ChatGPT-o1, 45 seconds thinking:

Transcribing unique symbols

OK, let me see. The string is transliterated into Latin characters, with visually similar conversions like ‘Ꮋ’ to ‘H’ and ‘0’ to ‘o’. This approach preserves the original meanings while ensuring readability.

Mapping out characters

I’m comparing unique characters with Latin counterparts. For instance, ‘ᛖ’ corresponds to ‘e’, ‘ο’ resembles ‘o’, and ‘Ԍ’ aligns with ‘G’. This helps in understanding their possible meanings.

Piecing it together

I’m analyzing characters like ‘ⅼ’ and ‘у’ to map them to Latin or Cyrillic equivalents, considering possibilities like “Holy Glyphs” or “H0ly Glyphs” for accurate representation.

Piecing it together

Transliterating characters like ‘Ꮋ’, ‘0’, ‘ᛖ’, and ‘ο’ into Latin script to form words such as “Hieroglyphs” or “Holy Glyphs”. This process helps clarify the intended meaning.

Crunching the data

I’m refining the transliteration of characters like ‘Ꮋ’ to ‘H’, ‘0’ possibly to ‘i’ or ‘o’, and ‘ᛖ’ to ‘e’ to form “Hieroglyphs” or possibly “Hoeroglyphs”. This ensures a clearer interpretation.

Testing translations

OK, let me see. I’m trying out translations like “ᛖоԌⅼуᏢʜѕ” to see if they form “HOLY glyphs” or “eogluPhs”. Neither seems quite right, so I’m investigating further options.

Mapping out characters

I’m decoding “áᚱе ᏟhäʀɑсᎢᎬᚱႽ” to “are characters”. Breaking down each symbol, I’m curious if “häʀɑсᎢᎬᚱႽ” may represent a specific context or word.

Decoding progress

OK, let me see. I’m figuring out if “häʀɑсᎢᎬᚱႽ” means “characters” and “thàt” or “ηâτ” could mean “that”. Each symbol contributes to this possibility.

Piecing together words

Transliterating symbols like “Ｌоοᛕ” to “Look”, “ⅼіᛕË” to “like”, and “ᏞëｔＴêᚱᏚ” to “Letters”, I ensure each symbol’s context is accurately captured.

Breaking down symbols

OK, let me see. Translating “Ꮋ0ᛖοԌⅼуᏢʜѕ” to “Hieroglyphs” involves evaluating “0” as “i” or “o”, aligning with the intended letter in “Hieroglyphs”.

Matching symbols

OK, let me see if “0” replaces “r” in “Hieroglyphs.” “Ꮋ” is ‘H’, “0” might be ‘i’, “ᛖ” is ‘e’, and “ο” usually ‘r’.

Revisiting the process

I’m starting over with “αɣ(῵9.β)” to confirm “Hieroglyphs” decoding. I’m pulling together observations on each symbol to ensure accuracy.

Piecing together clues

Ah, I’m decoding “Ꮋ0ᛖοԌⅼуᏢʜѕ” to “Hieroglyphs”. Mapping each symbol to their corresponding letters, I find consistency in the pattern.

Weighing interpretations

Considering whether the Greek letter ‘omicron’ stands for ‘o’ or ‘r’ in “Hieroglyphs.” This suggests a mismatch in translating the original text. Progressing through these options one by one clarifies the likely meaning.

Weighing options

I’m thinking “hieroglyphs” might be off track. Considering “Homoglyphs” as it aligns with “0” often substituting ‘o’. This shift in focus offers a fresh perspective.

Evaluating translation

I’m thinking “Homoglyphs” might be close. The runic letter “ᛖ” is tricky, but “Homoglyphs” aligns with characters that resemble letters, which seems promising.

Pulling together

“Homoglyphs” makes sense as it pertains to characters that look alike from various scripts. This seems to fit the given symbols.

Piecing it together

“Homoglyphs” fits given the visual resemblance of the symbols to letters from different scripts. This approach highlights the worth of examining character shapes.

Here’s the plain‐text reading of those mixed‐script glyphs:

“Homoglyphs are characters that look like letters.”

