Whats the difference between VPN and a proxy server?
Proxy servers fulfill the second major purpose of a VPN: to make your network connections appear as if they originate on the proxy server as opposed to your computer. For example, the Emerson College Library offers access to a wide range of electronic resources, including periodical indexes, electronic journals, electronic texts, and statistical and numeric databases. Most of these resources are accessible via the Web when you are on campus. They are also accessible and if you configure your browser to use the Proxy server. Software licenses, copyright restrictions and other contractual agreements require that many of the networked resources be restricted to members of the Emerson College community. This requires that you access our networked resources from an authenticated network account using your ECnet username and password. However, proxy servers are used primarily for Web (WWW, http) traffic. VPN, in our implementation, will protect all sorts of traffic (Telnet, FTP, and Microsof
