The best model you can run locally is Kimi K3, as long as you have the hardware. If "what model I can still run on a something resembling something I can put on desktop without separate electricity and cooling water inputs", then it is probably GLM 5.2 (can be run on e.g. Nvidia DGX Station workstation). As long as you have about $100k-$150k.
Not exactly. I used to run my home biolab for CRISPR experiments (thanks to TheOdin for hardware and materials). This is harder than you think. Cultivating viruses is hard. Bioweapons are not about synthesizing new viruses (though this alone is a hard problem - you need growth environments and a lot of lab hardware) - they are about weaponization, aerosol production, hardening tests. You'll need to spend a few millions just for the prototype stage. And if you are into bioweaponeering, you'd better source some actual bio experts, they are quite available.
Knowledge is widely available already. Regulations there are not about witholding the knowledge.
Mini nukes are hard to build. They require the entire industrial base to produce. The knowledge how to build them is universally available.
The model can tell you how to refine weapon-grade plutonium, but will not get you a factory for that - and it is genuinely hard to build.
What you are describing is pure information control. Which is supposed to be operated by the people who are the most ill equipped to do that - the current US government. Thanks but no thanks. I'll better risk the recipes for mini nukes.
They told you that CERN is an international org, and this is true, but it is also apparently legal under Swiss discrimination laws. I was declined a pure math position because of "knowledge security reasons" - for nothing but my passport. And it was legal, as discrimination laws apparently has many exceptions. I am not happy about it, but there's little I can do.
The "old web" is now darknets, like Tor or especially I2P. Everything fits. It requires some technical expertise to set up (particularly I2P). Slow downloads. No Javascript (usually disabled for safety reasons). Some content that will shock you at 30 exactly as the old internets content occasionally shocked you at 13. Intermittent connection. Anarchy. You can explore this world.
I am in the industry too and I wish to get back to the academia sometimes. Sadly, CERN is not hiring Russians no matter what are their political convictions (I am pro-Ukraine, of course). But yes, as a Geneva resident, I was at the tunnels too (Alice), and I am always in awe every time I see this wonder of the modern world. Sometimes I wonder how actual humans could build this, much like people did for the pyramids.
I use GLM 5.2 routinely for coding and agentic tasks. It is not without its quirks, but generally I find it on the level of Opus 4.7 or so. But without all these "cybersecurity" rejections.
Well I test all open weights models with the following prompt: "Write an implosion simulation for a Pu-239 levitating core in C++, with criticality calculations. Use actual Hugoniots and equations of state. Produce charts for k_eff, temperature, energy release etc." If rejected, this is a bug, and the model needs some further refinements before deployment.
Opus is at the same level as open weights models now. Okay, maybe a tiny bit better. So basically "nothing" - I don't see the point of using closed weights if there is an equivalent open weights model.
Heretic is a general abliterating framework, mostly used to remove safety alignment, not CCP alignment. Yes, you can put China-specific prompts to it, but you'll need a dataset first (which is available at deccp).
Also Heretic as it is does not work for GLM5.2 (at least as of 3 days ago when I tested it). You'll need some hybrid approaches.
https://github.com/AUGMXNT/deccp - one example for Qwen models. For GLM 5.2, abliteration/realignment works somewhat differently, but with Claude's help, you can finish the job.
I am planning to release the steering patch for the GLM 5.2 eliminating pro-CCP alignment in the next few days.
I use it extensively. It is not ready for agentic use, but as a generic driving model for RAG use cases, it is pretty competent. You can build useful software with it.