Having tried my hand with OpenVPN to provide a secure Internet connection for my gadgets while travelling, I was less than impressed by the throughput on the Raspberry Pi. At a measly 3 Mbps, it was simply not good enough.
I had heard about Wireguard almost a year back, but last week's ArsTechnica article rekindled my interest. Many others have also tried their hands, and looks like it's all set to take over the VPN landscape. Major benefits include a much simplified setup (compared to the maze that is OpenVPN), superior performance (throughput much greater than others), much smaller codebase (only 4,000 lines of code, compared to 600,000 for OpenVPN and 400,000 for IPSEC) which theoretically translates into a reduced attack surface and others.
Spun up a VPS instance and installed Wireguard. From install to setup on both server and client, it literally took less than 10 minutes and I had a working connection on my Android phone. A quick test indicates almost 4-5x times faster speeds than OpenVPN, and nearly instantaneous connection against the roughly 8-10 seconds for OpenVPN. Another major benefit seems to be that the protocol is not chatty, and packets need not be sent regularly to keep the connection alive - a major concern for mobile devices with batteries that drain quickly. It also promises full IP roaming on both peers (term to refer to both 'server' and 'client' on Wireguard), again significant when switching between WiFi and cellular connections where each transition would have otherwise initiated a full renegotiation of the session.
Still under heavy development, I couldn't find a package for the Raspberry Pi yet, although it can be compiled. The Android release is very basic and experimental. However, Wireguard could be soon integrated into the Linux kernel itself, giving it much needed code review and mainstream acceptance. Even Linus himself seems to be a fan.
Sep 1, 2018
Nov 8, 2017
Six second ads and consumers
Seems like the whole of advertising industry is moving towards shorter ad formats. Driven primarily by behemoths YouTube and Facebook, and taken up by other digital publishers, even TV is embracing six seconders as the next big thing. Is this just us admitting to the fact that consumer attention spans are rapidly shrinking or just that we can't be bothered to properly craft the story with the time and attention it deserves or maybe a combination of both?
There's definitely a strong case which can be made for the six-seconder. A brand which has already reached threshold levels in awareness may benefit by using it to amp up the frequency, and thereby, top-of-mind recall - major FMCG brands being an obvious example. There are also many brands with creatives which are worth watching over and over, in infinite loops of six seconds each. But when everyone jumps on the bandwagon, I'm not too hopeful the thinking will last, and we will end up being pummelled by them.
In a hyper-fragmented landscape of infinitely scrolling timelines and unlimited media choices, the primary benchmark by which creative and media efficacy should be measured is very simple - relevance. Are we reaching the right audience in the right context and telling her a story that she finds useful, and maybe even enjoys? Chances are, she will appreciate the effort and remember us for it. Or would we rather cop out and hope that she forgives us the six second intrusion, since there's so much less of it to hate?
There's definitely a strong case which can be made for the six-seconder. A brand which has already reached threshold levels in awareness may benefit by using it to amp up the frequency, and thereby, top-of-mind recall - major FMCG brands being an obvious example. There are also many brands with creatives which are worth watching over and over, in infinite loops of six seconds each. But when everyone jumps on the bandwagon, I'm not too hopeful the thinking will last, and we will end up being pummelled by them.
In a hyper-fragmented landscape of infinitely scrolling timelines and unlimited media choices, the primary benchmark by which creative and media efficacy should be measured is very simple - relevance. Are we reaching the right audience in the right context and telling her a story that she finds useful, and maybe even enjoys? Chances are, she will appreciate the effort and remember us for it. Or would we rather cop out and hope that she forgives us the six second intrusion, since there's so much less of it to hate?
Jul 15, 2017
Perspective is everything
The new job now takes me on a longer commute, through the insane Bangalore traffic at rush hours. Having avoided it for the last three years, thanks to Namma Metro, this was something I was dreading.
Podcasts to the rescue. There's nothing better than Radiolab and This American Life, with Snap Judgement and The Moth sprinkled in for good measure, to help endure the never-ending, bumper-to-bumper traffic and the ensuing road rage. I would strongly recommend these and a few others (refer sidebar for links) to make time on the road a little more bearable.
As Rory Sutherland so eloquently puts it in this video, perspective is everything.
Podcasts to the rescue. There's nothing better than Radiolab and This American Life, with Snap Judgement and The Moth sprinkled in for good measure, to help endure the never-ending, bumper-to-bumper traffic and the ensuing road rage. I would strongly recommend these and a few others (refer sidebar for links) to make time on the road a little more bearable.
As Rory Sutherland so eloquently puts it in this video, perspective is everything.
Nov 24, 2015
Raspberry Pi 2 : Getting started
Not having played around with Linux for a long time, I finally decided to set up a Raspberry Pi 2 project. For $35, this tiny computer does pack a punch. This spec sheet details out everything. You can basically set up a small web, mail, or home automation server and more.
My idea was to turn it into a VPN gateway that sits between my TV and home router and serve up a US IP through OpenVPN. This will basically let me stream Netflix or Hulu directly on the TV, without the need of Miracast or DLNA devices/software.
