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Basic Techniques and Definition of Terms (continued)

• Sending a message. Sending a message consists of creating a text file containing the message, naming the file as described above, and getting it into a Postmaster’s pouch or multiple Postmasters’ pouches. If you don’t have a way to create a file yourself, a Postmaster can help you.

  The smaller your message is the better chance it has of getting through. You don’t need to go crazy with this. A message that is only 20 characters in length is not really any better than a 1K file (1024 characters). When writing out large numbers of small files, computers tend to waste a lot of space, because of the way the data is stored. A 20 character file is likely to use up 1K of space anyway. Even if your file is 2K, 3K, or even 10K, it’s still a “small” file. The point is that if a lot of people were to try to send large files of 50K, 100K, or a megabyte or more, a Postmaster somewhere along the line may have to delete them, due to a lack of space, but a small file doesn’t run this risk.

  If you want to attempt to send a larger file, also send a very small message telling the recipient that you are also sending the larger file. That way, if the larger one doesn’t get through, the recipient (and eventually you) will at least know what happened.

  In most cases, you will also want to include a return address in your message, so that the person can get back to you if they don’t know, or have lost, your address.

  Of course the contents of a message itself could give away all sorts of information that you may wish to keep private, which is covered in the next topic.

• Security and Encryption. Really, the only way to be relatively certain that a communication has not been altered or tampered with is to encrypt it. If an encrypted message is tampered with, it can no longer be decrypted by the recipient, so he will know that sabotage has occurred. There are various options for encrypting a message. The best, by far, is to use a modern encryption program, like PGP, which stands for Pretty Good Privacy, now available as GnuPG and Gpg4win. However, this requires that the sender and recipient (or Postmasters on both ends) have the software and the knowledge of how to use it. It’s not highly technical; you just have to learn a few operations. Encryption in general is a large subject, which is covered elsewhere by others, so I won’t try to explain how it works. This article is really about the medium for sending messages, not the content or how to encrypt, but I’ll provide some tips.

  One huge advantage of using PGP is that it allows one person to send a secure message to another person without those two people having agreed on a password in advance. If a person wants to send an encrypted message to someone, all they need to know is that person’s “public key”, and he can send a message that only the intended recipient (with his secret “private key”) can decrypt.

  This same technology also allows messages to be “signed”, which is basically just a special use of encryption. A signed message, though not necessarily secret, can be verified as actually originating from a particular person. If a message has been signed, all you need is the “public key” of the person who purports to have sent it, and you can verify that it really was them. This can be used to solve the problem of verifying blog entries, as mentioned before. If Joe Blogger has a blog at www.JoeBlog.com, he posts a message with a name of, for example, “www.JoeBlog.com 2015-01-15-YREU”, (YREU being random) adding a digital signature at the bottom of the message, which he generates with PGP, using his private key. Anyone interested in the blog can find it in a pouch the same way he would find his your own messages. If it is signed and the “public key” is known, PGP can be used to verify that the message is authentic.

  A public key is quite long and random; it’s definitely not something any normal person is going to be able to remember, but it can be sent in a message, and it can be saved on a USB key or SD card. Each postmaster will eventually have a large “address book” of them. They look something like this:

  
  mQENBFUMZJoBCACIqaSs9NZegeCYbL7QNQY9hJs3BSy/JcYgf3coy5mXDXDC+L95
  x/w4TGBT9jSbwQQD3esYa8eUIAdDAuvHpFipJ+5D4hY0vynkXvWeKzMztMqj3jYR
  QkcpNOL28M9ezrRMp/X4fN2Yy9k+BkBgmo7M78bYJdH1IsaJ1foOQFqYxC5YSUyY
  s0bwCKb9tmqEhvpwj2/LnOhlQ/R/H/3th09rc2x6/0tPzYI6j9j9d/X6pzPh1kv6
  9cV4yki0/zk5VJtrK5kyasTmjDj7pdc2O9iduJkCxD0f+RKsyziEOaBDOzFSpC99
  8kBnr9ccwBMAMiJBy1tUomP+0unkvgdClhenABEBAAG0GXJpY2tAa25vd3dhcmVz
  b2Z0d2FyZS5jb22JARwEEAECAAYFAlUMZJoACgkQQoRmLC8SB0DaRQf/RwktmFK8
  WJSSOj/8h0iouMZj/GACytI/qVZu3pC07av64xjVGREaoBjTQ4AmYTM31ePgHKx7
  B6qAGTRVNp/vgsWeu7Nnfu8CEeqgjXvQRKqAcrlH/QmF/0F0vAfYP1YboeVrQCxe
  trkcSP4XPlRR/Kk3DiwY6nqim4eeEnYTwPKmrMnaMwITt7AzCvvGNYDJyjKvZnDz
  /BQotUd0ritrJLpMRhFTPd/t/fO+qLBT75WxuarofwHI6ED8Z0jip1hiL/E9f2TO
  oAbRgo0Dx9KNSCsW7SFExsujN4BPDz+8XM5ctMHSJ4kUl63xAtJAGnBHTjmAMFLe
  5wR6KcVIHLNPXQ==
  =EZ4C
  

  Another less technical option, other than PGP, is to use the “zip” file format, which can also do encryption. There are free programs, such as 7zip, that will allow you to create an encrypted file that requires a password to open it. It will also shrink a message file in size considerably. This method, though less secure, has the advantage that all you need is a simple, human-readable password to encrypt and decrypt. Large messages or long blog entries can also be “zipped” without a password, just to shrink the file down to a smaller size.

