raspberry pi 5 is STILL unsupported in mainline

I think you would get a kick out of reading this paper on this exact topic, called the Vulnerable World Hypothesis https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf

However I think the result is disappointing, it concludes the only solution is a massive preventative surveillance state and global governance.

agreed, zero-trust solution with proper endpoint security and PKI is superior to transport encryption and insecure protocols

Significant parts of my tech school (1B4X1) were under NDA back in 2015.

yes, this has been my preferred approach as well. Too much risk of very deep local maxima otherwise.