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Tailscale raises $100M

tailscale.com

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Re: Tailscale raises $100M

#171

Post by sleepybrett »

YPPH wrote: post #63
pilif wrote: post #9

With such a huge investment comes the obligation to eventually pay it back. Is this another one of my favourite tools going the way of Dropbox, 1Password and all other companies that were formed around what should be a platform feature, which took on way too large investment sums and were eventually forced to become the everything, losing sight of their core values? I sincerely hope not, but there's so much bad prece…

How has 1Password lost sight of its core values? Perhaps you refer to loss of local vaults? If so, they were never really a viable option for me - I needed the app syncing across multiple devices, including mobile, and doing so with a third party sync solution wasn't suitable.

> ... and doing so with a third party sync solution wasn't suitable.

why not?

More importantly why was it necessary to remove the local vaults feature (I don't need it to integrate with any particular 3rd party syncing solution, I can handle that myself without any features from them) entirely?

Re: Tailscale raises $100M

#172

Post by discardedrefuse »

JeremyNT wrote: post #135
arsome wrote: post #124

I was going to try TailScale but then it seemed the only option to do so as an individual was to login with a 3rd party cloud provider, which I in no way want tied into my networks. I gave up and just setup wireguard directly instead, I don't trust Tailscale either if that's their attitude towards privacy, it's permanently marred my vision of their product.

Indeed, this is why I won't use it either. I settled on Slack's Nebula [0] instead of wireguard because it handles direct p2p communication between nodes automatically. There also exists an open source implementation of the tailscale control server [1] that you could self host. [0] https://github.com/slackhq/nebula [1] https://github.com/juanfont/headscale

Absolutely love nebula and really wanted it to win when I did my overlay network shootout (for personal use). But device on-boarding and management was overly complex for a lay person (I have a couple users that would require access).

I settled on ZeroTier for now. Unfortunately, I don't think ZeroTier is my long term solution. Their self-hosted option comes with a plethora of caveats that make it basically unusable. And I'm always scared companies that offer free versions of their paid product will eventually neuter the free tier.

I'll be keeping an eye on headscale. Hopefully they get their mobile client situation in order.

Re: Tailscale raises $100M

#173

Post by gkbrk »

rcfox wrote: post #68
aaronax wrote: post #52

I have heard of but never really looked in to Tailscale until today. I'm not impressed. "Fixing the Internet" is not done by layering more private network garbage on top of it. Their claim[0] that after you install Tailscale on all your devices: "This final configuration is called 'zero trust networking',” is pretty interesting. It seems this would be more like having a trusted internal network (sure it is overlaid o…

"Don't like entities abusing their power over you? Just change the laws that allow them to do that!" What.

This is how people fix things caused by commercial entities being abusive. It's done quite a bit, most of the critical things people rely on are regulated.

Do you live in a place that doesn't regulate things?

Re: Tailscale raises $100M

#174

Post by cassianoleal »

jaywalk wrote: post #143
cassianoleal wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, fair enough. Those are not general purpose VPNs though. In fact, they are not even VPNs in the first place. They merely use the same technology to provide a private tunnel to the public Internet (and use the name in marketing material because by now people are familiar with it). What they are not is general purpose private networks.

They are absolutely VPNs. If you don't like my term "general purpose" that's fine, but they 100% fit the definition of VPN.

A VPN is a Virtual Private Network. Those services you mentioned merely provide a secure tunnel to the same public Internet you'd have access without them, avoiding eavesdropping by your ISP or other intermediaries, whilst handing over that capability to the "VPN" provider. There is no private network anywhere in this case.

An actual VPN provides you with a private network that just happens to workover of the public Internet, usually encrypted, but is inaccessible from it.

    A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The benefits of a VPN include increases in functionality, security, and management of the private network. It provides access to resources that are inaccessible on the public network and is typically used for remote workers. Encryption is common, although not an inherent part of a VPN connection.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network

Re: Tailscale raises $100M

#175

Post by karlshea »

nickysielicki wrote: post #164
karlshea wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can do that without Tailscale though by just using the WireGuard app. What is Tailscale adding to this?

NAT breaking, I can have a wireguard network with Tailscale where every device only has an RFC1918 address and a default route.