If:

• Anonymous SIM cards are an option where you live
• You do not want to beacon your approximate location to cell towers continuously, BUT having a base station is acceptable

(1) Router:

You can get an LTE/5G router, just make sure that it has the option for SMS forwarding. For recieving SMS you do not need to have an “active” plan, you only have to prevent the SIM card from being cancelled. This usually happens after several months of not topping up, so you can top-up with a $5 code every 5 months or so. You can leave this plugged in in your home and have your SMS forwarder with a local number. In my case, I got rid of my ISP and make use of my 5G router for anonymous internet at home, but since I swap the SIM card for .

(2) Raspberry Pi

If you want more flexibility, you can get some form of LTE module for a raspberry pi. I use the SIM7600G-H. You can find this module as a HAT with a USB adapter. You put in a SIM card and you have LTE on your raspberry pi. You can then interface with the module by making use of ‘AT’ commands, and you can, for example, make a script that checks for the reception of SMS and then forwards them to your e-mail (or, in my case, XMPP).

(3) Extra SMS phone

Depending on why you do not want an SMS phone, an extra phone might work for you. It can be used similar to a router for forwarding while the phone stays at a fixed location, or you may even find it reasonable to bring it with you. It really depends on the specifics of what you are trying to achieve.

If you do not want to beacon your approximate location to cell towers continuously, but having a base station is acceptable:

I have used Cheogram for SMS forwarding and VoIP over XMPP. It does work some times, but it also does not work some times. Mixed results.

If having a fixed-location base station is not acceptable to you, you can also reconsider why that is. Cell tower triangulation is not in isolation super accurate (they rely on the signal strength of connections to nearby towers). I suspect that if you really want to you can make the base station’s triangulated location even less reliable by playing with directional and/or moving antennas, but doing this incorrectly could make you stand out. Personally, I do not mind having an anonymous base station with an approximately location known to the network, as what I want to avoid is my person being continuously tracked.

The hierarchy of power:

              -- Reddit mod --
         ---------- God -----------
    ------------ Elon Musk ------------
-------------- US President --------------

1. The fear of missing out was something that made me double think deleting my facebook. It turned out to be unfounded fear, as none of the hypothetical “missing out” scenarios have proven to be an actual problem.

If the study group is very important to you, and the study group is on Facebook, then just have a Facebook. Deadlines and test info are not critical information that you need to receive in your pocket as soon as it is shared. You can check your anonymous Facebook account once a week through a VPN in a desktop computer and you will likely be well informed enough. If you have a friend that is both in Signal and that Facebook group, you can tell them about this and ask as a favor that they forward any critical time-sensitive info.

As for my response, mostly I use XMPP. I turn on my WhatsApp phone on every few weeks. People can message me via XMPP, e-mail, or Signal.

2. I have a little scanner. I can use the phone’s browser and log-in, using the scanner for the 2FA. But it is very rare that I use banking through the phone, as I do most of my banking via a desktop computer.

3. Bike, public transport, walking, and planning ahead.

4. On the desktop I do use Google Maps as it is quite efficient. Usually I plan ahead if I am biking somewhere new. I will often draw a path, write some street names at turns/crossings to remember, and pick some landmarks. Usually I am moving near places I know, so this is not task that comes up often.

5. At different points in time I have kept multiple fitness and nutrition logs (on websites and notebooks), but I rarely looked back at them. Now days I track rest times, hear rate, and running parameters while exercising, so I have a garmin watch and look at the output logs at the end of the exercise on the watch itself. It is not connected to any apps.

6. I make use of three devices: I. A Pixel phone running GrapheneOS has no SIM card. I have my apps, music, etc in this phone, and I use it as a mini tablet. It needs WiFi to get internet.

II. A PinePhone. I bought a large stack of the cheapest pre-paid SIM cards a while ago, and put in a new one whenever a SIM card runs out. I wrote a hook that, when I power down the device, a random IMEI is generated and written to the LTE modem. So, if I turn it off, swap the SIM, and turn it back on, I have a phone with a completely new mobile identity. This phone I can use to make calls and to share data with the GrapheneOS, but it does not have a static phone number. Usually it is off.

III. A Raspberry Pi 5 with a 4G LTE hat. This hat takes in a SIM card that is stable. So, this device is associated with a phone number and a persistent identifier, but it does not move. This is my phone number. SMS messages get sent to me via XMPP. If I am called, my XMPP also lets me know. I don’t have VoIP, so I do need to call back if I choose to. However, it is so so rare that I make a phone call that I have not bothered to implement VoIP.

