I fell in love with tailscale as soon as I figured out what it enabled me to do.
it was very confusing at first cause I relate "vpn" to something like nordvpn or express vpn when I hear it. but no tailscale is a lot more than that.
it was very confusing at first cause I relate "vpn" to something like nordvpn or express vpn when I hear it. but no tailscale is a lot more than that.
Tailscale is very much more like a real VPN than those other things that are pretending to be VPNs.
VPN's are usually used to create Virtual private networks. Extending your LAN across several sites using software, or granting you access to your LAN when you're not physically located close to it.
It's hard to imagine why the meaning has changed as much as it has, because even though a consequence of this connection can be that you exit to the internet via your destination networks internet connection; I feel like this isn't the original use case at all, similar to how you can use a chair as a ladder.
> encrypted proxies
I suggest "encrypted tunnels"
Because the supporting infrastructure was historically called that, and it stuck. Just like how pocket computers are called "phones" because they evolved from telephones.
Yeah, that's a really good point.
I guess at least we have the modifier "mobile" and "smart" to differentiate the different types of phone (up to and including the pocket computer).
I don't think there is a written equivalent of a VPN which is only acting as an exit node.
In fact, TOR describes an overlay network, and that's how projects like Nebula also describe their functionality. Granted, Nebula is more like a VPN than "VPN providers" also.
"VPN providers" provide a service for accessing the public internet as proxies, tunnels, etc, for evading region blocks, getting around privacy destroying things, and all that stuff. I won't knock their value. I've use them when needing internet over an open WIFI access point. I'm generally not involved in activist activities nor otherwise in harms way, so I don't have much else use of them.
But I do have use of a virtual private network. As in the core idea of it. I have a private network at home. It's not publicly available. I use Tailscale, currently, to access it when not connected directly to my home network (as in, not at home). My portable device becomes a member of a private network that has access to my private home network. This is a VPN.
I really think VPN was (incorrectly) chosen for secured proxy services because it's a simple and familiar name. The marketing using the terms "virtual private network" came far later to describe a way to secure your privacy. But it's diluted the actual technical term.
The Okta groups sync is a beautiful cherry on top.
Like PulseSecure garbage that gets mad because you don’t have the right antivirus installed, when in reality your version is newer than the pulse client recognizes.
As you can tell, not a network guy here! I could be totally wrong.
As those static IPs are in a reserved range, they will never clash with a public service like a website and Tailscale does not mess with your regular traffic.
You could make things more complicated by setting up exit nodes and exposing subnets, but that’s the general idea. So simple, it’s brilliant for their standard use-case.
many people don't understand the implications of vpn'ing into their home devices. being able to access their network shares "over the internet" in a safe way. being able to access all of their random self hosted stuff without needing to be at home without needing a reverse proxy. all the while being easier to secure and safer than internet facing alternatives. these are things that people will actually understand that aren't just arbitrary abstract ideas.
You have a crowd of people (like one of those massive crowds you see in Tokyo etc). And you are both at either sides of the crowd, and you each have a can with a string connecting you to each other – and I explain that the crowd is the public internet, and tailscale allows you to create that string across the whole crowd in a way that nobody in the crowd can ever listen to you guys talk, even though the string literally passes through/over tens of people in that crowd.
If someone has a photo like that, I'd gladly use it :)
I know enough about all the nuts and bolts under the hood with Tailscale and that makes it feel MORE magical to me, that with all those things to deal with, it still just works. And it's no compromise (uses wireguard, etc)
The last time I saw that level of magic was in a product called Hamachi. It Just Worked™ more than a decade ago. LogMeIn bought them and ruined it.
But with Hamachi I didn't know how it worked under the hood.