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Ah! This could have been great for me, except that Tailscale recently cut off access to Cuban nationals to their service (they have their reasons, I guess.) Sti

Ah! This could have been great for me, except that Tailscale recently cut off access to Cuban nationals to their service (they have their reasons, I guess.) Still, I think that the service they're building, step by step, is fine actually.

whimsicalism 3y ago
Any sort of export control/embargo that cuts off specifically VPN access to foreign nationals is supremely stupid imo
- PentiumBug 3y ago
  Exactly. I do believe that certain individuals and organizations might/should be excluded from service here; however, it seems like the only technical solution to regulations enforcement is to wholesale block a whole country.
- foobiekr 3y ago
  Should they sell VPN services to North Korea? What might the reasons be on the "no" side?
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    The NK state is more than capable of arranging their own VPNs. I think the West gains a lot more by having generally available VPN access in adversary states than it loses from their ability to purchase technical services that they still will have difficulty getting access to currency to pay for and they still will have difficulty actually shipping anything to NK.
  - csomar 3y ago
    Bad comparison. NK is a nuclear state with nuclear weapons that is constantly threatening its neighbors. Cuba flirted with the idea but they didn't really materialize any nuclear or military capabilities. This was also a long time ago.
  - lmm 3y ago
    > Should they sell VPN services to North Korea? Yes? Making it easier for North Korean citizens, or even just leadership, to communicate privately with each other and with people outside makes it easier for them to negotiate or even defect, and would help de-escalation efforts. > What might the reasons be on the "no" side? I guess one could argue that the North Korean government doesn't have access to secure VPN systems for government use (pretty implausible IMO) and that increasing their costs is inherently worth it? Realistically most of the opposition would come from those who benefit from the status quo (e.g. arms suppliers) and don't want to see that de-escalation, and I guess the extremely risk averse who would rather keep kicking the can indefinitely and hoping the blowup doesn't come until after they're dead, than risk actually trying to help North Korea's people.
  - ponorin 3y ago
    The vast majority of north koreans only have access to the nationwide intranet. Those that do have outside connection are few trusted elites who are there to do business. And no matter who you are (this also applies to foreigners in the country), your device and connection is heavily monitored by the state. Merely posessing a non-state sanctioned device as a north korean is considered a serious criminal offense. At that point the only use case of a VPN for someone with a north korean IP is for cybercrime and not dissidents.
- bananapub 3y ago
  then talk to the US government about their very fucking dumb failed sanctions regime against Cuba?
  - throwawaysleep 3y ago
    Cubans are nice and poor. With their strong friendship with Russia and China, that is where we want them to be.
    - derefr 3y ago
      You would think we'd want the contrapositive: to enrich them with global influx of capitalist market consumer demand, enough that they gain an independently self-stable economy, and stop feeling the need to rely on the support of Russia and China so much. (Or, at least, offer subsidies to their government if they stop supporting Russian and Chinese spies with their numbers stations et al.)
      - tgma 3y ago
        This is a very naive way to look at the world. Even if theoretically they would be happy with such "self-stable economy" [they naturally won't—nothing prevents human desires to ask for more and try to build win-win friendships,] Russia and China are not sitting around; they would go and meddle with their affairs. Mind you, I am not saying there is an existential possibility of a better policy, but the calculus would be nowhere as trivial as this.
        derefr 3y ago
        > Russia and China are not sitting around; they would go and meddle with their affairs. I mean, certainly, but it's like having a club on your car's steering wheel: it's not about creating perfect protection, it's about ensuring your car isn't the softest target for theft in the parking lot. If Cuba had fewer reasons to talk to Russia and China, then Russia and China would have fewer reasons to talk to Cuba in particular, vs. other Caribbean and Central American nations. Which would, potentially, spread their resources thinner and decrease covert-ops ROI, as they'd be having to engage with several nations who only weakly want them there, instead of one nation that desperately wants them there. (And yes, I do realize that these powers do already engage with other nations in the area, e.g. Nicaragua. But not in the same way / not for the same reasons.)
jkaplowitz 3y ago
While I don’t work for Tailscale and don’t know their specific reasons, I do know that US export controls and sanctions with respect to Cuba are quite complicated and are designed more due to historical & continuing political pressures than sensible policy. I used to be involved in leading a US charitable nonprofit that, during the Obama years, once wanted to pay for someone to attend a technical conference in Cuba (or maybe it was to pay for a Cuban to attend a technical conference elsewhere - I forget). We did actually make it happen, but it involved consulting with lawyers, comparing the details of the situation against the applicable rules, and getting people to promise to stay within those rules. My guess is that either Tailscale or one of the providers they depend on is cutting off Cubans as an attempt to comply with these Cuba-specific US legal obligations, or at least to reduce their risk of falling into non-compliance. At the very least, GitHub has found ways to legally make most (not all) of their offerings available to Cubans / in Cuba despite the sanctions, except for more narrowly banned individuals and groups. So if you can obtain the open source code for Tailscale (client) and Headscale (server), you can at least use that to benefit from Tailscale’s software.
- chipsa 3y ago
  I believe Tailscale re-incorporated from a Canadian company into a US company for various compliance things being easier, but a consequence is that now they have to follow certain US obligations WRT Cuba, amongst others.
Thaxll 3y ago
Small / medium compagnies prefer to play it safe and don't really have the resources to deal with what the Department of State says. Even Google follow some of those: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6163740?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6163740?hl=en
dijit 3y ago
If Tailscale uses services from any of the big hyperscaler cloud providers then they haven't been given a choice.
jmprspret 3y ago
You can run your own "head scale" control server and use their clients with it: https://github.com/juanfont/headscale https://github.com/juanfont/headscale Requires a lot more setup, but it is an option. I've been self-hosting headscale for some time and it is quite stable.

