Luci4 Wiki Blog - blog

do_what_you_love

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-09-19T18:00:38+00:00

"Do what you love for a living, and you might end up hating it."

How Turning Passion Into a Job Can Destroy It

We live in a culture obsessed with passion. Inspirational quotes flood social media: “Follow your dreams!”, “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life!” They sound nice. Uplifting, even. But if you’ve ever actually tried to turn what you love into your career, you’ll know the reality is often very different, and far less romantic.

The idea that you should turn your passion into your profession is one of those seemingly wise sayings that often fall apart when put into practice.

“But Luci, I do what I love for a living, and I’m happy!” Are you, though? Would you really do your job as a hobby—for no pay?

I realize I’m speaking from a place of privilege: coding is something I genuinely enjoy as a hobby, and I’m fortunate enough to do it professionally as well, not as much fun but I tolerate it. So rather than taking my perspective as a universal truth, consider it a starting point for your own reflections on the matter.

The Moment Passion Becomes Obligation

I tried to follow that quote. Yes, even though it’s often attributed to Steve Jobs—a figure that I do not respect. Nothing personal, but I deeply dislike the closed, proprietary ecosystem Apple created. I grew up immersed in Linux and open systems. A world built on freedom and curiosity. Apple, to me, represents the opposite. I tried with music—my first and biggest love. Creating, playing, experimenting, it’s my outlet and my joy. I wanted to give it a shot professionally, under the illusion that performing my niche genre would somehow pay the bills. But at one point, while living in Miami-Florida, I was struggling financially. Rent was barely manageable. So I leaned on my music skills to survive. I joined a Top 40 cover band to make some quick money.

That decision marked the beginning of a slow, painful shift. The setlist was full of songs I hated: generic, commercial pop (Taylor Swift or Katy Perry even). Every gig felt like I was selling a piece of my soul. Over time, I started getting sloppy. I just couldn’t bring myself to care. I’d learn songs half-heartedly, I'd show up late to gigs, began throwing in improvised solos mid-song, singing backing vocals even when I wasn’t supposed to, basically doing anything I could to inject some life or unpredictability into the experience. Eventually, I was kicked out of the band. At first, I was sad, it was a hit. Rent was still due. I had no backup plan beside my daily less-than-minimum-wage job (which I liked.. but not really, btw). But, as it turns out, getting kicked out was the best thing that could have happened to me.

A couple of weeks later, by sheer coincidence, I got a call from a metal band (not exactly my favorite subgenre, but at least within the same universe) that needed a guitarist for an upcoming tour and to help record their new album. I couldn’t believe it. Suddenly, my passion came roaring back. Music felt good again, life felt good. Of course, I was losing more money than I was making, but at least I wasn’t miserable.

Money Will Corrupt What You Love

The real point here isn’t financial struggle—that was just a side effect. The deeper damage came from turning something sacred into a job. Money changes things. It introduces compromise. It strips away the freedom and joy that made you love that thing in the first place. When your passion becomes your paycheck, it often becomes just another transaction. You stop playing, writing, creating from the heart. You start doing it because you have to. And that changes everything.

So here’s my advice: don’t do what you love for a living. Do what you like, or even just what you can tolerate, something stable enough to support your life without draining your soul. Save what you truly love for your personal time, where you control the pace, the direction, and the purpose. That’s where your passion can breathe and stay alive.

ie. I tolerate coding for money—it’s something that comes effortlessly to me. It doesn’t drain my energy, and it gives me opportunities to learn things I can apply to my personal projects.

When you protect what you love from becoming a job, it stays pure. You can enjoy it for what it is, not for what it pays.

Next time someone says “do what you love,” think carefully. That advice, as well-intentioned as it may sound, can quietly destroy your joy. Protect your passions. Keep them sacred. Let your job pay the bills. Use your job to finance your hobbies.

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written: a while ago. Edited: June 7 2025

dont_trust_apple

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-10-17T19:15:23+00:00

Apple Client Side Scanning, Data Control and Violation of Privacy

Do I trust Apple?

No, absolutely not! I don’t trust Apple for the same reasons I don’t trust other big tech corporations or any closed-source ecosystem.

If your trust comes from “they promised they’re not evil,” mine comes from documented behavior that says otherwise. Their reputation relies on marketing slogans like “we protect your privacy” while my skepticism is based on facts, history and hard evidence.

What’s Client Side Scanning?

“Client-side scanning” (CSS) refers to analyzing data, photos, messages, files, locally on your device before it’s encrypted or sent. The idea is that AI or machine learning models scan your content for illegal or harmful material (like Child Sexual Abuse Material, CSAM) without Apple or any third party ever needing to decrypt your data on their servers.

