PhD_journeys on AlipourIm journeys

June 2026

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 20:00:07 +0000

Ok, it’s been so so so long! I haven’t been writing, once again, because I’ve been too busy with fixing my life. Let me summerize these past many months:

I finished my coursework for my prep phase
I was added to a colleagues project and we submited it to IMC
I submitted a poster to TMA, and I will be present it at the end of this month (June)
I branched my main project, IP over anything, into application layer, added steganography to it, and made it ready to be submited to S&P, but due to some complications, we decided to skip this deadline and aim for USENIX at the end of Augsust.
I am a tutor at data networks, and I think I’m doing a pretty good job :) at least I hope so! I realized how much I love teaching, and interacting and explaining things to students.

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April '26

Sun, 03 May 2026 03:26:09 +0000

I know, I know. I’ve been lacking updates. I’m so so sorry. I will try to summerize what I’ve been up tp in the past few months.

Up until the middle of March, I’ve been taking care of the last bits of coursework I had to do during my prep phase. And now I’m done with that all together.

I took ML in cysec which was very much aligned to the type of research I do. They try to get around IDS, and I try to get around censorship setup which is pretty much the same idea. I learned so so incredibly much from the course. It was awesome! I then had a block seminar called Routerlab in which I just did very well. It was fun in the sense that we got to touch and use real hardware. We also did so much that I didn’t know much about. Though no mail server for me unfortunately.

I was then approached by a colleague who’s research needed a bit of push to get to the IMC deadline, and we pushed “HARD”. We submitted the paper with so much chaos I would say. But we did it.

Now I wonder, both my research projects that I’ve been working on feel like there are more advanced than what we submitted, then we am I not drafting papers for them?! I will talk to my advisor about this. :)

I also kinda started a new project, or at least we have floated the idea of, which sounds exciting. I would be working with one of my favorite group members. A true nerd! :)

I will try to be more consistant throughout May by providing updates. Please cross your fingers for me! :D

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November '25

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 07:53:40 +0000

4th

Again, let’s setup some goals for the month.

Literature review
Keeping up with my coursework
Working on my codebase
Getting healthier diet and excercise-wise

30th

I did a bit of literature review, it’s still lacking unfortunately.

Coursework is ok-ish. I’ve been trying to work on assignements and understand them.

I rewrote the whole codebase, now we have a modularized design that should be easier to add to.

I’ve been eating more and more healthy, excercise is still lacking. I’ll get to that later.

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October '25

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 08:40:43 +0000

1st

Ok, let’s start the month by declareing some goals and agendas.

What do I want to do this month?

Finish previous semester.
Pick the last of the course work for my prep phase.
Finalize the CoNEXT student workshop paper.
Finish my second RIL.
Start my 3rd and last RIL.
Learn more Go to become more comfortable with it, but how do I set this as a measureable goal?
More literature review, persumabely all of FOCI related papers this month.
Work on my codebase:
1. Do code cleaning
2. Add comments for code
3. Start working on ICMP stuff
More socializing! :-)
A fun pet project? Maybe with Go? Maybe with 3d printer? Idk.
Enhance your routines and add exercise to it please!

Alright. Now that the goals are set, let’s start the month strong! My last exam for pervious semester will be on October 7th. I have done 74 ECTS, another 6 will be my last RIL. If they give me Router Lab, 4 of it would count as ungraded along with an advance course such as either NN, ML sec or EML I would be done with the requirements for my prep phase. I then just need to do my QE for which I should submit my first paper for which I’m doing work!

