Hamachi
In Hamachi, Security, VPN on 9 January 2006 12:57 pm with 14 comments
(ID: #845) 
Hamachi looks like a promising tool to setup a VPN connection from my laptop on some WiFi connection to my desktop computer. After listening to the Security Now podcasts episode 18, I’m trying out Hamachi.
I initially started with 0.9.9.9. Like Steve said, it really does look slick. What’s funny is that within a minute after installing it on my desktop, 28 people must’ve installed Hamachi before I was able to get it running on my laptop. Popular? Sure looks like it!
- Download and install Hamachi
- Configure new network on main computer, using 63 random printable ASCII characters for the network password
- Load the network that I created on the main computer, so I can access my home computer
- Connect to home computer thru the IP address given by Hamachi
My goal is to be able to connect to my home computer via Remote Desktop Connection. Well, the stable version wasn’t working for me. I tried connecting, but my desktop would freeze up and nothing would display on my laptop. So, I jumped into the 1.0 beta version, and finally was able to use RD [thru Hamachi] from my laptop to my desktop. Sweet!
Quoting from the transcript of Security Now! Episode #18:
So, for example, many people have written saying, hey, I love using Remote Desktop, but I’m concerned about its security. What should I do? Well, they should be concerned about its security because Remote Desktop does not have strong authentication. So it is subject to man-in-the-middle attacks, and it can be compromised. In fact, the current version of the Cain & Abel Cain tool has the latest support for the current RDP protocol, which allows - and, I mean, it actually builds a file, when you’re running Cain, of everything you do over your Remote Desktop session. So here Hamachi solves the problem of wanting one computer to connect to and control another. [..] So you’re able now to securely and safely use Remote Desktop through this Hamachi link with absolutely no concern that it can be eavesdropped upon.
It is a virtual private network, peer-to-peer secure tunneling system that, I mean, I can’t find a single fault in it. I mean, I’m using it. I’m in love with this thing.
What’ll I be using this for? Anytime I’m on a WiFi connection. I can hit up the public library, or use the connection from my friends’ house, without worrying about people eavesdropping on me.
On a sidenote, there is a forum thread on how to setup full internet access over Hamachi. It’s experimental right now, so I’ll just put up with RD. I’m not complaining!
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