In theory, assuming we believe what Apple claims, this means your phone or computer runs a model comparing your content to a database of known illegal content hashes or patterns. If the model detects a match, it triggers an alert or sends metadata to Apple or relevant authorities for further action.

Apple’s client-side scanning system runs on certain chips:

A11 Bionic and later (iPhones from 2017 onward)

A12 and later

M1, M2, M3 chips (used in recent Macs and iPads)

Latest A17 Pro / M4 chips

This means this kind of scanning capability has been technically possible for years thanks to Apple’s Neural Engine and secure enclave hardware.

Why is Client Side Scanning Risky? What Doors Does It Open?

While client-side scanning is pitched as a privacy-preserving measure, there are major risks and concerns:

Expands the scope of surveillance on users’ private data

Even if scanning is done locally, the system must have access to all your content (photos, messages, files) in unencrypted form before encryption. This breaks the principle of true end-to-end encryption.

This creates a backdoor, not a traditional backdoor that Apple holds, but a built-in mechanism to scan all personal data on your device, which governments or other actors could exploit.

Potential for false positives and overreach

Machine learning models can make mistakes. Innocent content could be flagged as illegal, leading to unwarranted investigations or censorship.

Apple or third parties could expand the scanning scope beyond CSAM to politically sensitive content, activist messages, or even legal but “undesirable” material.

Governmental or authoritarian misuse

Governments with authoritarian tendencies could demand Apple or other companies expand scanning databases to include content critical of the government, religious minorities, journalists, or political activists.

Client-side scanning can become a tool for mass surveillance and suppression of dissent under the guise of security.

Increased risk of hacking or abuse

The scanning algorithms and databases themselves become a target for hackers. If malicious actors access these scanning components, they could 1) Reverse engineer or spoof the scanning process. 2) Introduce malicious hashes to flag innocent content, disrupt user privacy, or frame individuals.

Enables broad data collection and profiling

While Apple claims only metadata or alerts are sent if matches occur, client-side scanning creates a system where detailed knowledge about your data exists on your device. This could be leveraged to collect user behavior patterns or metadata, either by Apple or third parties.

Apple or “big tech” could use this data to profile users, refine targeted advertising, or even sell aggregated behavioral data to third parties, despite privacy promises.

How Could Big Tech Exploit Client Side Scanning?

Eroding End-to-End Encryption: client-side scanning introduces a “soft” backdoor that can be widened over time, allowing tech companies to access user content under the pretext of safety.

Expanding Surveillance Beyond CSAM: The scanning scope could gradually broaden from child abuse material to drug-related content, political opinions, or copyrighted content, increasing user data exposure.

Selling or Monetizing User Data: Although Apple says it doesn’t sell user data, the existence of detailed metadata or flagged content creates new rich datasets that could be monetized directly or indirectly by advertisers or government contracts.

Creating a Precedent for Other Companies: If Apple successfully normalizes client-side scanning, other big tech players might implement even more invasive scanning or data collection systems, accelerating privacy erosion industry-wide. Government Collaboration and Pressure: Governments can compel companies to add new categories to scanning databases or share flagged data under secret orders, sidestepping traditional privacy safeguards.

To summarize:

While client-side scanning may seem like a privacy-preserving way to combat illegal content, it fundamentally shifts control of your personal data from you to big tech and governments by:

Forcing devices to scan all private data locally,
Increasing surveillance capability and risk of abuse,
Weakening encryption and privacy protections,
Opening avenues for misuse, false accusations, and government overreach,
And enabling new forms of data collection, profiling, or monetization.

But Luci... I trust Apple! Their AD says "Privacy First!"

Here are some of the legal cases from 2025 involving Apple where it has been accused (or found) of violating user rights, privacy, consumer protection, misleading advertising etc.

Keep in mind that these are just the ones I found with a relatively quick search, since compiling a comprehensive list is beyond the scope of this post, and, importantly, this only covers the year 2025, the list would have been too long if I included additional years.

