Introduction

As a relatively new penetration tester, I’ve quickly learned that maintaining anonymity and security is crucial not just for my work, but also for my online activities. As someone who has always valuee their privacy and works to minimize their digital footprint by default, I was eager to explore ways to protect myself while still conducting research and testing tools.

Penetration testing has taught me the importance of being visible online, at least in a controlled environment. However, as a private individual, I also want to avoid unnecessary attention from authorities, malicious actors or even my ISP. In this article, I’ll share my journey of setting up a multi-layered internet access system using Kali Linux, a proxy, and a VPN to achieve “ghost mode”. This configuration allows me to operate invisibly (hopefully) online, avoiding potential risks and maintaining the confidentiality of my activities.

As a developer, I’ve had my fair share of struggles when it comes to building development environments. One of the most frustrating experiences is trying to get multiple versions of programming languages installed on a single system. This is where ASDF (Another Setup Distribution Framework) comes in - a tool that allows you to manage multiple versions of programming languages on your system.

Unfortunately, getting ASDF up and running can be a bit of a chore. I’ve had to spend countless hours scouring the internet for instructions, only to find out that the information is outdated or incomplete. This is why I’m writing this guide - to help others who may be facing similar struggles.

This is the first post in my series “Building My Personal AI Assistant - Dave”, where I document how I’m putting together a local AI interface that integrates into my desktop and hopefully mobile daily life.

The idea is simple: I want my own personal AI assistant that can help with search, automation, and daily tasks. Not a cloud service or relying on an API, because I don’t particularly trust these companies but instead something that runs entirely on my hardware, with full control over the models and data.