Hello World! I’m Xinyu Liu. I go by Thomas.

I grew up in Shenzhen, China, now based in Los Angeles. I hope to travel the world.

So the story is, when I was 12, I was browsing the internet and stumbled onto programming for the first time. In China, you might know there’s GFW, I hate it, it blocks internet connections, which caused trouble for me to learn more because a large percentage of servers are hosted abroad. So I taught myself how to circumvent it using scattered resources I found online. That opened up a whole new world: Forums, GitHub, Blogs, Torrents. Everything felt like a discovery and it became part of my life.

At 14, I got my first real exposure to internet privacy, open source, decentralization, and the zero trust philosophy. Crypto (Blockchain) was part of that world, and I spent hours reading articles and watching videos trying to understand it. One day I finally took the plunge, bought my first USDTs through an exchange, and converted it to XMR. Back then, CEXs weren’t heavily regulated yet, so the swap was straightforward.

Then I started watching hacker movies and TV shows like Who Am I and Mr. Robot, and something clicked. I got obsessed. I browsed the internet, learned about Kali Linux, Metasploit, Equation Group, EternalBlue. I dual-booted my laptop to Kali Linux and tried to set up a home lab, but hardware limitations got in the way and it failed. Still, for the first time, I felt genuinely hooked on something the way I was hooked on football (or soccer, as it’s called in the US). That was the beginning of my path into cybersecurity.

Years later, the OpenAI wave hit, and then Anthropic’s Claude Code w/ Opus came along. It’s the most powerful tool I’ve ever used, I am obsessed with it, and I can see it is the future. This blog is actually built with Claude Code. I’d wanted to start one for a long time, but between China’s internet environment, ICP filing requirements, and my own paranoia about online anonymity (OpSec), I never got around to it. Well, I resolved my paranoia on online anonymity and other things and now I finally have one.

In my blog, I want to share with you my journey in learning & practicing Cyber Security, AI and maybe more :)!

Facts about me

  • I’m a United fan, I also follow Real Madrid

  • My childhood hero was CR7

  • My dream was to be a soccer player to play for Real Madrid like CR7

  • I’m a F1 fan, Max Verstappen and Kimi Antonelli are my favorite drivers

  • I’m a blockchain fan, I love the ideas on ownership

  • I used to be paranoid about internet privacy & anonymity, now I choose to make a deal (I still value it but it’s no longer absolutely paranoid)

  • I agree with the idea that you have to do something to get what you want, instead of waiting for it to come to you

  • I hate Google reCAPTCHA

  • I hate assimilationists

  • I hate low upload speed

  • I like Italy

  • I love durian pizza (I know Italians may hate me on this)

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