPN services use PPTP and L2TP protocols, and the recently claimed blocked VPN services are those using these protocols.
VPN services have become very popular recently, leading to significant competition in this market (like Opera VPN and VPN Chrome extensions). In case of a possible block, these services attempt to circumvent the block using all their maneuvers, such as switching from a blocked protocol to another or changing the blocked IP addresses.
Lastly, since we do not have official information regarding these blocks, it is difficult to provide definitive information and say “VPN has been blocked.” We will share official responses to questions like “When will the social media access block be lifted?” when they are available. If users who use VPN services share their experiences with us, we can provide more enlightening information.
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