Being born and raised in Germany, most of my extended family lives over there and even after all these years, a simple phone call easily reconnects me with family and friends. Almost like a secret handshake, dialing a number and hearing each others voice makes me part of their network over there.

With a little bit of work, the same can be had for your computer. Even if you travel, being away from home for an extended period of time, your computer can still be made part of your home-network, with just a click of a button ...

I cannot believe that it's really that long ago, but back in March 2008, I wrote about how to Protect your online privacy when on the road by using your Home Router as a Secure Socket Proxy. This is still very relevant and works just like I had written then, but using an ssh tunnel falls short when you want to turn the remote machine into an equal member of your home network; for this we need a Virtual Private Network.