Mobile Security Mentorship & Inspiring Kids to work in tech
Sumo deadlifts -> straight arm pullover
Weighted walking lunge -> straight arm crossover dumbbell lift + straight lift 1.2.3
Bent over lateral raise -> kettle bell 1 leg rdl
Plates v-up-> bicep curls
Hamstring Machine -> straight arm pulldown
Wide grip lat pulldown -> banded sidewalk
When Delaware’s delegation read Virginia’s plan, they panicked. Virginia wanted representation based on population. Delaware had 60,000 people; Virginia had 750,000. Under this plan, small states would become vassals to large ones. The battle lines were drawn: large states versus small states, with the union’s survival at stake.
James Madison (Virginia): The “Father of the Constitution.” At 36, this quiet, scholarly man had prepared for months. He rarely spoke loudly but his ideas dominated. Madison believed in a strong national government that could override state laws. He saw state sovereignty as the fatal flaw in the Articles.
Alexander Hamilton (New York): At 30, the youngest delegate with the biggest ambitions. Born in the Caribbean, Hamilton had no state loyalty—he was truly nationalist. His plan (presented but ignored) called for senators and a president elected for life. Too radical even for this convention.
Benjamin Franklin (Pennsylvania): At 81, the eldest delegate and international celebrity. Too frail to stand, he wrote speeches others read. His role: the grand compromiser, using humor and wisdom to defuse tensions. When debates grew bitter, Franklin would tell a funny story to cool tempers.
Gouverneur Morris (Pennsylvania): The convention’s wordsmith who wrote the Constitution’s final language, including “We the People.” A peg-legged ladies’ man with aristocratic views, he spoke more than anyone else (173 times) and shaped the document’s actual phrasing.
Roger Sherman (Connecticut): A shoemaker turned lawyer who helped craft the crucial Connecticut Compromise. Plain-spoken and deeply religious, Sherman signed more founding documents than anyone: the Continental Association, Declaration, Articles, and Constitution.
William Paterson (New Jersey): Champion of small states who proposed the alternative New Jersey Plan. This Irish immigrant’s son understood what it meant to be overwhelmed by larger forces.
Madison’s Virginia Plan proposed:
This essentially eliminated state sovereignty. Large states loved it—they’d dominate. Small states saw it as death sentence.
After two weeks of debate, William Paterson countered with the New Jersey Plan:
This preserved small state equality but didn’t solve the Articles’ weakness. Large states rejected it immediately.
The Fundamental Divide: This wasn’t just about size. It was about the nature of the union:
Madison argued they were creating a nation, not a league. States were conveniences, not sovereignties. Luther Martin of Maryland responded that states entered the union as equals and must remain equals.
By late June, the convention nearly collapsed. Small states threatened to walk out. Large states threatened to form their own union. The heat was oppressive (remember, windows were sealed). Tempers flared.
The Hamilton Plan: In desperation, Hamilton presented his own plan: an elected monarch-like president serving for life, senators for life, state governors appointed by the national government. It was so extreme it made Madison’s plan look moderate—perhaps Hamilton’s intent.
Personal Dynamics: These men knew each other well. Many had served together in Congress or the army. This helped and hurt—they trusted each other enough to speak freely but also knew each other’s weaknesses. Hamilton and Madison, allies here, would soon become bitter enemies. Franklin and Washington, by their presence alone, kept others from walking out.
The debate revealed a truth: there was no perfect solution. Any system would require compromise. The question was whether these prideful, brilliant, stubborn men could find middle ground.
Madison prepared for months and dominated the intellectual debate, yet many of his key proposals failed. Hamilton was brilliant but too radical to be effective. Franklin spoke least but may have contributed most. What does this suggest about the relationship between intelligence, preparation, and political success?
Primary Source: Read the complete Virginia Plan: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/vatexta.asp
This revolutionary proposal shows Madison’s vision for a strong national government that would have eliminated state sovereignty. Compare it with the final Constitution to see how much compromise was required.