Having dabbled with OpenVPN and basic routing when setting up my VPS, this was fairly straightforward. I was inspired by this Makezine guide, which used two Wifi dongles - one for connecting to the local network and the other for hosting the VPN access point. Picking the correct dongles is also important; it would need to support the soft AP function. I used an Edimax EW-7811 Un and a Tenda W311MI. Both are fairly cheap and robust, although the Edimax one seems to drop a lot of packets.
In addition to stock Raspbian (a Debian-based distro, optimized for Raspberry Pi), you would also need to install hostapd which will turn the dongle into an AP and also dnsmasq for basic DHCP and DNS for clients connecting to the AP. Once done, you would need to use iptables to do the routing, which basically takes the traffic from the wifi subnet and forwards it to the VPN tunnel. Any client connecting to the AP will have a public IP address of the VPN server.
Performance in terms of VPN throughput remains a concern. My Android phone, connected to the VPN directly, gives 18 Mbps down, whereas the Raspberry AP only gives 3 Mbps. Many discussions suggest this could be due to a bottleneck, as the Ethernet and USB ports share the same interface and the traffic has to traverse the bus twice. Switching the inbound interface from USB to Ethernet didn't improve the situation either; some commenters also suggest that the CPU itself could be a problem. However, 'top' didn't reveal much load on the CPU.
3 Mbps is barely enough to provide a SD stream, so HD is pretty much impossible. Still needs some digging around to identify where the bottleneck is. Even so, I would consider this project a 'fruit'ful one.
My idea was to turn it into a VPN gateway that sits between my TV and home router and serve up a US IP through OpenVPN. This will basically let me stream Netflix or Hulu directly on the TV, without the need of Miracast or DLNA devices/software.
Having dabbled with OpenVPN and basic routing when setting up my VPS, this was fairly straightforward. I was inspired by this Makezine guide, which used two Wifi dongles - one for connecting to the local network and the other for hosting the VPN access point. Picking the correct dongles is also important; it would need to support the soft AP function. I used an Edimax EW-7811 Un and a Tenda W311MI. Both are fairly cheap and robust, although the Edimax one seems to drop a lot of packets.
In addition to stock Raspbian (a Debian-based distro, optimized for Raspberry Pi), you would also need to install hostapd which will turn the dongle into an AP and also dnsmasq for basic DHCP and DNS for clients connecting to the AP. Once done, you would need to use iptables to do the routing, which basically takes the traffic from the wifi subnet and forwards it to the VPN tunnel. Any client connecting to the AP will have a public IP address of the VPN server.
Performance in terms of VPN throughput remains a concern. My Android phone, connected to the VPN directly, gives 18 Mbps down, whereas the Raspberry AP only gives 3 Mbps. Many discussions suggest this could be due to a bottleneck, as the Ethernet and USB ports share the same interface and the traffic has to traverse the bus twice. Switching the inbound interface from USB to Ethernet didn't improve the situation either; some commenters also suggest that the CPU itself could be a problem. However, 'top' didn't reveal much load on the CPU.
3 Mbps is barely enough to provide a SD stream, so HD is pretty much impossible. Still needs some digging around to identify where the bottleneck is. Even so, I would consider this project a 'fruit'ful one.
 |
| With the case open |
 |
| Up and running |
Jan 31, 2011
Kindle 3G - First impressions
Finally, after months of waiting, I have the Kindle 3G in my hands. And it has been well worth the wait.
The screen is a pleasure to read from, coming almost close to a printed book in terms of resolution and sharpness. Having read an e-book for more than an hour in a sitting, I came out of it without a headache or eyestrain. The Kindle truly delivers on Amazon's promise that within a few page turns (virtual, of course), you will disappear into the book. I know I did.
The experimental web browser is just that, experimental. The pages take some time to load, but it helps if images are turned of and you are reading the mobile version of the page. But then again, I didn't buy it for browsing the web, and it is more than a nice-to-have.
I only wish that Amazon brings down the Kindle book prices than their physical copies, still can't see the rationale of a digital copy costing as much as the real thing. However, if you are a bibliophile and can't have enough of the printed word, the Kindle is the best gift you could buy yourself.
The screen is a pleasure to read from, coming almost close to a printed book in terms of resolution and sharpness. Having read an e-book for more than an hour in a sitting, I came out of it without a headache or eyestrain. The Kindle truly delivers on Amazon's promise that within a few page turns (virtual, of course), you will disappear into the book. I know I did.
The experimental web browser is just that, experimental. The pages take some time to load, but it helps if images are turned of and you are reading the mobile version of the page. But then again, I didn't buy it for browsing the web, and it is more than a nice-to-have.
I only wish that Amazon brings down the Kindle book prices than their physical copies, still can't see the rationale of a digital copy costing as much as the real thing. However, if you are a bibliophile and can't have enough of the printed word, the Kindle is the best gift you could buy yourself.
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