Hmm… Wouldn’t be so sure. Some librarians have the power to selectively forgive late fees. They can give preferential treatment depending on their mood or the politeness of the person. You might also bribe a librarian to let you take out books from the special collection.

Step 1 of installing GrapheneOS for de-googling your life: Buy a Google Pixel phone

Look - I know, I know. I get it. Google allows you to unlock the bootloader while maintaining the phone’s unique and excellent hardware security features. The argument makes sense. It is compelling. Other manufacturers do not give you this freedom. I am not arguing about that. I have a Pixel phone running GrapheneOS myself.

However… It is just so very obviously ironic that one needs to trust Google’s hardware and purchase a Google product to de-google their life through GrapheneOS. I think that it is a perfectly valid position for someone to raise their eyebrows, laugh, and remain skeptical of the concept either because they do not want to support Google at all, or because they simply will not trust Google’s hardware.

The reason why I think that this is “controversial” is because I have seen multiple instances of someone pointing out the irony, followed by someone getting defensive about it and making use of the technical security arguments in an attempt to patch up the irony.

The IP is dynamic, but for my self-hosted services that require a static IP I make use of a WireGuard tunnel between my raspberry pi and a virtual private server. The VPS has a static IP, so my domains point at the VPS and then the VPS re-routes the packets via the wireguard tunnel. In a wire guard tunnel only the server needs a static IP, so the VPS can route packets to the client even if the client’s ip is dynamic.

Also in the Netherlands and I have recently extended this concept to my home internet. Since 25 Mbps download / 10 Mbps upload is enough for my use, I no longer have an internet subscription and I make use of $25 LycaMobile unlimited data sim cards for home internet using a sim router. The IMEI of the router can be easily modified, which is also a plus.

Sounds exhausting 😅

I have a habbit of searching my own name a few times a week and sorting by new, to check if my name appears somewhere. It makes sense to me, but I would be self-conscious about it if someone asked me why tf I am looking myself up so often as if I’m famous

Yeah, it is written funny. But what it means is that the Linux kernel already comes pre-packaged with the drivers necessary to communicate using the protocol used by this device (UART or USB). These Linux drivers (and by extension Raspbian) are natively capable of interfacing via the GPIO pins or via the USB connectors. It is not true that the device is “driver free” as you always need a driver for this, what they meant is that it is not necessary to install any additional drivers for Linux. So “free from installation” I suppose.

Windows does not come pre-packaged with these drivers, so you need to install them if you want to interface with the device via USB. The chip that the board uses for the UART -> USB conversion is the CP2102. This chip is a common chip used in some ESP32 boards, and I think it would work fine with the standard CP210x driver. But on their site they do provide a specific driver for free (SIMCOM_Windows_USB_Drivers_V1.0.2.exe)

The board finally arrived and it is indeed the SIM7600G-H, which is the global version.

I tried it on my raspberry pi 5 and struggled a bit because there was a change to the UART interface between the PI 4 and PI 5 and the documentation on this board describes the PI 4. But, after some fiddling around I figured out the correct setting and got it to work. The main difference is that the “UART0” needs to be explicitly turned on because the default debugging UART now uses the UART10 interface that is somewhere else on the board.

Thanks for checking!

SMS for 2fa is deprecated here because of insecurity and TOTP is generally preferable. Can you use that instead?

My first choice is a YubiKey, second choice is the Aegis Authenticator app, and the phone I only use for services that force me to. A few still do, unfortunately!

I understand about DIY and am interested to hear how this goes for you. I might like to try it myself.

If I manage to set up something that I think is interesting and functional enough, I will post about it 😄

If you can use those sims in mobile phones then I’d call them mobile plans. Can I ask what country you are in? Here in the US, mobile service costs a lot more. I have been getting SIP service from vitelity.net but twilio.com and voip.ms are better known here. I don’t know about jmp.chat.

The Netherlands. I just checked and it is €10 for 5GB/month or €8 for 5GB month if one pays for a year: https://www.lycamobile.nl/en/bundle/monthly-plan-xs/?m=12

But in the shops they have signs with deals and you can get often get codes for cheaper. They print out the codes for you and you can top-up by issuing a USSD code when needed. I buy a stack of codes, type them into my notes app, and use them when I need them. Since I commonly have WiFi available I sometimes go months without activating them.

