The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of the Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods– a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper.

Electronic Security

An “accidental hero ^[1]” noticed that the ransomware hack on Friday was making DNS calls to a nonsensical domain. When he registered the domain name, suddenly the ransomware was stopped cold in its tracks. Apparently, the author of the hack had a built in kill-switch, which checked for the existence of that domain. The researcher has stated that the original author is still unknown, and it would be trivial to rewrite the code to start up again. The current hack may be over, but the battle is still on. It should also be noted that this only stopped the spread of the code. If you’ve already been hacked, it’s too late for you.

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Reader D.B. also pointed out that The Threat Journal ^[2] is also stating that over 100 nations have been impacted by the Ransomware Attack and that the code is easily changed to keep the attack valid. Microsoft has released a patch for the affected software, so make sure you have your computer updated.

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Video from Full Spectrum Survival: You Have Been Hacked By The NSA – Bios Hacking – Air Gap Now ^[3]. His advice on air gapping (starting at the 4 minute mark) is prudent. His advice meshes nicely with JWR’s, from March of 2017: 21st Century Tradecraft: Discreet Transport of Documents. ^[4] Note that the particular BIOS hack in question is only viable on Windows based computers as the underlying software is a requirement to compromise the computer BIOS. However, just because we don’t know of hacks and vulnerabilities on other platforms does not mean that they don’t exist. The air gap practice is sound advice for critical electronics. The governments of the world can bring to bear an enormous amount of resources if you garner their full attention.

Government overreach

Azure Standard, a large organic farm in Oregon, has been served notice that the county is going to force them to spray ^[5] their organic-based farm with RoundUp, Milestone, and Escort herbicides as a weed control. They have over 2,000 acres of wheat, field peas, barley, Einkorn and, of course, their beef. They are asking supporters to contact the county court at lhernandez@co.sherman.or.us or call the them at 541-565-3416.

Homesteading

Reader T.J. sent in this YouTube video by An American Homestead on building an off grid solar kiln ^[6] that will handle 700 to 1000 board feet of lumber at a time. The building is fully insulated and the authors used mostly reclaimed lumber to build it. If you are thinking of cutting your own lumber, a kiln is a must-have to end up with good straight lumber. The video is 12 minutes long and the plans are free to download ^[7].

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T.J. also sent in this article ^[8] about finding locations that have very few or even no building codes, which makes it easy to build homes out of low cost natural materials and homestead. The Ozarks apparently stack up favorably in this regard.

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Here is another idea from making your own Gabion Walls ^[9]. The author is using concrete reinforcing mesh to create the containers for the stone, and while it is alot of work, it is relatively inexpensive compared to commercial products. I especially like this type of wall for erosion control, though I prefer to use the galvanized horse/cow panels rather than the raw steel mesh.

Education

Reader B.B. sent in this article on TPTB using the college as a blueprint for a totalitarian America ^[10]. On campus, the Bill of Rights is commonly violated and civil rights don’t exist. Colleges are already totalitarian states, and they are the implementation of the left’s plan for the whole country.