Tomorrow: We’ll see how the Connecticut Compromise saved the convention and created the legislative structure we still use today.
On May 25, 1787, delegates gathering in Philadelphia made two immediate decisions: elect George Washington as president of the convention, and seal the windows and doors. No one could enter, leave, or report on debates. Guards stood at doors. Delegates agreed to tell no one—not even their families—what they discussed. Why such secrecy for a meeting supposedly just to “revise” the Articles?
The official call was modest: meet to propose amendments to the Articles of Confederation. But key organizers like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton had bigger plans. They wanted to scrap the Articles entirely and create a new government. This was arguably illegal—the Articles required unanimous consent for amendments, and Rhode Island refused to even send delegates.
Who Showed Up: 55 delegates from 12 states (Rhode Island boycotted, calling it a conspiracy against liberty). These weren’t average Americans:
Who Didn’t: Some major figures were absent:
James Madison arrived eleven days early with a radical plan. While waiting for other delegates, the Virginia delegation met daily, refining what became known as the Virginia Plan. When the convention formally opened, Virginia immediately presented this complete blueprint for a new government. This tactical brilliance set the agenda—instead of debating whether to replace the Articles, delegates debated how to modify Virginia’s proposal.
Madison had spent months preparing, reading every book on republics and confederations throughout history. He wrote “Vices of the Political System,” documenting every flaw in the Articles. He came to Philadelphia not to patch the old system but to build a new one.
The Crisis Atmosphere: Shays’ Rebellion had just been suppressed. States were printing worthless money. Britain was laughing at American weakness. Spanish agents were trying to split western territories from the union. The delegates felt they were racing against collapse.
On May 30, just five days in, the convention voted to create a “national government… consisting of a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary”—essentially voting to exceed their authority and create an entirely new system.
Why They Could Do It:
Edmund Randolph opened by listing the Articles’ defects: no security against foreign invasion, no way to resolve interstate disputes, no means to suppress rebellion, no power to enforce treaties. He concluded the patient couldn’t be cured—only replaced.
The Opposition Forms: Not everyone agreed. Some delegates, especially from smaller states, came to genuinely revise the Articles, not replace them. They would soon organize resistance to the Virginia Plan’s radical restructuring.
What happened in Philadelphia was extraordinary. Delegates sent to propose amendments instead wrote an entirely new constitution. They ignored the Articles’ requirement for unanimous state consent. They created their own ratification process requiring only nine states. By any measure, this exceeded their legal authority.
Critics then and now have called it a coup—elite nationalists overthrowing legal government. Supporters argue it was necessary salvation—the Articles were killing the nation. The ends justified the means.
Madison later admitted they had no constitutional authority to do what they did. But he argued the first principle of self-preservation superseded legal technicalities. When your house is on fire, you don’t check if the firefighters have proper permits.
The delegates decided their closed-door convention could ignore existing law to save the country. When, if ever, is it acceptable for leaders to exceed their legal authority for what they believe is the greater good?
Primary Source: Madison’s Notes on the Constitutional Convention (May 29, 1787): https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_529.asp
Madison secretly took detailed notes throughout the convention, creating our best record of what happened. Note how quickly they moved from revision to replacement.
Tomorrow: We’ll meet the key players and examine the competing visions for America’s future—the clash between large and small states that nearly destroyed the convention.
By 1786, George Washington wrote that America was “fast verging to anarchy and confusion.” The hero who led the nation to independence now feared it would collapse into chaos. What went so wrong, so quickly?
The problems started immediately after independence. Fighting a war had unified the states; peace revealed how little they had in common. The weak government created by the Articles couldn’t handle the challenges of nationhood. By the mid-1780s, America faced multiple crises that threatened its survival as an independent nation.
The Money Problem: Congress had borrowed millions to fight the Revolution but couldn’t tax to repay debts. When it asked states for money, most ignored the requests. By 1786, the federal government had received only $2.5 million of the $10 million requested. Congress couldn’t even pay interest on its debts.
