[ale] OT have some questions about vpn security

[Ron Frazier (ALE)]

Hi all,

I've got a question about vpn operation.  I have the following service with hotspotvpn.com.

<quote>
HotSpotVPN-2 is an OpenVPN based SSL VPN. There are three HotSpotVPN-2 flavors differentiated by encryption; Blowfish 128 bit, AES 192 bit and AES 256bit.
</quote>

I have the Blowfish 128 bit service.

I've imported the cryptographic credentials to the Open Vpn Client for Android, but also use it on my pc's.  When I access the vpn for the first time, I enter my access password, which I allow the client to save.

The password is good not but incredibly stellar, as in not 45 characters of random gibberish.

The question is, what effect does the access password have on the security of the tunnel?  Does it have any effect at all?  Does using a somewhat lesser password make it easier to break into my communications if I'm on public wifi?  Or does that just govern access to my account and the strength of the tunnel is the same regardless?

Hope that makes any sense.

Also, just as a side note, I'm sitting in a Barnes & Noble right now typing this.  I'm using port 443 via udp on the vpn.  I notice that it disconnects and reconnects every few minutes.  Do you know if these stores do something funny to keep vpns from not working properly.  I can run the tunnel at home for no hours with no problem, but have much less reason to use it there.

Any help is appreciated.

Sincerely,

Ron



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Ron Frazier
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