Comms Off If Necessary

[Ninurta]

Ninurta:
I'm in agreement here, create an ad hoc, grassroots intel gathering network. An encrypted private meshnet can work. Even with the one watt output limit of WiFi signals, the "cantenna" directional antenna system can give you distance and added privacy with a line of sight signal. There are two-way options as well, even for encrypted data.

Unfortunately, it will have to come down to offline distribution when the government uses signal jamming devices to cover multiple frequency bands. Literal "dead drops" and "hand offs" to create a covert distribution network.

I remember back in the 80s when we didn't have an  internet and used floppy disks to share data. I remember one that went around called "Operation Vampire Killer" that was being shared by the unregulated militias. I've received "hand offs" of DVDs more recently. These usually contain very controversial subjects you'd be hard pressed to find online or would have to purchase directly from the producers.

Just looked at the link . . .

"Let’s also not forget that police deployed a counter-terrorism ‘bearcat‘ yesterday, which has a plate on top that has the ability to disrupt signals and counter IED threats."

So they can jam signals, and this bearcat has thermal imagining too, of course. So mobile communications would have to be used to keep ahead of the jamming units. These could coordinate with meshnet nodes that repeat to other nodes at a distance that still have internet. Or go offline entirely at some point.

When I lived in Kansas City, my internet was free via a meshnet. if one tracked the IP (which I did just to satisfy my curiosity) it tracked back to a service provider in a tower downtown. If one tracked it more aggressively to the finest grain, it tracked to a church across the street from me.

I don't know if you're old enough to recall the "guerrilla radio broadcasters" of the early 70's, but one man in a van with the right equipment, and on the move, was damned difficult for them to triangulate. Whenever they got to the broadcast site, the broadcast site was somewhere else. I think you're right, some combination of that with a meshnet might be the way to go. The problem would be ferrying the signal from somewhere outside the jamming range to the entry into the meshnet, past jammimg, and that would likely require hardwiring, maybe through older telephone lines. They can jam a radio signal, but have to disconnect the hardwire. It's probably more cost effective and secure to just hand carry the material outside jammer range and upload it from a mobile outpost.

With the advent of "trusted computing", they are now able to block specific files all across the internet if they have a mind to. "Trusted computing" was chosen as a designation to give the false impression that you could trust your computing to be safe from hackers, but nothing is ever safe from hackers. What it really means to insiders is that THEY can trust YOU to only use your computer in an approved manner, since they can block files on a per-file basis now.

Windows 10 is a danger to free speech for that very reason. Win10 is built around TPM chips, which means "Trusted Platform Module" chips. In the same way that Windows 10 can be automatically force-updated at their will, and auto updates can no longer be disabled, they can use it to blacklist any file they like - or more importantly, any file they DON'T like. I personally believe that all the problems with Windows 10 updates in the early days of Win10, where it was simply removing certain programs and files for no apparent reason, was a proof of concept test of that very thing, on a wide scale.

So, it may behoove folks to get a small netbook on which they can install Linux to get around that danger. Not a Chromebook, as Google is in on the act and ChromeOS is a pain in the ass to work with, but a netbook. Cell phones are more problematic. Whether Android or iphone, their operating system is at the pleasure of someone else, Google and Apple respectively. For that reason, I would recommend an un-wified camera independent of cell phone cameras for guerrilla journalism. Something that uses easily concealable microSD chips as a recording medium.

For example, I have an old Acer netbook that I built out of two broken ones. I combined the ram from both into the build to double the ram, and that gave me enough horsepower to install both Linux and Windows 7 Professional in a dual-boot setup, instead of the Win7 Starter low-powered version that came with it. I rarely ever use it, so it's not been out in the wilds of the internet to be fingerprinted yet. For my cameras, I get the microSD chips that come with a normal SD chip sized adapter. In a pinch, I can slip out the adapter, slip the chip out of that and drop it into a cuff, and run like hell for the next point in the network... or to a dead drop or a hand-off.

Most surveillance or "spy cameras" already have a reader built-in for microSD. All the ones I've had were set up like that.

USB drives, and tiny USB readers for microSD have become truly tiny. I have some here that are no bigger than just the USB connector with just enough of a nib the catch a thumbnail on to get it back out of the connection, about the size of a USB dongle for a wireless mouse. One of those, with a 256 or 512 GB chip, and a copy of "VeraCrypt" (free encryption program, successor to "TrueCrypt") can go a long way to disseminate loads of orphaned intel pretty securely. You just have to transmit the passphrase via alternate channels so the chip and the passphrase don't travel together. I have some stashed about with machinist's drawings for various devices and manuals that might be useful for various versions of mayhem, and some with videos downloaded to local that YouTube keeps disappearing from their platform.

There must be some reason they keep disappearing that stuff, eh? But like Mr. Universe said in "Serenity", "They can't stop the signal, Mal".

And, finally, if one happens to have a belt with a metal aiglet tip on it, behind that tip, or underneath it, is a mighty fine place to stash microSD chips. Out of sight, out of mind, and out of x-ray range.

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