I\'ve been reading about VPNs lately, and I\'m struggling to understand what the

Question

I've been reading about VPNs lately, and I'm struggling to understand what they do and how they're essential components to upholding anonymity online. The basic idea I have is that a VPN allows two entities to exchange information with each other over the internet, but I don't really know what this means. The Wikipedia definition says "A VPN extends a private network across a public network, such as the internet." Any resources or answers about how I can better understand what this means would be great.

Also, why is it a point of VPN providers to say that they do not keep "logs," or something to that effect? What does this mean, and how does it compromise one's security? Are VPNs that you don't create yourself essentially trust-based?

Explanation / Answer

You are mixing several different concepts here:

+ VPN (Virtual Private Network) A set of techniques to make connections between 2 networks through a unsecured network. like a laptop that connects to the private corporate data-server through the internet, utilizing a VPN connection.
+ A (Web-)Proxy, A Machine that sits in the middle between you and a server and that does some "magic" for you, like hide your IP (only showing the IP of the proxy, useful for pseudo-anonymity and bypassing region-restrictions), and caching/forwarding so you get faster page loads. (especially in a corporate environment you see this). or simply for auditing / testing purposes. (the proxy can allow / deny you access to certain resources. and record that it is YOU that accessed them.)

The "we keep no logs" is to 'convince' you that there really not storing anything to retrieve your real IP. but many countries now a days have laws that require ISP's and other companies to log this type of meta data anyway. (so for law-enforcement its still possible to get your IP)

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