Virtual Private Network

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Virtual Private Network is one way fans who live in censored areas can communicate and interact with fandom without their online activities being traced.

For more information: see Wikipedia's page.

Just before Christmas, someone on the Kirk/Spock LJ community asked where she could get her hands on a copy of Rae Trail’s Out of the Big Black as Google searches invariably ended up linking to defunct sites. It prompted me do a search for Rae’s contact information and I came across a recent post by someone called ‘Rae Trail’ on a non- Trek fandom site. I emailed the person and asked, ‘Are you the Rae who used to write Kirk/Spock stories?’ – I figured if it was the wrong person, they’d probably not know what Kirk/Spock was, and no harm done. On New Year’s Day, I got a message back, ‘Yes, I am that Rae.’ She explained that following a move to the Middle East ten years ago, and the internet censorship there, she’d had to drop out of fandom. Then, last Autumn, she discovered the delights of the VPN – the Virtual Private Network. The VPN works by connecting Rae to a secure remote server, so she can now use the internet, circumventing all censorship restrictions, without there being any trace of the websites she visits. As an aside, VPNs are becoming popular in fandom by those wanting to watch media that is restricted to particular countries (e.g. watching programmes on BBC iPlayer using a VPN server located in the UK). So now Rae can browse with impunity.