When traffic is travelling through the following route:
PC > Router > VPN server > Internet
- Where does the ISP come in?
- During which steps is my data encrypted?
I'm using OpenVPN and servers found on vpngate.net.
When traffic is travelling through the following route:
PC > Router > VPN server > Internet
I'm using OpenVPN and servers found on vpngate.net.
The outgoing traffic is encrypted by the VPN client software on one end, and decrypted by the VPN server on the other end – and vice versa for incoming. (That's really the reason why you use a VPN client in the first place...) Your ISP still does the exact same thing, except it only sees all packets having one destination: the VPNgate server.
Assuming the OpenVPN client is installed on your own computer:
With ---
indicating plain and ===
indicating tunnelled traffic:
[ browser --- OpenVPN ] === Internet === [ OpenVPN ] --- Internet --- [ web server ]
^- your computer -^ ^ VPNgate ^ ^ final rcpt ^
Note that the VPN server at step 6 also changes the packet's "source" (return) address to its own, so that replies go back to that same VPN server (which again encrypts them and sends to your VPN client app).