Worthless Currency: Each state printed its own money, plus Congress issued Continental dollars. With no backing and rampant printing, money became worthless. The phrase “not worth a Continental” became slang for worthless. Rhode Island printed so much paper money that creditors fled the state to avoid being paid in worthless currency.
Trade Wars Between States: States acted like hostile nations:
Foreign Trade Humiliation: Britain closed West Indies ports to American ships. Spain closed the Mississippi River. Congress couldn’t retaliate because it couldn’t regulate commerce. Each state made separate trade deals, undermining the others.
Shays’ Rebellion (1786-1787): The crisis peaked when Massachusetts farmers, led by Daniel Shays, rebelled against foreclosures and debt collection. The federal government had no army to restore order. Massachusetts had to raise a private militia funded by Boston merchants. The rebellion exposed that Congress couldn’t maintain domestic peace.
As Thomas Jefferson noted from France: “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing”—but most American leaders were terrified.
Foreign Disrespect: Britain kept forts in American territory (violating the peace treaty) because Congress couldn’t make states comply with treaty obligations. Spain negotiated with states separately, trying to split the union. Pirates seized American ships because there was no navy. Foreign diplomats mocked American ambassadors who couldn’t speak for their “nation.”
No National Defense: When Native American conflicts erupted on the frontier, Congress could only request state militias. States often refused or sent untrained, poorly equipped men. The nation that had defeated the British Empire couldn’t defend its own borders.
The Annapolis Convention (1786): Delegates from five states met to discuss trade problems. They realized the issues went beyond commerce—the entire government structure was failing. They called for a convention in Philadelphia to revise the Articles.
Why Change Seemed Impossible: Remember, amending the Articles required unanimous consent. Rhode Island consistently refused any changes (it benefited from the chaos). Even getting nine states to agree on routine matters proved nearly impossible. The government was trapped in dysfunction.
The Elite Panic: Property owners, merchants, and creditors—the people with the most to lose—led the push for change. When farmers rebelled and states printed worthless money, elites feared social revolution. James Madison wrote that the “turbulence and follies” of democracy threatened property rights.
Americans discovered that weak government could be as dangerous as strong government:
The question became: Could they create a government strong enough to govern but limited enough to preserve liberty?
Shays’ Rebellion terrified elites but excited some radicals who saw it as democracy in action—people resisting unjust laws. Was the rebellion a dangerous mob or desperate citizens? Does it matter who writes the history?
Primary Source: Henry Knox’s letter to George Washington about Shays’ Rebellion (October 23, 1786): https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-04-02-0274
Knox’s detailed report on the rebellion alarmed Washington and helped convince him to attend the Constitutional Convention. His presence would prove crucial to its success.
Tomorrow: We’ll see how the crisis under the Articles led to the Constitutional Convention—where delegates would attempt the impossible: creating a government powerful enough to work but limited enough to trust.
John Adams called the Articles of Confederation “a rope of sand”—it looked like it would hold things together, but it fell apart under pressure. Why did America’s first constitution fail so badly? To understand, we need to see what the founders were thinking when they created it in 1777.
The Articles of Confederation emerged from fear, not hope. Americans had just declared independence from a powerful central government that had:
The last thing they wanted was to create another powerful central government that could oppress them. So they went to the opposite extreme—they created a government so weak it could barely govern.
A Confederation, Not a Nation: The Articles created a “firm league of friendship” among thirteen independent states—essentially a treaty organization like today’s United Nations, not a unified country. Article II made this crystal clear: “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence.”
Congress Only: There was:
Supermajority Everything: Major decisions required 9 of 13 states to agree:
Unanimous Amendment: Changing the Articles required all 13 states to agree—giving every state veto power over any reform.