whimsicalism 3y ago

Any sort of export control/embargo that cuts off specifically VPN access to foreign nationals is supremely stupid imo

PentiumBug 3y ago
Exactly. I do believe that certain individuals and organizations might/should be excluded from service here; however, it seems like the only technical solution to regulations enforcement is to wholesale block a whole country.
foobiekr 3y ago
Should they sell VPN services to North Korea? What might the reasons be on the "no" side?
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  The NK state is more than capable of arranging their own VPNs. I think the West gains a lot more by having generally available VPN access in adversary states than it loses from their ability to purchase technical services that they still will have difficulty getting access to currency to pay for and they still will have difficulty actually shipping anything to NK.
- csomar 3y ago
  Bad comparison. NK is a nuclear state with nuclear weapons that is constantly threatening its neighbors. Cuba flirted with the idea but they didn't really materialize any nuclear or military capabilities. This was also a long time ago.
- lmm 3y ago
  > Should they sell VPN services to North Korea? Yes? Making it easier for North Korean citizens, or even just leadership, to communicate privately with each other and with people outside makes it easier for them to negotiate or even defect, and would help de-escalation efforts. > What might the reasons be on the "no" side? I guess one could argue that the North Korean government doesn't have access to secure VPN systems for government use (pretty implausible IMO) and that increasing their costs is inherently worth it? Realistically most of the opposition would come from those who benefit from the status quo (e.g. arms suppliers) and don't want to see that de-escalation, and I guess the extremely risk averse who would rather keep kicking the can indefinitely and hoping the blowup doesn't come until after they're dead, than risk actually trying to help North Korea's people.
- ponorin 3y ago
  The vast majority of north koreans only have access to the nationwide intranet. Those that do have outside connection are few trusted elites who are there to do business. And no matter who you are (this also applies to foreigners in the country), your device and connection is heavily monitored by the state. Merely posessing a non-state sanctioned device as a north korean is considered a serious criminal offense. At that point the only use case of a VPN for someone with a north korean IP is for cybercrime and not dissidents.
bananapub 3y ago
then talk to the US government about their very fucking dumb failed sanctions regime against Cuba?
- throwawaysleep 3y ago
  Cubans are nice and poor. With their strong friendship with Russia and China, that is where we want them to be.
  - derefr 3y ago
    You would think we'd want the contrapositive: to enrich them with global influx of capitalist market consumer demand, enough that they gain an independently self-stable economy, and stop feeling the need to rely on the support of Russia and China so much. (Or, at least, offer subsidies to their government if they stop supporting Russian and Chinese spies with their numbers stations et al.)
    - tgma 3y ago
      This is a very naive way to look at the world. Even if theoretically they would be happy with such "self-stable economy" [they naturally won't—nothing prevents human desires to ask for more and try to build win-win friendships,] Russia and China are not sitting around; they would go and meddle with their affairs. Mind you, I am not saying there is an existential possibility of a better policy, but the calculus would be nowhere as trivial as this.
      - derefr 3y ago
        > Russia and China are not sitting around; they would go and meddle with their affairs. I mean, certainly, but it's like having a club on your car's steering wheel: it's not about creating perfect protection, it's about ensuring your car isn't the softest target for theft in the parking lot. If Cuba had fewer reasons to talk to Russia and China, then Russia and China would have fewer reasons to talk to Cuba in particular, vs. other Caribbean and Central American nations. Which would, potentially, spread their resources thinner and decrease covert-ops ROI, as they'd be having to engage with several nations who only weakly want them there, instead of one nation that desperately wants them there. (And yes, I do realize that these powers do already engage with other nations in the area, e.g. Nicaragua. But not in the same way / not for the same reasons.)

jkaplowitz 3y ago

While I don’t work for Tailscale and don’t know their specific reasons, I do know that US export controls and sanctions with respect to Cuba are quite complicated and are designed more due to historical & continuing political pressures than sensible policy. I used to be involved in leading a US charitable nonprofit that, during the Obama years, once wanted to pay for someone to attend a technical conference in Cuba (or maybe it was to pay for a Cuban to attend a technical conference elsewhere - I forget). We did actually make it happen, but it involved consulting with lawyers, comparing the details of the situation against the applicable rules, and getting people to promise to stay within those rules. My guess is that either Tailscale or one of the providers they depend on is cutting off Cubans as an attempt to comply with these Cuba-specific US legal obligations, or at least to reduce their risk of falling into non-compliance. At the very least, GitHub has found ways to legally make most (not all) of their offerings available to Cubans / in Cuba despite the sanctions, except for more narrowly banned individuals and groups. So if you can obtain the open source code for Tailscale (client) and Headscale (server), you can at least use that to benefit from Tailscale’s software.

chipsa 3y ago
I believe Tailscale re-incorporated from a Canadian company into a US company for various compliance things being easier, but a consequence is that now they have to follow certain US obligations WRT Cuba, amongst others.

Thaxll 3y ago

Small / medium compagnies prefer to play it safe and don't really have the resources to deal with what the Department of State says. Even Google follow some of those: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6163740?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6163740?hl=en

dijit 3y ago

If Tailscale uses services from any of the big hyperscaler cloud providers then they haven't been given a choice.

jmprspret 3y ago

You can run your own "head scale" control server and use their clients with it: https://github.com/juanfont/headscale https://github.com/juanfont/headscale Requires a lot more setup, but it is an option. I've been self-hosting headscale for some time and it is quite stable.