Actually, this page on SourceForge discusses using SSH to traverse a firewall and do a lot of things, including how to web surf the other end and how to use SAMBA on the other end, virtually replacing the need for a VPN. It's a good article to study applications of SSH and tunneling.
See the following entries in my weblog for past information:
More on tunneling Remote Desktop over SSH
The Hazards of X11 Forwarding
Tunneling remote control
Cygwin vs GotoMyPC et al. -OR- Getting to your machine from elsewhere
Read through the article today and it gives a good overview of both of these facilities. I've been using Offline files for a few years, now, to keep some files available on my laptop that are stored/archived on my server, and I still learned a few things. Well, OK, not from the article itself but from this Microsoft KnowledgeBase article. There also a link to another Microsoft KnowledgeBase article about the Briefcase.