Key Powers Congress HAD:
Critical Powers Congress LACKED:
The weakness was intentional. Consider the delegates’ mindset in 1777:
State Loyalty: People identified as Virginians or New Yorkers, not Americans. Their state was their country. John Adams noted that asking a Virginian to submit to Massachusetts was like asking him to submit to France.
Size Fears: Small states feared domination by large ones. Delaware had 60,000 people; Virginia had 750,000. Equal representation (one state, one vote) protected small states.
Regional Differences: Northern states had different economies than Southern states. States with western land claims clashed with those without. Coastal states had different interests than inland ones.
Revolutionary Ideology: They were fighting a war against centralized power. Creating a strong central government seemed like betraying the revolution’s principles.
The Articles reflected what Americans were willing to accept in 1777: a minimal federal government that couldn’t threaten state sovereignty or individual liberty.
Even as the Continental Congress approved the Articles, problems were obvious:
The Requisition System: Congress could calculate how much money it needed and request each state’s share. States could (and did) simply refuse. Imagine if the IRS could only politely ask for tax payments.
Trade Wars: States taxed each other’s goods. New York taxed New Jersey vegetables. Pennsylvania taxed Delaware shipping. Economic chaos resulted.
No Enforcement: Congress could pass resolutions, but had no way to make states comply. It was like a teacher who could assign homework but couldn’t give grades.
George Washington worried the Articles would “sink us into disgrace.” He was right. But in 1777, with British armies marching through the states, even this weak union was better than none.
The founders created a weak government because they feared tyranny more than inefficiency. Given their recent experience with Britain, was this reasonable? Could they have predicted the problems that would arise?
Primary Source: Read the full Articles of Confederation: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/articles-of-confederation
Notice Article III establishing this as a “league of friendship” and Article II preserving state sovereignty. These provisions doomed the Articles from the start.
Tomorrow: We’ll see how the weaknesses built into the Articles led to economic crisis, domestic rebellion, and international humiliation—forcing Americans to reconsider their fear of federal power.
This week, you’ve traveled from philosophical theory to revolutionary practice. You’ve seen how abstract ideas about natural rights became a declaration of independence, and how thirteen colonies transformed into experimental republics. Today, let’s connect these threads and see the bigger picture of America’s founding.
Think about the progression we’ve traced:
Day 1: John Locke‘s theory that government exists to protect natural rights, deriving authority from consent of the governed.
Day 2: British violations of these principles through taxation without representation, standing armies, and dissolved assemblies.
Day 3: Enlightenment thinkers providing the intellectual framework—Montesquieu‘s separation of powers, Rousseau‘s popular sovereignty.
Days 4-5: The Declaration transforming philosophy into action, listing specific grievances and asserting the right of revolution.
Day 6: States creating new governments, experimenting with different approaches to republican government.
Each step built on the previous one. Ideas became grievances, grievances became revolution, revolution demanded new governments.
What made the American Revolution truly revolutionary wasn’t the war—it was the complete reimagining of government:
From Divine Right to Popular Sovereignty: Kings claimed God appointed them. Americans said the people were sovereign.
From Tradition to Written Constitutions: Britain relied on accumulated precedent. Americans wrote down exactly how government should work.
From Subjects to Citizens: British people were subjects owing allegiance to the crown. Americans became citizens with rights.
From Hereditary Rule to Elections: Power passed through bloodlines in monarchy. In republics, the people chose their leaders.
From Arbitrary Power to Rule of Law: Kings could act on whim. American governments were bound by written rules.
The founders knew they hadn’t created perfect governments. Consider the contradictions:
These weren’t just hypocrisies—they were time bombs. The Declaration’s principles would eventually be claimed by enslaved people, women, immigrants, and others excluded from the founders’ vision. Frederick Douglass called this “the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny.”
The state constitutions revealed another problem: how to balance democracy with stability. Pennsylvania’s ultra-democratic system produced chaos. States with weak governors couldn’t enforce laws. These experiments taught vital lessons for the next phase of American government-building.
