It gives you most of the benefits of VPN, without requiring tun/tap and without needing root on the remote box -- all you need is the ability to run python. Very useful if you're on an insecure network and you want to tunnel everything over a secure connection, or if you have SSH access to a box inside your firewall and want to access other resources without having to specify each port individually.
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If you're connecting from a *nix-y box, you may also be interested in sshuttle: https://github.com/apenwarr/sshuttle
It gives you most of the benefits of VPN, without requiring tun/tap and without needing root on the remote box -- all you need is the ability to run python. Very useful if you're on an insecure network and you want to tunnel everything over a secure connection, or if you have SSH access to a box inside your firewall and want to access other resources without having to specify each port individually.