It's Looking Like Android Could Be Embracing WireGuard - "A Sane VPN"

[bug77]

The thing is,with everybody working remotely these days and thus VPNs crumbling left and right, I expect WireGuard's adoption to get a healthy boost. It's not going to be everywhere anytime soon, but I expect rigid IT departments who wouldn't give it a second thought for a few more years, to have a slightly different attitude now.

[edwaleni]

What is better, Wireguard or Nebula?

Has anyone seen any good end to end testing of these as of late?

Google only has a bunch of Reddits.

[Danny3]

But how are they going to do that?
Are they taking the same idiotic move that Canonical has made, instead of updating the kernel to the one that natively supports it, they will invest their time to backport it?
At the rte that Google is updating the kernel by the time that Android will use 5.6 with native support for Wireguard it probably year 2050.

[Syfer]

What is better, Wireguard or Nebula?

Has anyone seen any good end to end testing of these as of late?

Google only has a bunch of Reddits.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019...-step-by-step/

In arstechnica's testing, WireGuard was 2x faster than Nebula on Ubuntu 18.04

[andyprough]

Makes sense that Google would fall in love with wireguard, if it is still not usable without server logs.

A VPN where Google can monitor all your android traffic sounds right up their alley.

[edwaleni]

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019...-step-by-step/

In arstechnica's testing, WireGuard was 2x faster than Nebula on Ubuntu 18.04

Thanks, much appreciated.

In this case I wasn't looking at mesh VPN specifically, I had read about how Slack was so happy about Nebula performance versus OpenVPN, which is also the selling point of Wireguard.

From reading the Wireguard spec, it is possible to create a mesh VPN with them but the authentication schemes would have to be built.

It will be interesting to see if Nebula simply drops their own spec and simply adopts Wireguard since it was designed to be somewhat ubiquitous.

I kind of laughed when they said running Wireguard with DPDK was "exotic". I can see encrypted voip traffic performance go up dramatically if something in this vein was implemented.

It certainly offers some new avenues to explore in secure communications in the next few years.

[edwaleni]

Makes sense that Google would fall in love with wireguard, if it is still not usable without server logs.

A VPN where Google can monitor all your android traffic sounds right up their alley.

A VPN for their use only I assume. Many android apps will not load if they detect a VPN is active on the device. Banking apps, financial apps, some commerce apps.

[hyperchaotic]

Who to blame is really kind of difficult. IMHO, the ones most deserving of it are the American phone carriers. They all wanted their own special version with all their special crap* when at most we needed two versions -- CDMA and GSM.

Oh god, that brings me back, anecdote time: I was a lead software engineer in an European company called Symbian Software, making a smartphone OS. We would license it to companies like Nokia, SONY-Ericsson, Motorola, etc. who would put their own UI on top (UI was plugable), rebrand and sell phones with it. It was all the GSM standard, worked all over the world on any GSM network. It was the worlds leading Smartphone OS outside US. It was based on the PSion EPOC32 operating system.

Then one day we decided to cater for the US market. Simple right? Make a CDMA version and Bob's your uncle? Wrong! EVERY provider in the US had their own version of CDMA with a thick phone book worth of protocol extensions and differences (in every layer of the stack) and it had to be certified individually for each provider. Even high level feature wise, some wanted Bluetooth, others wanted it disabled or only specific features enabled (like headphones but not file transfer). I still wake up some nights in a cold sweat, needing a drink of something strong.

Another anecdote: in the early days we asked US providers why not be interoperable with SMS across networks? They invented it, it must be easy. They said "No, nobody want to fiddle with little stupid text messages on a phone and yeah maybe some do but if they do there's no reason to send them to competing providers". They were, at first, completely ignoring that SMS was already a billion euro market in Europe. After some thought they did allow SMS across networks.

Many years later Apple offered an open version of the iMessage protocol to the providers for free but they refused because now they were making money per SMS and iMessage being encrypted end-to-end took control away from providers. Keeping control is why RCS is now still not encrypted end to end, only client-server: "We approached the carriers to pursue adding features to the existing texting systems and removing the additional customer costs," Forstall said. "For various reasons, from the difficulty of extending the existing standards, to challenges with interoperability between texting systems and carriers, to the desire of carriers to protect a significant revenue stream, these explorations didn't pan out."

Ok, time for two fingers of Scotch.

[edwaleni]

Many years later Apple offered an open version of the iMessage protocol to the providers for free but they refused because now they were making money per SMS and iMessage being encrypted end-to-end took control away from providers. Keeping control is why RCS is now still not encrypted end to end, only client-server: "We approached the carriers to pursue adding features to the existing texting systems and removing the additional customer costs," Forstall said. "For various reasons, from the difficulty of extending the existing standards, to challenges with interoperability between texting systems and carriers, to the desire of carriers to protect a significant revenue stream, these explorations didn't pan out."

Ok, time for two fingers of Scotch.

Macallen Single Malt perhaps?

iMessage allowed non-carrier devices to get the same message. Total chaos to the carrier revenue stream.

Apple would have been better served to open up FaceTime. Even today, with such a large number of alternates available that are clearly cross platform, no one cares. Think of the telemetry they could have gotten, but no. Even today they treat it like the secret sauce on a Big Mac, when the world has moved on to In and Out or Shake Shack.

[hyperchaotic]

Macallen Single Malt perhaps?

iMessage allowed non-carrier devices to get the same message. Total chaos to the carrier revenue stream.

Apple would have been better served to open up FaceTime. Even today, with such a large number of alternates available that are clearly cross platform, no one cares. Think of the telemetry they could have gotten, but no. Even today they treat it like the secret sauce on a Big Mac, when the world has moved on to In and Out or Shake Shack.

Yes, that would have been nice. Actually these days I use Facetime/Skype/WhatsApp audio when I can, instead of mobile network because it generally sounds better. Sometimes cell networks don't support HD Audio across providers...