In the home base I wouldn’t need data, as it is interfacing through the raspberry pi. Most of my phone activity is getting codes for 2FA for some important services that force me to. Since I rarely make calls, I can top up €5 of credit when needed. I need to make sure to top up every 6 months so that the SIM does not get deactivated. That’s why estimate ~€10 for every 6 months.

This works for me because I do not use the standard phone features (SMS and calling) often. If it were up to me, I would not have the phone functionality at all and simply keep the data. But sometimes I need a phone number. The purpose of this project is to keep the convenience of having a phone in the rare cases I need it without constantly having on me a device broadcasting unique identifiers. As for why go self-host route… I think the same can be said for many other self-hosting projects, it is nice to have more control. It is not really about the money. Saving money is part of the fun, and that is an easy way to “justify” what I’m doing… but the reality is that any savings argument probably gets thrown into the BS pile when we account for the time invested, failed attempts, and the extra stuff I buy for trial and error. Ultimately for me it’s really not about money, it’s about being mindful, learning, and having fun.

I haven’t had trouble using a hosted number for banking and it feels better to me than using a mobile number. The cheap mobile providers (MVNO’s) I use here are sketchy, mobile numbers change all the time, etc. I use a VoIP number as my permanent stable number and forward it to my mobile. So if I switch mobiles, I just change the forwarding. In theory you can port phone numbers between carriers but I’ve had significant hassle doing that. That’s just here though. It may be different where you are.

I have found VoIP numbers from Canada and the US, I am not sure if it is easy to get one from the Netherlands. I have experience being banned from sites immediately after registering with the VoIP number because of “suspicious activity”.

Thanks, I will look into those.

Is there a reason you don’t want to just use a SIP service by the way? It would certainly be cheaper than that board plus a mobile plan.

At the moment I am using a SIP service - at least I think I am. Is JMP.chat a SIP service? It works to a degree for me but there are many drawbacks. I can’t get a number from my country, many services recognize and block the phone number as a VoIP phone (for example, telegram), and I have to trust an additional intermediary to get my unencrypted SMS and 2FA codes. I do trust the service providers to a reasonably high degree, but I don’t think it is wise to associate their numbers with sensitive accounts such as my bank account.

The VoIP idea is not the reason why I began playing with these boards in the first place, though. It is an idea that I thought of while playing with these modules. And I don’t use mobile plans. I use sim cards that I can top up when needed, so the cost is about $5 every 6 months or so for the home base, and about ~$5 a month for the data I use for my mobile router. The reason why I want to control the device through the raspberry pi is that then I also have more fine-grained control over the top-up process and I “own” my phone number without an additional intermediary.

I agree, it looks like a nice board!

But… after ordering it I noticed that while the pictures in the website show the “SIM7600G-H” chip - which supports global GSM and LTE bands - the text description specifies that the chip included in the kit is the “SIM7600CE-T”, which supports the Chinese bands. I am not sure I will get the correct version now 😅 But there are other “SIM7600G-H” modules and USB dongles available out there, and from what I have found this chip is a nice option for GSM/LTE projects.

Thanks a lot for digging! This is a very useful

Ooh, thank you! This looks exactly what I am looking for.

One way is to use iptables to forward the connection from the wireless interface through the ethernet interface. But I am not sure whether this is better than using the NetworkManager or a more specialized solution. I have used iptables for configuring WireGuard VPNs, but not for this specific use case.

1. It rings a bell but I am not familiar with the details, I will look into it but I can’t address it right away. I am well aware that the US is an imperialist nation that has committed and continues to commit horrible acts all over the world. But the point is that this is not the official narrative of the US government. They may give some concessions about what occurred in the past, but the official narrative about what is happening now is always that they and their friends are the good guys.

2. I am not from the US and the question is about conspiracy theories in other countries. If the question means whether Americans are more prone to believe US-conspiracy theories, then yes, simply because they are much more likely to be aware of them. Many people in other countries don’t consume as much media in English and might have no idea who Jeffrey Epstein was. So they probably have no opinion on whether there was foul play on his dead. But I think that if you talk to someone in Mexico and tell them the story of Epstein, most will agree that there was foul play involved. I am telling you this from my personal experience, at least within my circle but I think it expands more generally. We have a general distrust of the government and law enforcement, and so a story in which foul play is involved to silence someone else resonates. It happens all the time! Journalists are being killed all the time around here to silence them, and very often they are being critical of people in power… Is it really that unwarranted to be suspicious?