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had a (I suspect very new) question today asking to identify an item which was not a “remote authentication technology” various acronyms provided (some of which are Authentication technologies) one of which was VPN, now to me, a VPN is a connection method but not an Authentication method. just wanted to get more thoughts before flagging it

9 Spice ups
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I can agree with that. Just because you can use authentication in VPN, doesn’t make it primarily an authentication technology.

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Correct VPN is NOT an authentication technology. It’s a type of connection, that you can assign various authentication technologies to, but VPN in and of itself is not authenticating anything.

That would be like saying your driveway is a security device, it’s not, the door and key to that door at the end of the driveway is. VPN=Driveway, Radius/IPSEC etc are the security/authentication

2 Spice ups
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What about looking at it from both sides. The primary is a connection type. But, without the proper keys you would not be able to connect. So in that sense, would that not also carry some authentication merit with it as well? I know that is not the standard thinking, but seems like it holds some truth. Just my two cents.

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A VPN makes use of an authentication technology, but it itself is not an authentication technology.

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Typical, i got this question today. Due to this thread I definitely overthought it (as I had assumed VPN wasn’t the answer they were looking for) and got it wrong anyway.

The whole question is terrible, the explanations are just links, no real explanation, the wording it bad and the answer is wrong.

Have flagged it

https://community.spiceworks.com/questions/4926/explanation?source=superfeed-daily-challenge

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it’s gone, the OP agreed with the comments

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Yeah, I got this one and failed on the first day of the month - one of a number of questions I have bombed on this year that have brought me to the brink of stopping.