Alright - moving this question out of the X-Plane thread to get some input on it.
Long story shortened - my wife is working from home now due to the COVID-19 pandemic so she is forced to use a VPN to connect to her work computer. This has been all fine and dandy until yesterday when it appears that X-Plane, which phones home each time you play it I think, noticed that my IP address was changing daily (?). So they deactivated my X-Plane serial number. I’ve been in contact with Laminar support and they are working with me, but their solution is to get me a Steam key, which I’d rather not be forced to use since I tinker with my X-Plane install all the time.
Anyway - my question is this: When my wife is using the VPN, does it only temporarily change my IP address - or does it revert back to the same IP address that I had before after she disconnects? If so, I can simply disconnect from the internet when I launch, or just not boot up X-Plane and other things that phone home when she is working.
Your IP address isn’t changing at all, but the system in question should be treated as if it were operating as part of the VPN. So your network traffic is going to the VPN and then out from there, which gives the impression that it’s coming from another network.
Ah…OK…so another stupid question, is it possible to have my computer go through the router and NOT use the VPN while my wife’s computer does? Or is it an all or nothing thing?
Depends on your network equipment and software. 12 years ago using Cisco VPN software I could go through my home network with my laptop on the VPN but everything else was still normal.
I’d remind the author of that article that, given the current pandemic circumstances, allowing employees to VPN in is a hell of a lot better than the alternative of laying off employees or having the business go bankrupt.
Network security is there to help the user do their jobs, not get in the way of doing their jobs. IT professionals often forget this.
Those concerns are SOP, however: the VPN alone is but one aspect, as your home user likely uses their system for sending work emails and other communications. Not that I agree with this practice for the noted reasons, but there’s a big difference between a VPN on a company system running from a user’s home connection vice running on their home computer. This, by the way, is how the DOD handles the issue – by issuing laptops with VPN capability for remote use. Though I wouldn’t call the DOD’s infosec policies and practices “good” by any stretch of the imagination.
So the VPN isn’t an ideal solution, but a lot of things aren’t, because we don’t live in an ideal world.
My wife said that if the company issued her a laptop - she wouldn’t have to VPN (which would be better for me I think). But the company is on strict budget controls now and won’t get her one.
How does she create the VPN tunnel? Normally a device creating a tunnel to a server should have no effect on other devices on the same network. The whole point of VPN is that only the device that creates the tunnel can use it.
It’s called DUO or Cisco or something? Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client is what it’s called. Then she uses Remote Desktop Connection to do her work.
It isn’t connected at the moment. In the Cisco AnyConnect menu I see some stuff about Tunnel ip4 ip6 or something (I’m not on her computer) and they say unavailable, but that is probably because it is not connected at the moment.
Hmm…I wonder if launching X-Plane just once from her VPN computer was enough to do it then. Her computer is my old computer, and I still had X-Plane on it and wanted to check the PMDG DC-6 operation on it (using X-Plane 10). So maybe that was enough to trigger the problem with Laminar Research. I’d find it hard to believe a single instance would do that…but who knows. X-Plane 10 and X-Plane 11 share the same digital download serial number…so maybe that indeed is what happened.