Ahhh that is slick

Re: Tailscale raises $100M

#176

Post by ziftface »

siavosh wrote: post #130
nickysielicki wrote: post #111

Tailscale has a fantastic product, I’ve been extremely happy from day one. If you’re waiting for a weekend to have a few hours to try out Tailscale, don’t, it takes 15 minutes to get every device you own up and running and talking. This is the lowest friction personal VPN to ever exist, and once you see how easy it is for your own devices, you’ll wish you had it at work. The biggest risk that this company has is that…

I’m pretty ignorant on this topic, but what are the benefits of having a personal VPN?

Some of my friends used it to play older lan games

Re: Tailscale raises $100M

#177

Post by stavros »

rhuber wrote: post #167
JeremyNT wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, this is why I won't use it either. I settled on Slack's Nebula [0] instead of wireguard because it handles direct p2p communication between nodes automatically. There also exists an open source implementation of the tailscale control server [1] that you could self host. [0] https://github.com/slackhq/nebula [1] https://github.com/juanfont/headscale

(Nebula coauthor here) People sometimes ask me to describe the differences between Nebula and Tailscale. One of the most important relates to performance and scale. Nebula can handle the amount of internal network traffic and scalability of nodes (100k+ nodes, constant churn) required on a large network like Slack's, but Tailscale cannot. Tailscale's performance is fine for many situations, but not suitable for infra…

Does Nebula have anything like Tailscale's rules engine? I am absolutely in love with being able to configure all my connections by just specifying a JSON file somewhere. No need to have firewalls, the configuration specifies which service or user can talk to which.

That having been said, I also am wary of using Tailscale for the same reasons as above, I have to trust Tailscale and Github? I can maybe justify trusting Tailscale, but trusting GH/Microsoft/other SSO provider is a bridge too far.

Re: Tailscale raises $100M

#178

Post by systemvoltage »

nickysielicki wrote: post #111

Tailscale has a fantastic product, I’ve been extremely happy from day one. If you’re waiting for a weekend to have a few hours to try out Tailscale, don’t, it takes 15 minutes to get every device you own up and running and talking. This is the lowest friction personal VPN to ever exist, and once you see how easy it is for your own devices, you’ll wish you had it at work. The biggest risk that this company has is that…

Well put, there is no moat. Corporate customers really don’t want yet another network infra if they have Cloudflare + ZTN offerings.

Cloudflare, please make a box I can buy and stick it in the closet with a WAN connection. Routers suck, it’s time to reinvent them. Also please don’t make them look like goddamn spaceships.

Re: Tailscale raises $100M

#179

Post by aborsy »

arsome wrote: post #124

I was going to try TailScale but then it seemed the only option to do so as an individual was to login with a 3rd party cloud provider, which I in no way want tied into my networks. I gave up and just setup wireguard directly instead, I don't trust Tailscale either if that's their attitude towards privacy, it's permanently marred my vision of their product.

I don’t understand why these mesh VPN companies don’t take themselves out of the trust loop? For example, by supporting Wireguard preshared keys (if that makes sense).

In light of the recent incidence at Okta, the risk of the VPN company or the identity provider getting compromised, or provided with a gag order by the government, should be accounted for.

Re: Tailscale raises $100M

#180

Post by web007 »

arsome wrote: post #124

I was going to try TailScale but then it seemed the only option to do so as an individual was to login with a 3rd party cloud provider, which I in no way want tied into my networks. I gave up and just setup wireguard directly instead, I don't trust Tailscale either if that's their attitude towards privacy, it's permanently marred my vision of their product.

Your personal dislike of cloud SSO is not the same as "their attitude towards privacy". Before you do anything "permanently" you should read their reasoning behind that decision:

https://tailscale.com/kb/1013/sso-providers/

> Tailscale works on top of the SSO/IDP/IAM identity provider you or your company already use.

> We don’t support sign-up with email addresses. By design, Tailscale is not an identity provider: there are no Tailscale passwords.

> Using an identity provider is not only more secure than email and password, but it allow us to automatically rotate connection encryption keys, follow security policies set by your team (e.g., 2FA), and more.

You can BYO SAML provider if you like, you'll just have to pay for it: https://tailscale.com/kb/1119/sso-saml-oidc

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