Despite the contradictions and failures, this week’s ideas remain foundational:
These principles didn’t spring fully formed from American minds. They evolved from English traditions, Enlightenment philosophy, colonial experience, and practical necessity. The genius was in combining them into functioning governments.
The Declaration says “all men are created equal,” but the founders clearly didn’t mean ALL people. Should we judge them by their own standards or ours? Can we honor their achievements while acknowledging their failures? How do we handle heroes who were also deeply flawed?
Next week, we’ll see how the thirteen independent states tried to work together under the Articles of Confederation. Spoiler: it didn’t go well. Their failures would lead to the Constitutional Convention and the government structure we still use today.
Primary Source Collection: Explore the Founders Online database: https://founders.archives.gov/
This searchable collection contains letters, documents, and papers from Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and Hamilton. Reading their actual words reveals both their brilliance and their blind spots.
Monday: We’ll examine the Articles of Confederation and discover why America’s first attempt at national government was doomed to fail.
In May 1776, even before declaring independence, the Continental Congress told each colony to create new governments. Imagine being handed a blank sheet of paper and told: “Design a government. Make it work. Oh, and you’re in the middle of a war.” This was America’s first experiment in self-government, and each state became a laboratory testing different ideas.
The moment independence was declared, the thirteen colonies became thirteen independent states—essentially thirteen separate countries loosely allied for war. Each needed a government immediately. But how do you create a government from scratch?
Most states called special conventions. Regular people—farmers, merchants, lawyers—gathered to debate fundamental questions: Who should vote? How much power should governors have? Should there be religious requirements for office? The answers varied dramatically, creating a natural experiment in republican government.
Virginia’s Constitution of 1776 became the model. Written by George Mason (with input from Jefferson, Madison, and others), it featured:
Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights proclaimed: “All men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights… namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property.”
Pennsylvania (1776) went radical:
Benjamin Franklin helped design this ultra-democratic system. Critics called it mob rule.
Massachusetts (1780) took a conservative approach:
John Adams designed Massachusetts’s constitution, calling it “a government of laws, not of men.”
Common Features across states:
These first constitutions revealed both promise and problems:
Successes:
Failures:
Pennsylvania’s radical democracy produced chaos—the legislature changed laws constantly. Massachusetts found better balance but still struggled with debt and unrest. These experiments taught crucial lessons that would shape the U.S. Constitution in 1787.
Pennsylvania gave almost all men the vote but eliminated the executive branch. Massachusetts had a strong executive but restricted voting to property owners. Which approach better protects liberty—more democracy or more structure?
Primary Source: Read the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776): https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/virginia-declaration-of-rights
Written just weeks before the Declaration of Independence, this document influenced both Jefferson’s Declaration and Madison’s Bill of Rights. Notice how it balances individual liberty with social order.
Tomorrow: We’ll review the key concepts from this week and see how colonial experience, Enlightenment ideas, and early state governments laid the foundation for American democracy.
Imagine you’re a lawyer presenting to the court of world opinion. You’ve stated your principles (all people have rights, government must protect them). Now you must prove your case: that King George III has systematically violated these principles. The Declaration lists 27 specific charges. Today we’ll examine how these grievances justified revolution.
Jefferson didn’t randomly list complaints. He organized them to show escalating abuse:
Each grievance connected to a fundamental right. This wasn’t about tea taxes—it was about systematic destruction of self-government.
“He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” Colonial legislatures passed laws; the king vetoed them. Colonies couldn’t address local problems without royal permission from 3,000 miles away.
“He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly.” When colonial assemblies resisted, the king simply shut them down. Imagine Congress being dissolved whenever it disagreed with the President.
“He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.” British troops occupied Boston. Soldiers lived in civilian homes. This violated the English tradition that militaries shouldn’t police civilians.
“For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.” Not just the famous Stamp Act and tea tax—Parliament claimed unlimited power to tax colonists who had no vote in Parliament.
“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.” The British moved trials to admiralty courts (no jury) or transported Americans to England for trial, away from witnesses and supporters.