Key Cases & Legal Issues in 2025

Case / Action	Issue	Status / Outcome (as of 2025)
Siri Privacy Settlement (U.S.)	Class-action lawsuit alleging Siri was listening to users’ private conversations without their consent, including instances of accidental activation, sharing or using voice data, targeting ads etc. ([The Guardian][1])	Apple agreed to a $95 million settlement. ([The Guardian][1])
France Antitrust fine over App Tracking Transparency (ATT)	French regulator found that Apple abused its dominant position via ATT — specifically, that ATT’s implementation was “neither necessary nor proportionate,” hurting smaller publishers dependent on third-party tracking / advertising revenue. ([Reuters][2])	Apple was fined 150 million euros. ([Reuters][2])
Lawsuit by Authors over AI training using books	Authors claim Apple used copyrighted books without consent to train its AI systems (“OpenELM” etc.). Accusations include using pirated “shadow libraries”. ([CNBC][3])	Open, proposed class action. Seeking damages / injunctive relief. ([CNBC][3])
False advertising / delay of promised Siri / Apple Intelligence features (U.S. & Canada)	Apple marketed advanced Siri / “Apple Intelligence” features in iPhone 16 as available or imminent, but delayed their release. Plaintiffs allege this misled consumers, and that some bought devices under false expectations. ([MacRumors][4])	Lawsuits filed (class actions) in both countries. As of 2025 not resolved. ([MacRumors][4])
Developer lawsuit over external payment link injunction / App Store policy	Developers sued Apple over costs related to external payment links, anti-steering policies (i.e. policies that discourage or block linking outside the App Store), commissions etc., claiming Apple incurred revenues due to the restrictive policy, harming developers. ([MacRumors][5])	Lawsuit pending. Seeking restitution, etc. ([MacRumors][5])
Apple Books e-Books / Audiobooks availability lawsuit	Plaintiffs allege that when Apple loses licensing rights to certain digital books/audiobooks, Apple removes them entirely from the Books store, including revoking the ability to re-download even if the user “purchased” them. They say Apple misled customers into believing purchases were “perpetual.” ([MacRumors][6])	Class action filed, seeking up to US$5 billion in damages. ([MacRumors][6])
Canadian class action over Siri / conversation recordings	In Canada, class actions (e.g. Hammerco, Lex Group) have been filed alleging Apple recorded private conversations via Siri without consent, and possibly shared them with third parties. ([Hammerco][7])	Pending. ([Hammerco][7])

A couple of early cases worth mentioning:

Case	What Apple Did
2008 “Jansen case” (Watertown, NY)	Apple complied with the first court-ordered iPhone unlock. The company assisted in drafting the court order and bypassing a passcode. ([MacRumors][1])
Multiple early cases (2008-2014 era)	According to government filings and press reports, Apple “unlocked iPhones” or extracted some data from locked phones under court order during this period. ([CBS News][2])

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written: October 17 2025

foss_freedom_illusion

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-09-17T18:49:50+00:00

🦀 Rust, Big Tech, and the Illusion of Open Source Freedom

I want to talk about this growing push for developers to learn and write software in Rust, often proposed as a modern, safe, and fast alternative to C++. What doesn’t get talked about enough, though, is why big tech companies are so happy to promote it and how the open source licensing model behind Rust is being used to quietly extract labor from Open Source developers.

Rust itself is licensed under a dual license: MIT OR Apache 2.0, both of which are extremely permissive, business-friendly licenses ¹⁾. That might sound great on the surface, but here's the catch: these licenses allow anyone, including multi-billion-dollar corporations, to use your code in commercial, closed-source software, modify it internally without sharing those changes, package it into proprietary products and sell it without ever giving anything back! In other words, you write the code, they profit, and they don’t owe you a thing.

💼 Big Tech Loves Permissive Licenses

Almost every major Rust project, from compiler libraries to web servers to crypto crates, is licensed under MIT, Apache 2.0, or BSD ²⁾. These licenses don’t require companies to open source any derivative work. This is not a bug; it’s a feature, especially if you're a corporation that wants to keep your codebase locked down and competitive. Compare that to the GPL (General Public License), which says “Yes, you can copy, fork, and modify this code, but whatever you build with it must also remain open source.” ³⁾

GPL protects freedom, not just access. It ensures that if you benefit from a public commons, you must also contribute back to it. In contrast, MIT/Apache licenses let corporations take from the commons without giving anything back.

This isn’t theoretical. Among the many examples of this practice, there’s a long-standing precedent: Apple’s macOS and iOS are built on Darwin, which is a fork of FreeBSD and OpenBSD ⁴⁾. Apple took that code, modified it heavily, and added proprietary layers like the GUI, frameworks, and drivers. They contributed back a few pieces, but the majority of macOS and iOS is now closed-source. BSD’s permissive licensing allowed this, and Apple used it to build one of the most locked-down consumer operating systems in the world, based on a free and open foundation.

🦀 What About Rust?

Rust is in a similar position, big tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta are increasingly relying on Rust for performance-critical and security-sensitive software ⁵⁾⁶⁾. They’re pushing for Rust adoption in the kernel, in networking, in browsers — even in operating systems.

