Can internet traffic in Windows 8 get arround OpenVPN?

seo10

Dear OpenVPN Community,

I was wondering if internet traffic in Windows 8 can get around an active OpenVPN connection or if there is a way to detect traffic that get around the connection. I have setup OpenVPN on a webserver and am tracking the traffic so that I can detect suspicious traffic.

I am worying for spying police or otherwise hackers. I am in The Netherlands where breaking into computers based one skinny suspicion is done on large scale where they hack first and talk about it later (concerning the political or legal justification for the 'hacking'). Recent reports in news papers report that Dutch police is breaking into computers of people far more often than in other European countries.

I want to prevent it from happening, not because I do anything illegal, but because I don't like the idea that respectless people are following what I do on the PC, or in the room of the PC.

I am a sort of internet activist in my free time and help taking down a corrupt medical profession. This may be the small reason needed for them to hack in to my PC, if what is reported in the media is true.

I hope someone is able to advise me what I can do to prevent traffic from Windows 8 to get around OpenVPN, or if it is possible to track traffic that does.

Best Regards,
Jan

brendan

openvpn is a OSI layer 7 (or an application layer) VPN. becuase of this, it is trivial to circumvent. you can do things to try and have all traffic routed via the vpn tunnel, but it is not sure fire. IPSEC vpns are layer 3, and are more difficult to circumvent, but not guaranteed to prevent communications outside of the tunnel either. misconfiguration could lead to split tunnelling being allowed.

you want to build a comprehensive firewall policy on the device and block/deny/drop anything that is not traffic tunnelled through the vpn, in order to accomplish what you are looking for. even then, state sanctioned snooping might be able to get around that.

seo10

brendan wroteopenvpn is a OSI layer 7 (or an application layer) VPN. becuase of this, it is trivial to circumvent. you can do things to try and have all traffic routed via the vpn tunnel, but it is not sure fire. IPSEC vpns are layer 3, and are more difficult to circumvent

Dear Brendan,

Thanks a lot for the information! It shows a security disadvantage of OpenVPN compared to IPSEC that I didn't read about yet. Most internet references state that they are about as secure and that OpenVPN is preferred.

Perhaps it would be an option to get documentation online to program firewalls such as Norton 360, McAfee and Kaspersky to force traffic via OpenVPN. I couldn't find any information for it yet while the free firewall Comodo does offer instructions for it.

Best Regards,
Jan

brendan

the security that is compared in those articles seems to evaluate the strength of the encryption that makes the tunnel. arguably, they are very close in that regard. the determination around which is most suitable for a given environment is an exercise left up to the implementer, and interestingly enough, that is not mentioned. the "whole picture" perspective should be provided, if those articles are to be considered comprehensive.