Fangpen Lin
fangpenlin.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2016
Fangpen Lin, a software engineer, writes about cryptography, networking, home infrastructure, Kubernetes, 3D printing and personal finance with Beancount.
What HN saysCommenters praise his elliptic curve cryptography explainer as really good, and cite his USB4 mesh network post for real-world speeds.
15HN people shared it
5linked it in comments
21stories submitted
1.8Kstory points
8 months agolast shared
2016people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Elliptic Curve Cryptography Explained5 people · 769 points · first shared 2019 · 44 comments on HN
- 2High-speed 10Gbps full-mesh network based on USB4 for just $47.983 people · 378 points · first shared 2024 · 229 comments on HN
- 3Syntax Highlight Command Line Tool2 people · 3 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 4Ninja Speed Vim-Like Debugging with Ergonomic Keyboard and Trackpad2 people · 3 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 5My Beancount books are 95% automatic after 3 years (2024)1 people · 229 points · first shared 2025 · 97 comments on HN
- 6I discovered a critical exploit in ZeroMQ with mostly pure luck1 people · 204 points · first shared 2024 · 61 comments on HN
- 7CADing and 3D printing like a software engineer1 people · 109 points · first shared 2024 · 103 comments on HN
- 8Nvidia GPU on bare metal NixOS Kubernetes cluster explained1 people · 41 points · first shared 2025 · 15 comments on HN
- 9I learn programming by building an MMORPG from the ground up 7 times1 people · 5 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 10Two AMD 7900XTX GPUs in a Tinygrad-Based Training Workstation1 people · 4 points · first shared 2025 · 1 comments on HN
- 11Good logging practice in Python (2012)1 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 12Why and how I build and maintain multiple products simultaneously1 people · 2 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 13I built an AI-gen video detection model and browser extension in a month1 people · 2 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 14I built a self-serving advertisement solution for myself1 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 15LLM is not going to replace software engineers, here's why1 people · 2 points · first shared 2026 · 1 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
wildzzz · 2025-04-22
It is somewhat possible but there's rumors that Intel intentionally nerfs the speed so as not to compete with their datacenter products. It could also just be some other resource limit in the hardware, you usually aren't saturating a thunderbolt connection with just one type of data stream. This guy built a small ring topology network using mini PCs and thunderbolt 4.
https://fangpenlin.com/posts/2024/01/14/high-speed-usb4-mesh-network/
The distance isn't great for USB/Thunderbolt 4 cables so it would really only make sense for cluster computing and since no switches exist for this kind of thing, you're limited in network topology. Generally, the kind of PCs that you'd need a fat pipe connected to already have the slots and lanes available for 40G or 100G cards. It's a cool experiment for the homelab but it's clear the industry isn't interested.
dathery · 2025-08-26
I am doing this between two UM890 Pros. It was easy to set up and I have had no issues over many months, but I "only" get ~11.6 Gbps between them. This seems to match other reports e.g. https://fangpenlin.com/posts/2024/01/14/high-speed-usb4-mesh-network/
malkia · 2024-11-16
Nice explanation with the ink. Here are some other sites to checkout:
https://tls13.xargs.org/
https://curves.xargs.org/
https://fangpenlin.com/posts/2019/10/07/elliptic-curve-cryptography-ex…
theogravity · 2024-04-11
The Elliptic Curve Cryptography article (mentioned in the ZeroMQ article) the author wrote is really good:
https://fangpenlin.com/posts/2019/10/07/elliptic-curve-cryptography-ex…