The most emotional charge: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages.” Lord Dunmore‘s 1775 proclamation promised freedom to enslaved people who joined the British, and British agents encouraged Native American raids on frontier settlements.
The Declaration emphasizes that independence was a last resort:
“In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.”
They sent the Olive Branch Petition (1775), pleading for reconciliation. King George refused to read it and declared the colonies in rebellion. They appealed to Parliament. Parliament passed harsher laws. They appealed to the British people. The British people elected more hardline members to Parliament.
“We have warned them from time to time… They too have been deaf to the voice of justice.”
The conclusion was inevitable: “We, therefore… do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.”
The final line carries enormous weight: “We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
John Hancock signed large enough for King George to read without spectacles. Benjamin Franklin quipped: “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” These men knew the penalty for treason.
The Declaration never uses the word “rebellion” or “revolution.” Instead, it frames independence as defending existing rights against British violations. Why might this framing matter for gaining domestic and international support?
Primary Source: Read Jefferson’s original draft showing what Congress cut, including a condemnation of slavery: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/ruffdrft.html
Notice what Congress removed and consider why. The editing process reveals the political compromises necessary to achieve unanimous support for independence.
Tomorrow: We’ll examine how the new states created their first constitutions, experimenting with republican government while fighting for survival.
On July 4, 1776, fifty-six men signed their names to a document that could have been their death warrant. British law defined treason clearly: challenging the king’s authority meant hanging. Yet they signed anyway. What words were worth dying for?
The Declaration of Independence isn’t just a breakup letter to King George III—it’s a carefully constructed legal argument. Jefferson and the Continental Congress knew they needed to justify revolution not just to Britain, but to the world and to posterity. The document follows the structure of a logical proof:
Today we’ll focus on the preamble and philosophical foundation—the ideas that made this document revolutionary.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Let’s unpack this profound sentence:
“self-evident” – These aren’t opinions or cultural preferences. They’re universal truths that any reasoning person should recognize.
“all men are created equal” – In an age of kings, nobles, and rigid social hierarchy, this was radical. No divine right of kings, no hereditary superiority.
“endowed by their Creator” – Rights come from God or nature, not from government. Government can’t grant what it didn’t create.
“unalienable” – These rights can’t be surrendered or taken away. They’re permanently attached to being human.
Jefferson continues: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
This flips traditional authority upside down. Government doesn’t grant rights—it exists to protect rights we already have. Power flows up from the people, not down from the ruler.
The most radical claim comes next: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”
This wasn’t just about America and Britain. Jefferson articulated a universal principle: when government fails its fundamental purpose, the people may rightfully replace it. This idea would inspire revolutions from France to Latin America to modern democracy movements.
But the founders weren’t promoting casual rebellion. They added: “Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.” Revolution is a last resort, justified only by systematic oppression, not temporary disagreements.
The man who wrote “all men are created equal” owned 175 enslaved people. This horrific contradiction would haunt America from its founding. Frederick Douglass would later ask: “Are the great principles of political freedom and natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?”
Yet the principles themselves transcended their flawed authors. Abraham Lincoln called them “a rebuke and a stumbling-block to tyranny and oppression.” Martin Luther King Jr. called the Declaration a “promissory note” that America must honor for all its citizens.
Jefferson originally wrote “life, liberty, and property” (following Locke) but changed it to “pursuit of happiness.” Why might this change matter? What’s the difference between guaranteeing property versus guaranteeing the pursuit of happiness?
Primary Source: Read the complete Declaration of Independence at the National Archives: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
Pay special attention to the preamble (the first two paragraphs). These words have inspired freedom movements worldwide for nearly 250 years.
Tomorrow: We’ll examine the specific grievances against King George III and understand why the colonists felt revolution was their only option.
Last week I left you with a nail-biter. I ran a sneaky wifi network near a weird marathon in 2018 and I captured close to 200 devices. I reproduced the experiment this fall- how’d it go in 2025? Terrible in some regards, but awesome in terms of prototyping acceleration. An experiment that took 2 months in 2018 took me 4 days in 2025.
