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Communication Security: Remote Access and Messaging • Chapter 3 123

TEST DAY TIP
Create a mental grid for remembering the difference between PPTP and
L2TP. PPTP | 1723 | TCP, L2TP | 1701 | UDP.

PPTP

PPTP’s popularity is mainly because it was the first encapsulation protocol on the
market, designed by engineers at Microsoft.Thus it is supported in all Windows
OSes. L2TP is not supported in Windows 9x/ME or NT 4.0, although these OSes
(except Windows 95) can create L2TP connections using the Microsoft
L2TP/IPSec VPN client add-on. PPTP establishes point-to-point connections
between two computers by encapsulating the PPP packets being sent.Although
PPTP has helped improve communications security, there are several issues with it.

PPTP Clients
Head of the Class… client at www.pptpclient.sourceforge.net/ while www.ict.ic.ac.uk/
Besides Microsoft OSes, PPTP clients are also available for UNIX, Linux,
and Macintosh OSes. You can find a great open-source (UNIX/Linux) VPN

resources/networks/connect/vpn/mac/ lists some of the clients available
for various Mac OS versions.

■ PPTP encrypts the data being transmitted, but does not encrypt the infor-
mation being exchanged during negotiation. In Microsoft implementa-
tions, Microsoft Point-to-Point Encryption (MPPE) protocol is used to
encrypt the data.

■ PPTP is protocol-restrictive, meaning it will only work over IP networks
■ PPTP cannot use the added benefit of IPSec

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