The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

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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 from “JWR”.  Today, we delve even further into the growing threat of internet surveillance and censorship.

Fed Up With YouTube Censorship?

If you are fed up with YouTube censorship and content steering, then I recommend getting the LBRY app. The app (spoken “Library”) also includes its own cryptocurrency. So I’ve found that getting someone started viewing videos on LBRY is a good way to teach them the fundamentals of how crypto coins operate. And it is also a great way to poke our collective finger in the eye of the censorious eye of YouTube. The app just takes a minute to download. The interface is fairly intuitive. To build your list of “Channels”, just type names or topics into the LBRY search box. The developers have just released a web-based (HTTP) version (at LBRY.com) , but I strongly suggest that you download the app, so that you have the full feature set. LBRY is the wave of the future. By now, it should have YouTube’s management quaking in their boots. Since LBRY is a fully distributed peer-to-peer app, they can’t stop the signal!

SurvivalBlog Archive USB Stick Sale Update

Our small remaining supply of waterproof SurvivalBlog Archive USB sticks is currently on close-out sale, at just $19.95 each.  This is just until we exhaust the annual supply. This is your chance to order some extras, for gifts. When I last checked, we had only 95 sticks remaining, and they’ve been selling at a rate of more than 20 per day.  Order yours soon–before they are all sold out!

Washington D.C. Has 10,000 Spies

Reader G.P. spotted this: City of Secrets: Estimated 10,000 people in DC are spies.

AI is Now Watching for Theft in the Checkout Lane

Reader DSV mentioned this article at Kim Komando’s site: AI is now watching for theft in the checkout lane at this major retailer.

Google Chrome: Surveillance Tool

C.B. was the first of several readers to send this: Review: Google Chrome has become surveillance software. It’s time to switch. A pericope:

“You open your browser to look at the web. Do you know who is looking back at you?

Over a recent week of web surfing, I peered under the hood of Google Chrome and found it brought along a few thousand friends. Shopping, news and even government sites quietly tagged my browser to let ad and data companies ride shotgun while I clicked around the web.

This was made possible by the web’s biggest snoop of all: Google. Seen from the inside, its Chrome browser looks a lot like surveillance software.

Lately I’ve been investigating the secret life of my data, running experiments to see what technology really is up to under the cover of privacy policies that nobody reads. It turns out, having the world’s biggest advertising company make the most-popular web browser was about as smart as letting kids run a candy shop.

It made me decide to ditch Chrome for a new version of nonprofit Mozilla’s Firefox, which has default privacy protections. Switching involved less inconvenience than you might imagine.

My tests of Chrome versus Firefox unearthed a personal data caper of absurd proportions. In a week of web surfing on my desktop, I discovered 11,189 requests for tracker “cookies” that Chrome would have ushered right onto my computer, but were automatically blocked by Firefox.”

Iguana: Chicken of the Tree

A hat tip to Tim J. for spotting this:  Iguana {Catch Clean Cook} “Chicken of the Tree”

Alabama Megachurch to Form its Own Police Force

An Alabama megachurch will form its own police force after passage of controversial law.  Here is a snippet:

“An Alabama megachurch plans to start its own police force thanks to a new law permitting the church to do just that.

The law, signed by Gov. Kay Ivey, authorizes Briarwood Presbyterian to “appoint and employ one or more suitable persons to act as police officers to protect the property of the school or academy.”

A similar bill was proposed four years ago, but it was dropped by the Alabama legislature amid a public outcry over the Presbyterian Church in America’s racist history, as well as criticism that the bill was unconstitutional and violated the Establishment Clause’s separation of church and state. Briarwood Presbyterian is part of the PCA.”

44 Days in Jail for Refusing to Unlock a Phone

Would You Do 44 Days in Jail for Refusing to Unlock Your Phone?

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You can send your news tips to JWR. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) Thanks!


16 Comments

  1. Fed Up With YouTube Censorship?
    I was very interested in this article due to the nature of censorship and did as suggested in downloading the LBRY app.
    Beware! – after downloading and opening the app I was met with a couple of porn videos on the first page. They are not censored.
    For this reason I immediately uninstalled the app because I or anyone in my family do not need that as a temptation hanging out anywhere near.