I have started to take SSRIs again. I used to take them before I came to Germany to start my PhD, but after coming here things were going really well for many months, and I wanted to cut the medication. I was taking more than just SSRIs actually, and my psychiatrist agreed to cut all other three medications but advised me to keep taking my SSRI. After being all happy and things working very well, we started to cut the last piece of the puzzle. We agreed to reduce the dosage by 0.25% of the max and wait for one month. Things were going really well for the first two and a half month, and then it happened. The catastrophe that put me in my worst mental and physicall position happened to me. It’s not something I want to talk about in my blog, well at least for now, but I’ve tried to talk about it with my closest friends. It’s so sad that things happened the way they did. I never really fully recovered. But… time has passed. Almost 8 months now. I should not have continued to cut my medication, but I did. I damaged myself badly by being stubborn. My brother who knew everything insisted that I should continue the usage, but I didn’t listen. My parents didn’t know anything, but could see thier happy son turning into the saddest, most depressed thing of all time. I was scared of my own shadow for more than one month. I eventually started to go out, but seeing some certain people made me uncomfortable. This is another thing I haven’t been able to figure out. In the end, I just endured pain, a lot of pain. I’m glad I didn’t break, but I do think most people would’ve. To deal with this pain, I decided to take many courses. Cure pain with more pain. What a fool I was. I just tore myself up mentally and added much more unneeded stress.

Did I mention I didn’t show up in office for 6 weeks? And that when I came back I was hit again with things I didn’t understand? Sometimes in life shit happens, but this was a whole new level. I don’t know how much of this I want to talk about publicly, but I do want to just say that I was hurt really badly. I’ve been trying to just lay low, stick to myself, and stay the hell out of trouble.

3rd

Today is the German unity day, and we have a long weekend ahead! Other than that, last night was one of the most fantabolous days of my life. I’m feeling more content and secure. I’m feeling true happiness. I don’t know how much the SSRI is affecting me, but I know one thing for sure. I’m just like I used to be 9 months ago. Just as jolly, positive, and feeling like I’m on top of the world. Thinking about it a bit more, I do think I’m being a bit less passionate about my work. What could be the reason? Different priorities? Nah. I really love my research and care about it. I think it’s just that there is no pressure on me, and no deadline. I will try to set small deadlines for myself and force myself to be more productive. Oh, and the SSRI adverse effects are visible! Yeah… But it’s going to be alright, I’m sure of it. I have an exam I need to prepare for on 7th, but I’ve been procrastinating. I should plan my days and stick to it. Hell yes.

5th

My student workshop paper to CoNEXT ‘25 was rejected. It got one weak accept and one weak reject, with both reviewers claiming to have somewhat familiarity with the topic.

First review (wa) provided two suggestions for improving the work. However, as this was a workshop paper, the goal was to talk about the research in the presentation and afterwards fine-tune details.

Second review (wr) asked for more details. In the end they suggested only focusing on one approach and it’s evaluation. This kinda defeated the purpose of what I was trying to do, to provide “tools”.

Another thing they mentioned was how ML-based traffic analysis can be used to detect evasion. This is indeed something I like to work on and look at in the near future.

7th

Stressful day. I had my last exam, the exam for Interactive systems that I did not attend the main exam for. I tried to study over the weekend, but some weird things happened throughout the weekend, making my very distracted mind even more distracted. I don’t know how I did, but I’m glad I did the exam. Hopefully I did alright, although I kinda do know some of the mistakes I’ve made, which is a really bad sign… I hope I won’t have to take another extra course in the next semesters, that would just be annoying. I really do hope so.

8th

I’m back at work, still very distracted with life. I do need to do literature review, expand my framework, and focus on my work. It’s a Wednesday unfortunately, meaning I have my German class until 9:30, which today it lasted until 9:45, and then we have cookies at 14:00. I hope I can get myself together and start being productive again.

9th

I will be doing literature review today. Yesteday I didn’t manage to get myself together. Drat. There will be a nice social event later today too. I can rest and socialize with my group’s amazing people! It’ll be fun! :)

Another fun thing is that I will get my very own physical GFW box today. It’s probably the most majestic thing that could’ve happened? The reason for it is that a month ago there was a leak for GFW. Lucky us I guess.

13th

Last week was again not a productive week. I will start to plan my days from now on. The important things are literature review, working on the code base, and looking at the box a bit. Unfortunately the new semester also starts from today. I’ll be having one, at most two courses.

17th

Another unproductive week. I think this was the worst one actually. I can’t focus on reading the papers, I get distracted easily or lose interest. Tobias suggested USENIX’s 3-slide slide deck to enhance my focus, I’ll give it a try.

