[sf-lug] Next SF-LUG meeting to be by Jit.si meets and some other matters/

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):

> And then we have a new tool for enabling networking and all
> that implies between computers https://www.zerotier.com/.
> One of my fellow PCLinuxOS Forum members found this and
> the discussion of what he is doing is at
> https://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,149644.0.html
> 
> i hope that the knowledgeable people like Rick Moen and others here
> will be taking a good look at this.  It seems that it could help us in
> the LUG.

Well, for whatever reason, I'd not heard of this thing until this
moment, so -- of necessity, anything I say here is an off-the-cuff
impression.

Looking at https://www.zerotier.com/, I think:  Er, what?  Some
proprietary thing, for starters, as per
https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne .  

  ZeroTier is a smart programmable Ethernet switch for planet Earth. It
  allows all networked devices, VMs, containers, and applications to
  communicate as if they all reside in the same physical data center or
  cloud region.

  This is accomplished by combining a cryptographically addressed and
  secure peer to peer network (termed VL1) with an Ethernet emulation
  layer somewhat similar to VXLAN (termed VL2). Our VL2 Ethernet
  virtualization layer includes advanced enterprise SDN features like fine
  grained access control rules for network micro-segmentation and security
  monitoring.

So, all-singing, all-dancing secret-sauce networking.  No thanks.

(Elsewhere, they claim all this is open source, but the licensing
statement at https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne makes clear this is
untrue.)

I also find their "let us handle all of your device authentication and
communication, using a Virtual Private Network registered with Zero Tier,
based on an account set up there" model not the least bit attractive.

So, sorry, not going to spend more time on that.

I'm mystified about why Texstar and others didn't see through that
balderdash and turn away from it after a minute's scrutiny, which is all
it required for me.