And where do they get their Rust libraries from?

From you — the open source developer publishing crates on crates.io under the MIT license ⁷⁾.

These companies consume these crates, integrate them into production systems, and often never contribute back, because the license doesn’t require them to. And because the language ecosystem encourages permissive licensing, the community is effectively building Big Tech’s infrastructure for free.

Exploitation of Open Source

There’s a growing disconnect between the ideals of open source and the reality of exploitation under permissive licenses. Developers often think they’re building tools for the community, for education, for the public good. But when corporations use your unpaid labor to enhance proprietary systems that generate billions, while you maintain your crate at night, unpaid and burnt out, it’s worth asking who is really benefiting from all this freedom?

The MIT and Apache 2.0 licenses were created in a different era, with different assumptions about collaboration and trust. In 2025, it’s clear: permissive licenses have become a strategic asset for big tech, and an unpaid burden for the people who write and maintain the code.

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September 17 2025

¹⁾

Rust licensing: https://www.rust-lang.org/policies/licenses

²⁾

Crates.io license stats: Check https://lib.rs to filter by license»fn2

³⁾

GPL License: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html

⁴⁾

Darwin and BSD: https://opensource.apple.com and https://www.freebsd.org/internal/about/#license

⁵⁾

Microsoft using Rust in Windows: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/engineering-at-microsoft/memory-safe-languages-in-windows/

⁶⁾

Amazon’s Firecracker (Rust-based microVM): https://firecracker-microvm.github.io

⁷⁾

Crates licensing shown on https://crates.io, e.g., https://crates.io/crates/serde

myth_of_career

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-06-08T00:58:13+00:00

The Myth of Career: A System Designed to Control You

I’ve never believed in the idea of a career. In fact, I hate it.

A career is nothing more than a fabricated concept injected into our minds by society, designed to maximize the economic output. It’s not about personal fulfillment or genuine growth—it’s about making sure the system functions efficiently.

The System Wants You to Specialize

A system works best when each component does one thing and does it perfectly. That’s the Unix philosophy, it works, and it’s the same principle companies apply when they structure their workforce. Every department has a single function. Every individual is expected to dedicate themselves to just one thing. This is why job listings demand “10 years of experience” in one specific area, it's all designed to keep you locked in.

But this expectation is dehumanizing. It strips away individuality, curiosity, and growth, reducing people to mere cogs in a machine. The system is simply structured to function this way by people who will get richer from its output. The real problem is that we’ve been conditioned to accept it from childhood.

Think for yourself and question authority! You must question everything, react instead of blindly believing what they tell you, and mostly, think with your own head.

The Education System is a Trap

From an early age, we are manipulated into believing that career is the only path forward. The education system doesn’t exist to educate—it exists to train you for a job, to shape you into a worker who will contribute to the economy. Even teachers, the very people who enforce this mindset, are often unaware of the role they play. They have been brainwashed themselves.

Think about it: asking a child what they want to do in 10 years is absurd. Interests change. Passions evolve. Yet, society pressures us to choose a career path before we even understand ourselves.

Learning Should Be Driven by Curiosity, Not Career

People flex their skills on LinkedIn, trying to validate themselves in front of others to make a career. Everyone seems so busy showcasing their achievements, it feels so miserable… If you're going to compete, let it be with yourself, grow and improve for your own fulfillment.

Every meaningful thing I’ve learned in life has been out of curiosity—never because I felt pressured to fit into a career. When you pursue knowledge for the sake of enjoyment, rather than obligation, learning becomes a lifelong journey rather than a means to an economic end.

I’ve never been drawn to programming competitions, even though they’re quite popular, especially during my university years. Coding has always been a personal pursuit, something I engaged-with out of genuine interest, not for recognition or comparison. It's just something I enjoy doing in my private time for fun and share with like-minded people. I hated the idea that something I loved had to turn into a competition. For me, engineering is about collaboration, not rivalry. If I want to learn or build something, I just do it—not because I want to be part of some rat race.

Choose Your Own Path

Some people might have a “better career” than me, but who cares? At what price? Career is just a passion killer. It’s something they drill into your head to make sure you keep feeding the system—whether it’s to help your country compete with China or to make some CEO richer. But think about it: do you really want to waste your whole life just so the economy can grow? Or do you actually want to live for yourself?

Society will try to brainwash you into believing that a career is essential. But when you step back and see the bigger picture, you’ll realize it’s all just a way to keep you in line. You don’t have to play by those rules. Follow your curiosity, embrace change, and live life on your own terms.

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written: a while ago. Edited: June 4 2025