What's Next
for VPN

Max Havey [00:00:01] Hello and welcome to another edition of Security Visionaries, a podcast all about the world of cyber, data, and tech infrastructure, bringing together experts from around the world and across domains. I'm your host, Max Havey, and today we have two exciting guests, both experts from the world of networking, here to talk about the highs and lows of virtual private networks or VPNs. First up, we have Steve Riley, a field CTO here at Netscape and an experienced information technology professional who's held a number of different technology and security roles throughout the industry, including a stint as an analyst for Gartner. Welcome to the show, Steve.

Steve Riley [00:00:36] Hey, thanks, Max. Good to be here. Hi, everybody.

Max Havey [00:00:39] Glad to have you. And additionally, we have Carl Smittle, a network engineer for Charter Communications and a senior network and security engineer who has worked across multiple industries, including stints at Spectrum and Mastercard. Welcome to the show, Carl.

Carl Smittle [00:00:51] Thanks for having me.

Max Havey [00:00:52] Absolutely. So today we're going to be talking about sort of the past and present of VPNs and looking at sort of the highs and lows as well as where things are headed next and what organizations who are, you know, where where things are headed next for organizations. So to start things off here, you know, the specification for the VPN was published back in the last millennium, 1999, to be precise. So for our younger listeners and, you know, to help some of our older listeners reminisce, can you sort of describe what the world before the VPN sort of looked like? Steve, can you can you start us off there?

Steve Riley [00:01:25] Yeah, I think, Max, you're talking about the RFC four PPTP point to point tunneling protocol in 1999. That was actually developed three years prior by a Microsoft person. It didn't get RFC status until 99, so it originated in 96, but that was a derivative of an even earlier protocol called point to point protocol from 1994. So yeah, I mean, you're right, these VPN things have been around for a while. You know, if you think about when the Internet was originally designed in the 70s, the notion of remote access wasn't really a thing. Right. But eventually, as people started to realize it was useful for more than just connecting universities to the Defense Department, it would be good if people could be somewhere othe