A comprehensive analysis comparing commercial VPN services (NordVPN) against a self-hosted OpenVPN solution. The project investigates quantitative network performance, security implications, and potential information leakage across different VPN protocols.
- Performance Analysis: Compare NordVPN (WireGuard) vs self-hosted OpenVPN
- Security Assessment: Analyze traffic for information leakage and encryption effectiveness
- Cost-Benefit Analysis: Evaluate commercial vs self-hosted VPN trade-offs
- Traffic Analysis: Use Wireshark and custom tools for packet analysis
- Commercial VPN: NordVPN (WireGuard protocol)
- Self-Hosted VPN: OpenVPN server on AWS EC2
- Cloud Platform: AWS EC2 (Ubuntu VM)
- VPN Protocol: OpenVPN Access Server
- Analysis Tools: Wireshark, tcpdump, custom Python/Bash scripts
- Self-hosted VPN showed slower speeds due to VM limitations
- NordVPN demonstrated faster packet transfer rates with WireGuard
- Both solutions effectively encrypted traffic
- OpenVPN and WireGuard both provide strong encryption
- Minimal information leakage detected
- Self-hosted VPN offers greater security control
- Self-hosted requires technical expertise for setup/maintenance
- Commercial VPNs provide better infrastructure for high traffic
- Self-hosted has ongoing VM rental costs
myvpn/
├── analysis/ # Network analysis results
│ ├── encryption/ # Encryption comparisons
│ ├── speed/ # Speed test results
│ └── traceroute/ # Network path analysis
├── screenshots/ # Setup screenshots
├── analysis.sh # Automated analysis script
├── networkCapture.py # Python packet capture
└── deliverable.md # Project documentation
# Basic network capture
./analysis.sh -i tun0 -d 60
# Custom analysis
./analysis.sh -i eth0 -d 300 -f "port 443" -v
# Python packet capture
python3 networkCapture.py -f "host 192.168.0.40" -t 60👤 Koffison Voumadi - Technical implementation and research
This project demonstrates practical VPN technology analysis, providing insights into commercial vs self-hosted VPN solutions for network security and privacy.