    1. That’s what EVERY alternative to YouTube will be facing. What do you, as an individual or organization, NOT want to be associated with?

      Now, YouTube is doing “social engineering” with political motivations, not anything based on moral convictions. Nevertheless, “censorship” of some kind will always be an issue.

      If ISIS sets up recruiting videos on, say, Bitchute, do they just let it stay up so they won’t be “censoring free speech”?

      I know, encouraging people to commit crime is not protected free speech, but you get the idea.

    2. Exactly! Freedom to do as we choose means any alternative is filled with temptation.

      That’s why I’m teaching myself to do without. I use YouTube heavily for gardening education (and Greg Hunter USA Weekly!) but I have realized I need to go back to reading for all my educational needs. JWR suggest the new app but it involves learning about cryptocurrency which I personally believe is a precursor to the Mark. No thanks.

  2. Concerning the Church in Alabama, our church in a small town in north central Florida just spent 40K on security and has an armed guard outside during services. When we lived in another (Yankee) state filled with Somalis there was a company running ads on the local radio who would “Train” Church members on how to provide security against active shooters. Psalm 149:6 ” Let the praise of God be in their throats and two-edged sword in their hands. “

    1. Seminole, that’s Old Testament talk.

      Today we have the New: Ephesians 6:13-17
      Specifically
      Eph 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

      and

      Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

      and then there is this

      Mt 5:44 But I (Jesus) say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven…

      Prep your souls with Gospel Truth. ~Peace

    2. 2 Timothy 3: 12 ~ “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,”
      The Fake-News media, Hollywood movies, television shows, and many celebrities are demonizing Christians now days. It’s dire times for Christians here and worldwide.

      A crazy-homeless man with a knife (8-inch blade) in his hand, tried to enter our Church, last summer. The >unarmed security guard, threatened the crazy-man with a Taser. “If you come up the stairs, I’ll shoot you.” Other words were exchanged, and then the crazy-man ran off.

      I didn’t see the occurrence, but I heard it from inside the Church, while sitting in a pew during the Church Service. … After Church, I joined the gossip-crowd, and looked at the pictures on a big cellphone. The crazy-man was a very tall, lanky man, that appeared to be homeless and taking illegal drugs. [Tall enough to be a professional basketball player.]

      The cops were called. … I would have wanted to shoot the knife-wielding, crazy man with the >Taser. … We are our Brother’s Keeper. We answer to God for what we do, and what we >fail to do. When the crazy-man ran off, he still had the knife in his hand.

      I don’t fault the security guard for NOT tasering the crazy-man. The crazy-man was very tall, lanky, and looked like he could jump 10-15 feet through the air in one leap. … The Taser might miss, or might NOT affect the drug, crazed man. = There might have been innocent blood on the ground, and innocent sheep slaughtered.

  3. RE: Browser snooping. Firefox ain’t perfect, but it’s better than others. FYI, Firefox has LOTS of security add-ons and extensions available, including Ghostery, an anti-tracker.

    TIP: Be sure to use “Settings” in Firefox to control how much, and what kind, data gets put into the browser cache. In “Private Browsing” mode Firefox is supposed to clear cache and history when the browser is closed; sometimes it doesn’t.

    TIP2: In the Menu (top right, horizontal bars) select “customize” then drag the “Settings” icon (the little gear icon) to the toolbar. This allows you to reach the Settings icon continually when the browser is open. Periodically left-click the Settings icon, go to “Privacy and Security,” left click “Clear Data” then left-click “Clear” then “Clear now.” This dumps everything in the cache. Then, scroll down to “Clear History,” left-click, then left-click ‘Clear.” This dumps your entire browsing history. Once you’ve trained yourself to do this it takes 5-7 seconds.

    TIP 3: Train yourself to right-click hyperlinks on web sites and select “open link in new tab” instead of just left-clicking the hyperlink. This is purely for convenience – it keeps you on the web page you’re reading and puts the linked page in a new browser tab. You can read the linked page without having to click “back” to go back to the originating page. Much faster.

