How a VPN Works

A visual guide into how a VPN works with helpful use cases.

PATREON
Help me keep making videos:

PRIVATE WORK
Need 3D illustration and animation? Let's chat:

LICENSE Animagraffs' work for your own purposes

WEBSITE
See more explanations of how things work:

SOFTWARE USED
I use Blender 3D to create these models. It's free and open source, and the community is amazing:

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:25 Normal browsing / IP addresses
0:41 Packets
1:15 ISP
1:37 DNS Lookup
2:18 ISP logs
3:02 VPN
4:11 Useful scenarios
4:22 Secure connection
4:51 Privacy
5:45 Bypassing Bocks
6:03 Location Restricted Content
6:20 Limitations / Logs
6:44 VPN Legality and Blocking
7:05 Obfuscated Servers
7:19 Privacy vs. Anonymity
7:34 Broswer Fingerprinting
7:52 Deep Packet Inspection
8:15 OpSec
8:31 Conclusion

[animagraffs]

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Worth repeating: NordVPN agreed to allow me full control over all research and visuals. I firmly believe if more companies fund publicly available, objective research we're all better for it. My research has not been tampered with in any way, period. If you came here to comment as such, I know you didn't actually watch the video.

[Whytho]

Finally a clear explanation of what a VPN does. I was especially intrigued about how ISPs can "guess" what kind of data is coming from the VPN. Amazing!!

[randallvargas]

I'm only 1 min 34 seconds into this but wanted to say:

Your content is endlessly gorgeous and informative. 200k subs is a joke compared to what you'll have in no time. Thank you!

[eegw]

This type of quality, information and effort for a channel with 200k subs is absurd. You deserve 5M+

[michaeljava]

Bro, I am a software developer. And even i didnt fully understand what VPNs did. Your explanation and the graphics helped me understand the key thing VPNs do. Not using your ISP to directly access the internet. Using your ISP just to get to the VPN provider. Now your ISP doesnt even know your meta data (what website you go to). And your ISP can not censor internet. I am saving the link to this video to my computer networks folder.

[rtbeer]

Nice video explanation but needs some corrections:
*Your home router external IP is live on the Internet - your ISP does not NAT it (in most cases). Doing NAT at the ISP level would be EXTREMELY CPU intensive and would break connectivity for numerous applications.
*DNS is an abbreviation for "Domain" Name System, not "Dynamic" Name System. You can host your own DNS servers or use an external provider, ie. Google. Yes, your ISP can still see your external queries unless you are doing DNS over TLS.
*The VPN tunnel is between you and the VPN provider. It is not end to end.
*Logging is very VPN provider dependent.

Thank you for pointing out browser fingerprinting! Lots of people believe VPNs are a one size fits all solution to Internet anonymity and it is simply not so.

[romeocharlie]

Minor corrections at 4:15.

Your data is only encrypted from your device to the VPN service. It is not encrypted between the VPN service and the destination. That traffic is done in the clear.

Also, the VPN does not do the DNS lookup on its own. That must be done at your device. The VPN service may host the DNS itself, or you can make the DNS request through the VPN. You still have to tell the VPN service where you want to go (that means resolving to an IP address) before you can traverse the tunnel.

[MythOfEchelon]

As a former senior IT / network engineer and a current senior information security engineer of over 10 years, I was interested to watch this.

To be fair, it's fairly accurate for the most part and covers some unexpected things like fingerprinting, but I have noted some corrections for those who want to know. (I've skipping over some simple and unimportant ones that were probably for the sake of simplicity.)

1. They're called Domain Name System / name servers, not Dynamic Name Servers. Dynamic DNS is a thing, though.

2. When a client is using a VPN, it always makes DNS lookup requests itself. It's forward web proxies where the proxy-aware app delegates that and the service itself does so. However, some VPN services do host DNS servers and offer protection by configuring your client to send DNS requests to them instead.

3. A fake Wi-Fi network attack is known as Evil Twin. A honeypot is used to trick attackers into thinking they're on a real system so that they divulge information about themselves, such as their intent or Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs).

4. ISPs can't (usually) see your GPS location, but they can look up your public IP address' geolocation.

5. Geolocation is not defined by a country's physical borders. It's defined by the public IP subnet that's been assigned to that country and organisation and tracked in a database.

Also, I'm skeptical about the claim that Deep Packet Inspection can determine the content of encrypted packets. Network Traffic Analysis perhaps.

[GururajBN]

After watching a few videos of Animagrafs, it seems that the superlative quality of graphics and unhurried and lucid narration are the hallmarks. My grateful thanks.

[dextermorgan]

JON this is really great content. Please don't mind those comments that say you're doing this for nord. You deserve whatever you're getting for giving us such good animated videos that makes it easier for us to understand how things work. I think you don't have to reply to those few comments they know very little about how the world works. Please keep doing this. Your channel is going to grow.

[NikhilYadav-mjwj]

You almost just explained the whole Internet. Great video!

[christianhumer]

You should correct your Video: VPN Provider -are- might not collect data. Your Data has to go out somewhere (otherwise, it would be just HTTPS) to get visible. It´s more like a Tunnel: You can pass certain blockades and safe from spying from the Air, but you can still be seen when entering the tunnel, or leaving it. Also someone with access to cameras in (in front of) the tunnel (VPN Provider, the VPN Providers ISP, Governments, Hackers..) may see you. It also doesn´t save you from burglers or disguised Officers since you are communicating with them openly.

[Analyst]

Hi guys! First of all, i would like to thank the trainer of those animated videos. It's really great, as i could understand very and deeply about VPN in a matter of very few minutes, when i went through pages to try to understand VPN clearly. He did a very great job and at the same time so clear even for novice in computer studies to understand what is VPN. Thank you very much. You deserve more than our like ! Keep it up.
Please, i will appreciate more if you could provide us some more videos about network protocols and also if possible some videos about Cyber security fundamentals.

Thank you, all the best !

[manthanpanchal]

The efforts put in making this video are on another level

[aravindavarmadantuluri]

This is the best VPN ad I have ever seen.

[LuizVieiraPintoNeto]

Hello there Jake. I've been waiting for your upload. As always, insanely animated writen and done.

[forflintching]

These videos make my brain smile. I'm 100% a visual learner. Thank you!

[AlejandroRamirez-levv]

"VPNs do not keep logs of what you do" that's what most people assume but you need to look at each country regulations of the VPN service you're using and what country you're connecting to. Plus you're just transferring your trust of your data from your ISP to the VPN service provider

[edilier]

I can’t never find a video that explains VPN well. Thank you! 🙌🏼💜

[AdamSmith-ejcw]

What I find amazing about all of this is that it happens at the speed of light. All of the world’s information at your fingertips instantly. Imagine the possibilities if we used this technology for more than looking at cat videos