In the 2025 experiment, I caught a grand total of 18 devices.
Does this mean mobile phones are more secure? Was it the exact same experiment? No!
Low Participant Turnout: My Wifi Hotspot was active starting at 7 am. The marathon was scheduled to start at 8 am. We didn’t see a single runner till ~9:15 am. When runners did start arriving, the quantity of runners was limited compared to past years. The 2018 marathon spanned two days. The race was only one day this year. The participant cohort of runners was significantly smaller than in years past.
Bad SSID choices: This attack depends upon your ability to anticipate a wifi ssid that your targets have an affinity for. The wifi SSID i used in 2018 wasn’t going to work because it has been deprecated. I went with “Starbucks WiFi” initially, but this only caught 2 devices. The lack of “Starbucks WiFi” tuned devices is an interesting indicator of how times have changed. It used to be that mobile phone owners needed to attach to wifi to use email/browse the web with their phones. This was because cellular networks did not have unlimited data, and so you either ran out of data for the month or you were hit with a large cellphone bill if you used cellular for data. People used to go to coffee shops to “work” on their phones and laptops. Now you’re really there to socialize or caffinate. I also wonder if Starbucks’ popularity has declined. In the last 10 years, I’ve only drank Starbucks out of necessity.
So after a couple of hours of watching only 2 attaches, I yielded to temptation and changed the SSID to “xfinitywifi.” The xfinitywifi ssid is a controversial wifi network vended by Comcast, exclusive to comcast customers.
You can use wigle.net to see the most popular active SSIDs:
Changing to use xfinitywifi felt like desperation! Comcast does not have much presence in Snoqualmie valley. I reasoned that most of the runners were probably coming from cities where Comcast is dominant- e.g. Bellevue, Issaquah and Redmond. I managed to catch 16 more devices over the next 4 hours. The count was so small I didn’t bother to keep my logs. But here are some screenshots to give you a feel for what I experienced:
This experiment agitated me greatly. I know there are still problems related to wifi offloading- but I only caught 18 devices. I didn’t spend enough time researching SSIDs and the end result was low attaches.
Despite my grumpiness about the data, this experiment was a major success.
Did you notice the external Wifi Adapter above? How about the nice Paperwhite display presenting status of the device. My monitoring script was far more sophisticated than a tail of a hostapd logs. I didn’t have to write this code or fiddle with hostapd configurations or nftables rules. I didn’t have to find the right kernel headers and compile wifi drivers. I didn’t have to flex my terrible design skills. I knew the features I wanted and I gave my agents direction on how to deploy the features.
I was able to successfully produce an IoT prototype with complex hardware dependencies in 4 days.
I implemented a working prototype of a custom wifi hotspot with a paperwhite display, an external wifi adapter & a Yagi wifi antenna in 4 days.
I leveraged Claude code for most of my work. I created a working directory invoked Claude with a 1,500 line pre-prompt for requirements analysis and planning. This pre-prompt produced ansible playbooks that take advantage of my Firmware Development caching containers. The pre-prompt addresses topics related to Requirement Exploration, Architecture Safety, Known Good Deployment Patterns, Domain Specific Knowledge and Documentation & Maintenance. I’ve been iterating on this prompt for about 6 weeks through applications on about 5 other projects. I constructed a separate pre-prompt of 166 lines that handles Deploying code, Code analysis, system access, frameworks for deploying code & systematic troubleshooting and refactoring the code to address discovered defects.
The normal lifecycle of developing a reliable working prototype seems to take about 3-4 build cycles.
My agent would serially perform the following operations during the build process:
If the build experienced errors, I waited to get a complete build and then started again on fresh recipient image. I kept seeing improvements until the build process ran reliably without errors.