I also need to address the elephant in the room, and start working on the codebase.

I also need to look at the GFW files more, and try to find useful stuff there.

But first I need to work on HTDN’s papers, and craft the slides. That is the highest priority on my list. I’ll do it.

31st

It went by. It went by quickly. I wasn’t able to pick myself up this month, but I won’t let it happen in the following. I want to be truthful, so I won’t hide anything. the only thing is I should’ve let myself grief a bit, and I did. I’m proud of it. It’s fine. For next month, I will start strong, try to get myself together, and pick myself up. I will make progress. I promise.

Also I think there is no point in me ranting everyday or every once in a while in my PhD journey posts? Maybe it’s not a bad thing. The problem is I don’t have much to present, and that’s why this is the content. Idk if I change the structure or not, but for now it is what it is.

Ok, let’s set some goals for next month in advance, then we can see how good we did.

I want to work on ICMP stuff and make it work nicely.
I want to do more literature review, maybe read all 2025 and 2024 censorship papers. Cross your fingers for this.
I need to keep up with my courses, including the German class.
I might work more on the GFW leaked data, but I think it’s not a priority for me for now. So… scrap this last one.

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September '25

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 09:48:21 +0000

I started the month by finalizing my draft for Conext Student workshop. Let’s cross our fingers and hope things work out and that it gets accepted. Notification should arrive on 25th, and I’d have until 30th to do the camera ready stuff which should be plenty of time.

I did a vacation from 6th until 15th for a total of 10 days by taking 6 days off. I visited my parents after 13 months(!), and also my brother after more than two years. We had so much fun! I did a bunch of sight-seeing in Istanbul, tried out yummy foods and sweets, many different fishes, and snorkled in Antalya. What a delightful trip it was. I do have to get used to this as this is the sole way I will most probably see my parents from now on, unless they want to travel to somewhere else or visit me here. Now that my brother also has his greencard, we can travel together and see eachother more often too!

Surprise surprize, the notification did not come and it’s the last day of the month. Ever since I came back from vacation I tried to catch up with everything, did my ML re-exam, and setup all different cool things I talked about in my blog. I’ve been waiting for the notification to get started with the camera-ready process to make sure I have enough time to study for my next and last exam on 7th of October… Drat!

I will probably do more literature review this last day of the month, and start working on the code base from next month. I should do a lot more literature review to be caught up with whatever that’s been done so far.

My social life has been much more exciting too. I’ve been socializing a lot more and have made many new friends. Some other exciting things have also been hapening that I don’t have the courage to write about now. ;) Buuuuuut… I will probably write about them at some point if things go the way I hope theuy would. Just remember Wed 24th of September 2025 and Sunday 28th of same month and year. :)

And with that, that’s my September in a nutshell. I will probably start writing through the month and then turn the draft into a post from now on. That way it would look like a story!

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Augest '25

Sun, 31 Aug 2025 07:49:24 +0000

This month started with me setting up a deadline for Conext student workshop. I wanted to submit something not only to get the chance to attend a nice conference, but to create a network, meet researchers, and to get a chance to present my work and get feedback on it. I also worked on my code-base, finally making everything work by replacing Jool with clatd for performing CxLAT. This darn thing wasted so much of my time! I did learn a bit along the way, but oh well. Such is life!

Overall not the most productive month, but one reason for it is that I have’t really had a real vacation in a long time. I will be taking a 10 day vacation next month just to reset, and gain back my power. I cross my fingers for the month ahead!

My social life has been becoming better too. I’ve been trying to attend more ZiS events to meet people, make new connections, and to have fun! My depression is a serious issue. I also have anxiety disorder that I’m talking with my therapist about. I will most likely start taking SSRIs once again. Idiot me was cutting it when the catasrophe in February happened and did not think twice to keep taking them. I’m really glad I was able to recover, though it was not easy at all, it did work out.

I do think there is bright nice future ahead of me; I just need to keep on trucking and not worry too much. Things will workout!

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