Technology

Building My Own VPN

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I started writing the background of this blog entry. I looked at my own archive and realised I had stopped using remote access software sometime in 2016. I think I got spooked by the changes that logmein did to their free plan or that it got bought by someone.  I forget.  As an alternative I started with remote SSH to remotely manage my growing network of raspberry pi’s. As my setup evolved, I eventually upgraded to OpenVPN for my home network. This way, when I was out with my iPad or laptop, I could connect to my home network and manage my media center.

When WireGuard came along, I switched to that because it was so easy to set up. I’ve been using it ever since for those rare occasions when I need remote access to my house.

Recently, I started experimenting with Tailscale, which is a mesh network implementation of WireGuard. The concept sounded great, and their free plan supports up to 100 devices across three users, which is more than enough for me. I set up Tailscale on my workstation and most of my Raspberry Pis. Now, instead of using WireGuard to connect to my home network when I want to access the media center, I just log my iPad onto the Tailscale mesh network, giving me seamless access to all my services. To make things easier, I use CNAME records with one of my domain names, so I don’t have to remember the cryptic Tailscale-provided domain names. It’s all been working smoothly.

With M and the girls away this week, I’ve had time to play around with Tailscale’s exit nodes. This feature allows me to route all my internet traffic through any Tailscale client I set up as an exit node. I found this intriguing because it lets me browse the internet as if I were at home, even when I’m out. I also experimented with setting up an exit node on my VPS in Texas, so I could route my traffic through there.

I recently noticed Tailscale offers Mullvad VPN exit nodes as an add-on. Mullvad is a solid VPN provider; if I didn’t already have Proton for other services, I’d probably use them. This add-on is essentially a full Mullvad VPN plan for five devices, allowing me to configure Mullvad exit nodes. I’ve been testing it over the past few days, both at home and on the go with my phone and iPad. Like any VPN, there’s a bit of overhead in terms of latency and bandwidth, but I’ve been using the London exit node and haven’t noticed any performance issues.

What’s great about this setup versus a traditional VPN is that I don’t have to toggle anything off to access my home network—my connections just work. This setup is letting me keep a VPN on all the time when I’m out, which I prefer. The Mullvad add-on costs an extra $5 per month on top of the Proton services I already use, but it’s been worth it so far. With a single click, I can switch the exit node to any other Mullvad location or one of my own, like my home network or VPS.

I’m actually so happy with this setup that I’m considering configuring the girls’ iPads to have always-on VPN through Tailscale.

an extra $5 per month on top of the Proton services I already use, but it’s been worth it so far. With a single click, I can switch the exit node to any other Mullvad location or one of my own, like my home network or VPS.

I’m actually so happy with this setup that I’m considering configuring the girls’ iPads to have always-on VPN through Tailscale.

Since I had some extra free time this week, I bought an additional Raspberry Pi 4 specifically as a VPN exit node for the house. I’d been experimenting with an existing Pi 4 as the exit node while it was handling other tasks, but I ran into some routing issues and didn’t want to troubleshoot on a device already in use. So, I spent about £50 on a new Pi and case. I do have a couple of Pi 3s lying around, but I didn’t want to use them due to their 100meg network bandwidth limitations. A Pi 5 seemed like overkill for this purpose, though I did pick one up for another project (which I might write about later).

So far, I’m very pleased with my new mesh VPN setup!

Star Trek PADD’s are not as good as an iPad Mini 6

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Years ago, when I was working in New York, I got my hands on one of the first-generation iPads. It was fantastic. Right from the start, I knew this device was going fit a tech gap I didn’t even realise I had until I saw it.

One memorable day, my boss called me into his office. As usual, I grabbed my iPad—I often used it to jot down notes or show something relevant during discussions. Walking into his office, I felt a bit like a character from Star Trek, carrying something essential. I couldn’t resist sharing this thought with him: “I totally feel like Commander Riker walking into Picard’s office to discuss something important.” It earned a good laugh and lightened the mood.

Recently, this memory came back to me while I was thinking about how indispensable my iPad mini has become. It’s with me almost everywhere, serving as a book, a large phone, or a general input device. Comparing the sleek design of the current iPad mini with the clunky Star Trek PADDs from science fiction 30 years ago, I couldn’t help but appreciate how far technology has come. Back then, they only thought about each PADD doing seemingly one thing since people walked around with many of them. 23 century suckers, my iPad mini can multi-task.

Reflecting on these advancements, it’s clear that our modern ‘PADDs’ have far surpassed the sci-fi visions of the past.

Everyone Gets an IP Address

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I just got a new internet provider (might blog in more detail about them another time. One of the reasons I like them is they are not restrictive. I get a static IP address on my router. Nothing is filtered. I even get a /64 IPv6 range. Now I am trying to figure out how to use that many addresses. To non tech folks it’s never. That is how much it is.

All I Want Is A Dumb TV

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We got a new television back in October 2022. As much as I try to stay up on the trends in technology, purchasing televisions has always made me apprehensive. When I bought the television in our living room nine years ago, I remember spending a lot of time researching and still not being 100% sure what I was getting was just right. The time before that, when I got my first LCD TV, was just as stressful. There are so many features that I really don’t know if having them matters. Even when reviewers say you need 240 Hz or whatever is the thing to get, I question whether it’s really worth the extra money when M doesn’t really care and my eyes aren’t exactly perfect anyway. I digress. I just want to talk about one bell and whistle in TVs today that you cannot avoid: the smart in smart TVs.