    Go to “Mozilla.org” and select “search for extensions” to get a list of extensions and add-ons for Firefox; it’s searchable by category.

    I’ve found Adblock Ultimate very effective in blocking ads and popups, and if you’re wiling to do the work the NoScript extension allows you to control how many java scripts web sites run inside your browser. Being very strict with NoScript – setting “Untrusted” for everything – will prevent a lot of web content from loading (Example: In today’s American Redoubt news JWR mentioned Azure Standard; with all script options set to “Untrusted” absolutely nothing displays on Azure Standard’s home web page, several scripts must be set to “Temp Trusted” to display content; for some frequently visited web sites you might as well set some scripts to “Trusted” permanently Example: to see anything on Amazon’s web site you’ll need to set “amazon.com” and ssl-image-amazon.com” to at least “Temp Trusted” so it’s easier to just leave them as “Trusted” all the time. FYI, NoScript shows no background scripts running on SurvivalBlog. Thanks, JWR. ). Using NoScript effectively will be a fair amount of work and some, occasionally a lot, of inconvenience but if you’re willing to do it it’s one more layer of Surfing Security. You’ll be surprised at how many background scripts some web sites are running – I’ve seen as many as 44; if I have to “Temp Trusted” more than 3-4 I usually just ignore that web site. There’s a single button in NoScript to return all “Temp Trusted” to “Untrusted.”

    NoScript opens on a new page with everything set to “Default” so you’ll have to select “Untrusted” to set higher security for that page, and it will change on each page.

  4. LBRY is still annoying. I watched some gun vids, pretty good DIY your own build stuff, but my Social Credit Score (there really is no other name for it) didn’t go up. I still can’t post anything. It doesn’t serve me to have to watch a bunch of stuff I find tedious to useless just to be able to use the site. Seriously, it’s retarded. If it was truly open I’d be able to fully use it. Ugh. Sorry JWR, but it’s not good. I’ve been in IT for more than 20 years. I’d be extraordinarily surprised if this site gets used much beyond a niche who don’t mind the concept of clicks as work to get paid so you can be involved to click some more as work. I’m reminded of the old Company Store Coins that had no value beyond internal. I agree that the future may be distributed via a Blockchain ledger but this particular site has no casual user appeal. I can’t even properly analyze it to make a determination of its usefulness because that would require full use of it. Man!?! I desperately want a good place for people to hang out and post vids and publish their own work without censorship but even Freezoxee that had it all, is bankrupt and if he can’t make it running wide open full service I don’t see how LBRY makes it. I hope I’m wrong but it doesn’t serve me and will not serve a computer system, algo, software. It will serve me or go unused.

    Alabama Church.
    GOOD, now disarm and disband the federal corporate police who have NO responsibility to keep anybody safe per the SCOTUS. And, why do you need a law to protect yourselves and your property, this is natural, of God, inherent. The need for permission by men to enforce the six commandment is an affront to God’s Law and profane. America is lost.

    1. Fred, can I hear an ‘Amen!’

      Maybe I’ve been in Montana too long but I can’t imagine why church would hire security. And bowing at the altar of government for permission to protect your loved ones? You have got to be kidding. Even if only our gals attended, trust me, they and our children would be well protected.

      Why do Americans fear freedom? Rule thy selves.

    1. What the folks Brighteon are doing is admirable, but it is being constructed in a way that has little chance of success. Since they are using hosted servers, that comes with bandwidth expenses. If the service ever really takes off as a real widely-accepted alternative to YouTube, then they will probably be bankrupted in a few months, by server costs. In my estimation it is only true peer-to-peer distributed networks that will have the shared costs and resiliency required. YouTube has spent BILLIONS of dollars on servers. Only distributed alternatives have a chance of competing with that.

      For some background, see: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/04/cheaper-bandwidth-or-bust-how-google-saved-youtube/

  7. KJV Luke 22:36 Then said he unto them,”But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his script; and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.”

    1. Dale Bilbo, yes. And if I could add this. It is important to remember that private ownership of swords was illegal when Jesus spoke these words.

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