My biggest challenge was rate limiting:
My agents hit my 5 hour Anthropic token limit on the $20 plan in about 2 hours. During this 4 day period, I scheduled my day around throttling limits. I tried to make sure that some building happened while I slept. Two days before the marathon, I upgraded to the $200 plan. My iOS screen time report was 1 hour during that week.
I didn’t have to write any code to make this project work. That’s not to suggest that anybody could do this experiment. I was successful because I knew exactly what software libraries I wanted to see deployed and how I wanted them tuned. I regularly had to intervene when the agents proposed bad plans. But I’m now approaching a point where my single board computer development processes are automated. It felt like having a mildly competent apprentice.
Over the last few years, I’ve been able to build a range of Raspberry Pi Prototypes. All of them were a labor of large effort. My build process made prototyping faster, but it still took me several months to work out the details of various project:
Making reproducible builds was expensive and typically took 2-3 months. I’d steal spare time on evenings or weekends to work on projects. The greatest costs come from the testing & validation needed to create durable, reproducible firmware images. With a combination of tasteful pre-prompts, custom agents & an automated build process I can turn around reproducible firmware builds in less than a week.
You need repeatable, cost-effective environments to validate new software and hardware under real-world conditions, but setting up and tearing down test rigs is slow, inconsistent, and prone to configuration drift.
2. Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs)
You need deployable, trusted network nodes inside customer environments for monitoring, detection, and incident response — but sourcing, configuring, and reproducing reliable hardware platforms across dozens of clients eats up valuable engineering time.
You want to prove out your next device concept quickly, with working prototypes that demonstrate connectivity, edge processing, and security — but your in-house teams are bottle-necked by long development cycles and unpredictable integration issues.
4. Agricultural & Rural Networking Providers
You need rugged, affordable devices to extend connectivity into fields, barns, and remote communities — but commercial gear is overpriced, hard to customize, and not designed for rapid prototyping or deployment in challenging environments.
5. Telecom & Network Operators
You need cost-effective, rapidly deployable edge devices for monitoring network performance, testing bandwidth in rural or urban environments, or validating new customer premises equipment—but traditional hardware procurement cycles are too slow and expensive.
6. Smart City & Infrastructure Providers
You’re deploying IoT devices to manage traffic lights, utilities, or environmental sensors across a city, but you need quick, low-cost prototypes to validate integrations before scaling to tens of thousands of units.
7. Educational & Research Institutions
Your students or researchers need reproducible, documented environments for experimentation with hardware, networking, or AI, but setting up reliable builds consumes valuable teaching and research time.
8. Healthcare & MedTech Device Innovators
You’re exploring connected health devices—remote patient monitors, smart diagnostic tools, or secure data collection endpoints—but you need a prototype that proves functionality while meeting strict reliability and security requirements.
9. Defense & Public Safety Contractors
You’re tasked with rapidly developing ruggedized, secure edge devices for field communication, surveillance, or sensor fusion, but your internal teams can’t keep pace with the prototyping demands.
10. Environmental & Energy Monitoring Firms
You need distributed, low-power devices to collect data in harsh or remote environments—forests, farms, offshore rigs, or mines—but your current prototypes fail due to durability or reproducibility issues.
11. Media & Event Production Companies
You want portable, reliable devices for live-streaming, crowd analytics, or on-site Wi-Fi provisioning at concerts and sporting events, but consumer gear isn’t flexible enough and enterprise hardware is overkill.
12. Transportation & Logistics Providers
You’re experimenting with fleet tracking, warehouse automation, or smart inventory systems, but you need a way to test edge hardware integrations quickly before committing to full-scale rollouts.
13. Industrial Automation & Robotics
You need controllers and monitoring systems for robots, conveyors, or factory IoT sensors, but the cost and time of custom PLCs and proprietary systems make it hard to experiment quickly.
14. Consultancies & Systems Integrators
You’re responsible for stitching together hardware and software for your clients, but you lack a streamlined way to spin up reproducible prototypes that demonstrate proof-of-concept value quickly and reliably.