The details :

Some people (like me) are concerned about the long-term effects of wifi and cellular radio signals.  We like the convenience of pocket-sized computing devices, but want to be able to connect them to the internet periodically with wires.

In my case, I have an HTC One cellphone that I do not use as a phone – I keep it in my pocket (in an RF-shielded case) in flight mode and use it as a PDA.  It does a great job as a calendar, address book, checklist, e-reader, and a host of other things that work fine being offline most of the time but need periodic sync over the internet.

HTC supplies a program called “HTC Sync Manager” that enables me to plug the HTC One into my Windows laptop and get “internet passthrough” – access the internet on the HTC One, via the laptop.  (aka “reverse internet tethering”)

The problem with HTC’s solution is that every few minutes, CPU usage goes to 100% for about 5-10 seconds and entirely locks up the computer.  This is very frustrating.  Trying older and newer versions of HTC Sync Manager didn’t fix the problem.

Fortunately, we can accomplish the same thing on Linux, without HTC’s buggy program, using iptables and the like.

This means I now want a dedicated Linux machine set up just to be the thing I plug my HTC One cellphone into for the cellphone to get wired internet access.

Ideally this dedicated Linux machine would be small and portable so I can move it from room to room.  I lean towards the pcDuino over the Raspberry PI largely because of my familiarity with Ubuntu, and also its greater power and flexibility for whatever other future projects my tinkering mind might set on!

In summary : the objective is to facilitate WIRED (i.e. minimal radiation) internet access for pocket computing devices that are able to connect to the internet via USB but don’t support USB ethernet dongles..