That’s not the kind of privacy that the phrase is referring to. One of the main uses of VPNs is to make it so people not on a local network can see devices as if they were on the same local network (e.g. to access an office intranet while working form home) without having to open those devices up to the public internet. For that kind of VPN, everyone involved typically knows who everyone else is and exactly what they’re using it for, but the office printer is still kept private within the group.
Well in that case, this only reinforces the idea that trying to ban them is an awful idea. If anything my initial definition is what most people in government assume is the only use when in reality they’d be causing a cyber security nightmare.
VPN is another case of an appropriated and bastardized term, much like hacker, crypto, AI, etc.
The term has been used wrong for so long by so many that most people now know VPN as nothing but a glorified proxy with some security, which is a rather niche use for the technology as a whole.
Might be time to find a new term for Virtual Private Networks too, so it doesn’t get mixed up or get bad rep because of its other meaning.
It’s not really appropriated, as it’s still the same thing, just being used for a purpose other than the one it was originally invented for. Plenty of things end up useful for things other than why they were invented but retain a name based on the original very specific use case that doesn’t make sense for their common use case. USB’s name isn’t appropriated when a device charges over USB-PD and uses resistors on the channel configuration pins to set the current limits without a serial connection, despite serial bus being part of the name.
It is the same technology, but from ‘virtual’, ‘private’ and ‘network’ only ‘virtual’ and ‘network’ kept their meaning. The network is no longer ‘private’, when all traffic goes through a third party (unencrypted on their side!).
That’s not the kind of privacy that the phrase is referring to. One of the main uses of VPNs is to make it so people not on a local network can see devices as if they were on the same local network (e.g. to access an office intranet while working form home) without having to open those devices up to the public internet. For that kind of VPN, everyone involved typically knows who everyone else is and exactly what they’re using it for, but the office printer is still kept private within the group.
Well in that case, this only reinforces the idea that trying to ban them is an awful idea. If anything my initial definition is what most people in government assume is the only use when in reality they’d be causing a cyber security nightmare.
Yes, it would be - if someone was actually considered banning them.
Which (out of the reasons you mentioned) nobody does.
OP has been posting fake information about “banning” in their headline, which this comment thread actually is about…
VPN is another case of an appropriated and bastardized term, much like hacker, crypto, AI, etc.
The term has been used wrong for so long by so many that most people now know VPN as nothing but a glorified proxy with some security, which is a rather niche use for the technology as a whole.
Might be time to find a new term for Virtual Private Networks too, so it doesn’t get mixed up or get bad rep because of its other meaning.
It’s not really appropriated, as it’s still the same thing, just being used for a purpose other than the one it was originally invented for. Plenty of things end up useful for things other than why they were invented but retain a name based on the original very specific use case that doesn’t make sense for their common use case. USB’s name isn’t appropriated when a device charges over USB-PD and uses resistors on the channel configuration pins to set the current limits without a serial connection, despite serial bus being part of the name.
It is the same technology, but from ‘virtual’, ‘private’ and ‘network’ only ‘virtual’ and ‘network’ kept their meaning. The network is no longer ‘private’, when all traffic goes through a third party (unencrypted on their side!).