When I bought my last television in 2013, it was pretty hard, if not impossible, to get a decent TV without smart software. I didn’t like it then. I only used the Wi-Fi on our other television a few times to update firmware. That turned out to be a great decision on my part. The Vizio TV we had was one of the models where they were caught up spying on their customers. I forget exactly what they were doing, but I think it was either using the microphone to listen in or to see what advertisements people were interacting with. Either way, it was creepy and illegal. It didn’t impact me since my Wi-Fi on the TV was off, so there was no way for the TV to communicate with the vendor.

When I received our new TV, the folks from John Lewis went to set it up for me (it was part of the deal of mounting it on the wall). They asked what my Wi-Fi details were. I told them they didn’t need to do anything and that the television would never join my Wi-Fi network. It turns out, however, that I was incorrect. I tried to keep the television off the Wi-Fi network, but if I did that, I got a warning that remained on the screen until I connected it to the Wi-Fi. I guess the TV was smarter than I thought! 😂

Full disclosure I took the original complete blog entry I wrote previously and ran it through Microsoft Copilot, because why not. The results were not far from what I wrote but just better enough that for fun I am posting it!

The Story of my Technology Stress Dream

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In the summer of 2019 I woke up to wrote down the details of a crazy stress dream I had. In the dream, I was working for the leader of a country that was just a bit unstable. Everyone around them seemed pretty out of it and I was trying to be reasonable and rationalise my working there.

Then I woke up. For a minute I was really confused and was not really sure why in the world I had a dream like that. Then I told M about it. And as I was talking to her it dawned on me. The night before I had purchased a SIM card from Google-Fi for our trip to New York that summer. Now it was not as difficult as you might think to associate working for an almost dictator and buying a Google-Fi.SIM card. I actually fretted over the SIM card purchase. I had spent many months previously ridding myself of all direct usage of Google services. Now here I am buying their phone service that inevitably was tracking me in ways that if I fully understood I would probably be very concerned. Then I rationalised the purchase because it was inexpensive compared to most other options and gave me a US number for our trip.

If I’m honest with myself I subconsciously associated buying Fi mobile service with going to work for an evil dictator. It’s not however I should have gone with my initial instinct and stayed away from their services. I know that they harvest data from my information and that’s okay if you know that and are okay with it. I’m not ok with it. I typically try to avoid it for my privacy. I’m also happy to encourage others not to do it. That doesn’t mean that Google is a horrible company. They really aren’t. I have friends that work there that love it. I even went to several interviews with them years ago and seriously contemplated working there.

I found it fascinating that I had that particular stress stream the day after I. made that purchase. I did use the service for the month we were in New York. I then cancelled it and have no intention of getting it again. Besides whatever data collection they do when you have the service it actually was pretty good service. And that is the problem. Not many people say google doesn’t offer nice stuff. it is the true cost that I am not ok with.

Is This Tech Snobbery?

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Is it wrong to be tech biased against businesses (by not using them) in 2023 that still say email us and they give a Hotmail address?

Replace Hotmail with AOL and it’s the same question.

If you said ok to the first question do I assume the same is true if a merchants website looks like it originally was on geocities? Points for you if my last sentance makes any sense and you know what Geocities was!

Maybe I have a Hoarding Problem

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So saving one or maybe 3 of something “just in case” is ok. Having 15 micro SD to SD card adapters is likely past the point of being considered a hoarder.

If having 15 was borderline hoarder then realizing I did not even have a slot on my computer to use the SD card adapters most likely put me over the top.

Classic Text to Speech Voices

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Siri

I do not know why I find it funny every time I hear the automated announcements from Amtrak or the LIRR for that matter too. It’s 2023 (almost 2024). In the age of Siri and Google Assistant sounding almost like real people, Amtrak is sticking with a voice that reminds me of (because it’s the exact voice) a text to speech voice used in bad (and good) YouTube video voice overs from 2009.

London or all of England Train announcements are made by real people or pre recorded by people. Amtrak is at least trying to be modern with a full text to speech system. Or cheap, since they don’t have to hire voice actors. I think this particular voice was so widely used because it was free.

So what sounds more modern the old school person recordings or the synthetic one that is literally used in cheap cartoons?

Why Do We Always Have to Choose Between Convenience and Privacy?

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It was a bit disturbing how fast using Global Entry got me through Passport Control at JFK today. I did not show my passport at all. I just had my picture taken and then walked by a guy at a terminal and he said my name as I walked by saying I was good to go. Entire process was maybe 2 minutes including the one minute for a kiosk to open up to let me take my photo.

In one way that entire process was right out of several movies. So cool us. On the other hand is having a US government agency have my facial recognition profile on file for a few minutes quicker passport control? I am struggling to answer that after looking at the passport control line as I walked briskly to the exit.

Spoilers, I am in New York for 3 days this weekend. Surprise everyone I did not mention that to. That is not the focus of this post but kind of a tip off that I am in the states going through Global Entry. This trip may spawn some other posts especially since I may have time to write while further traveling.

Let The Waiting For The Raspberry Pi 5 Begin…

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So of course I pre-ordered the Raspberry Pi 5 (8gb) after I saw that it was announced. Sadly I missed the announcement by a day or two. I then saw the guidance that by the time I pre-ordered it would have to wait till sometime in early 2024 to receive it.

I also saw even after the launch if you subscribed to either of two Pi magazines you could get yours straight away. Yes I almost subscribed, but i am proud of myself for not doing it and waiting patiently. Or am I?