Opensource

Recently I came down to want a mobile hotspot when going out of home, something like Netgear Nighthawk M series, but able to flash custom firmware (OpenWrt/pfSense equivalents) and cheap. However, there is no such thing on the market even without budget consideration. So it has to be done with DIY, like USB tethering with a router. In the case of tethering or so called Ethernet over USB, we are using a phone as a cellular modem for our router. ...

RustDesk is my favorite remote desktop tool which is the best alternative to any closed-source solutions, such as TeamViewer and Anydesk. It’s kinda like Bitwarden in the post-breach era of the cloud password manager (LastPass/1Password) market. As a light user of RustDesk, I use it only occasionally. So I didn’t setup my own RD server on VPS even though I suppose to. For some reason, one of my RustDesk client got blocked to the official servers. So now I have enough reason to properly making it up. ...

the “Open Source AI Manifesto” Mark Zuckerberg has been hated by Richard Stallman for decades and he is the only person who appears on both cover image of the video essays: How the Internet was Stolen and How AI was Stolen by Then & Now. However, things has changed recently after his adoption of the Fediverse and open-sourcing of Llama continuously. In Zuckerberg’s latest “Open Source AI Manifesto”, he stated 5 needs of open-source: We need to train, fine-tune, and distill our own models. We need to control our own destiny and not get locked into a closed vendor. We need to protect our data. We need a model that is efficient and affordable to run. We want to invest in the ecosystem that’s going to be the standard for the long term. That describes the needs of tech individuals and small businesses accurately. ...

AI-Generated content can be fun or “slop” according to Simon Willison, but also can be malevolent due to its abuse in phishing attacks. Some of my readers may have already known that recently I’m working on a side project , which based onchatgpt-html and uses LLMs to detect phishing emails. I think at some point, the tool should be able to detect phishing attempt from video content too. Because deepfake technology is so accessible nowadays and its generated content can be quite convincing. ...

Last year, I bought a Metro locked Oneplus Nord N30 5G (CPH2513/CPH2515) for $60 during a very slick deal. However, this phone was completely unusable due to it is haunted with tons of bloatware and spyware. So I decided to let it sit in a drawer for 180 days and then see what I can do with it. A few days ago, I unlocked it by simply go to About Phone then click Unlock. ...