Unusuall network question.

I'm trying to play a turn based strategy game with several of my friends (none of them on my local network). If all my friends were part of a local network, I could share the folder on my computer that the games files resided in. My friends could then point their instance of the game at my shared directory and everyone would update in the easiest way possible. Since my friends are not on my local area network, I'm limted to play by Email, and thats a bit cumbersome.

I'm wondering if there is some way to share a directory on my computer with other computers over the internet. I know this is possible (VPN, FTP, ect.) but I'm trying to find out if there is an easy way to share my directory so that the other computers will treat it as a local directory, without opening my computer up to any major security risks.

I have a home Network running two computers in a peer to peer configuration behind a Netgear router. My friends all have similar configurations, and we are all using Windows XP.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance.

 

http://www.hamachi.cc/

Never used it myself, but it's supposed to be easy to use.

 

https://www.foldershare.com/info/help/learnShare.php?

It is Free, and secure by default