  Yet another option is to use some manual coding method, such as found in children’s code books. However, if you use something as simple as some sort of A-Z substitution, don’t make it too simple and don’t separate words with spaces. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that “J MPWF ZPV” means “I LOVE YOU”. Once he has figured that out, he’s well on his way to decrypting your entire message. Remember the Nazis’ mistake as covered in the movie The Imitation Game (I won’t give it away, in case you haven’t seen it yet.)

  An effective, highly secure, yet low-tech method of encryption is called a book cipher. This requires that the sender and receiver have exact copies of the same book. It must be identical. For maximum security, it should be a book that does not exist in electronic form anywhere, but for practical purposes just about any book will do. An old paperback, a children’s book, a particular printing of the Bible, a textbook, any book will do, as long as both copies are identical, page for page and word for word. Then devise a scheme to build messages by pointing out words in the book, or if the desired word is not found in the book, letter by letter. This will take a prior understanding between the sender and receiver and some practice, but it has the advantage of not requiring special software. For example, “15.2.3,18.12.6,17.3.12” means page 15, row 2, word 3, then page 18, row 12, word 6, then page 17, row 3, word 12. You also may need a way to point out individual letters to spell out a word that you can’t find in the book. (Hopefully, you can do this without making it obvious to a cryptologist that you are doing so.)

  At the very least, or in addition to encryption, use vague terms that you are sure will be understood only by the intended recipient. For example, instead of typing “The gold will be dropped off at 123 Pleasant Street, Boise, Idaho on 14 September 2017”, say “It will be at Ma’s place five months before her 60th birthday.”

  There are endless possibilities, which are beyond the scope of this article. The point is that only an encrypted message is truly secure (and even then you have to be careful). That said, if all you are trying to do is let your sister know that Grandma and Grandpa are okay, a message with no encryption is much better than nothing, and it is likely to get through anyway.

  If you want to send an encrypted message to someone but you have neglected to exchange passwords between you in advance, there are a couple of things you can do. If it’s a family member or close friend, you may be able to send an encrypted message along with a hint as to what the password is; something that only you and they would know. For example, at the top of your message, you could write “Password is Grandma’s first name”, which would let them know that the password is “Samantha”.

  Another way is to split a message into two parts, both of which are required for full understanding. One of the messages could be encrypted, while the other one could contain the password. Or you could just write the two parts of the message in some way that required both parts to understand. This is one reason that you should provide multiple addresses to your contacts. If the addresses are completely different, it’s less likely that anyone will be able to match up the password with the message.

  To exchange addresses with a group of people, create a master page of all of your addresses, print out two copies, and cut one of them up to give out to your contacts. If your name is William Smith and you have three contacts named Joe, Sam, and Bill, the master page looks like this:

  ——–

  Joe:
  William Smith
  Primary Address: YRETYTG
  Secondary Address: JH3E656
  Password: UFFYDYERTE

  ———

  Sam:
  William Smith
  Primary Address: YRETHGH
  Secondary Address: JH3EYTY
  Password: YERTWU

  ———

  Bill:
  William Smith
  Primary Address: YRETTRM
  Secondary Address: JH3EHGR
  Password: HERTWR

  ———

  Once everybody else in the group does the same, you’ve got your own network.

  Given a list of names for any group of people, one person can make up random addresses for everyone in the group, print them, and pass them out. For a small group, this is simple enough that it doesn’t really require software, but a website or small application would be helpful for doing the same for large groups. I am not aware of any at this time, but it would not be a difficult task to create one.

  If you are using PGP, you will also need to store public and private keys in addition to addresses, and storing them on paper will not be practical. Use a USB key or SD card for storing all of your keys, passwords, and addresses, and keep a backup. There is software available to help with this, often packaged with PGP, but it is beyond the scope of this article, as it has more to do with the content of messages than the medium itself.

  All of this could be done after TEOTWAWKI, by postmasters establishing contacts using pre TEOTWAWKI email addresses, building up encryption networks and then helping others do the same by passing the addresses and keys back and forth in encrypted messages, but it would be a slow and laborious process. Anyone who has previously exchanged some basic information with his contacts will have the highest level of anonymity and security and will be able to start communicating immediately. It’s much better to do it now, while it’s easy.

  Basically, if you want security (which you do), you need to take full responsibility for it yourself, which is as it should be. This is really a “wild frontier” sort of network, so it’s best not to just assume that everyone else will look out for your best interests and be nice. What this network does is to give you the possibility of getting a packet of information across vast distances to your intended recipient. The rest is up to you. If you are working in a group, assign a designated Postmaster who can help get the rest of the group set up.

Postmaster Protocols

As mentioned before, a Postmaster is anyone with a computer and a willingness to help. Ideally, they should understand the protocols and frailties of the network, so they can help maintain its integrity and protect it from sabotage or misuse. They should also understand security and encryption and have the tools they need.

At the time of this writing, an 8GB USB key (or Flash drive) or SD card can be had for a few dollars on Amazon or eBay. Larger sizes (up to a terabyte) are also available for more money. Let’s just use 8GB as a base, which is roughly 8 billion characters of information. A short message can be written in 1KB, roughly 1,024 characters of information, allowing millions of messages to be stored in a single “pouch”! On the other hand, there is no need to completely prohibit the sending of slightly larger, or much larger messages, or even a small picture or a short, low-resolution video, as long as there is room for it. One of the important protocols the Postmaster must know is how to deal with overflows of data when swapping files with another Postmaster. The basic rule is that large files get eliminated first. People using the network will quickly understand that the best way to increase the chances that their message will get through is to send the smallest possible file. If a message is limited to a few thousand characters, it is most likely not going to be dropped because of its size. If someone wants to send a photo, the best way to increase their chances is to shrink them down as much as they can. An 8GB flash drive can hold 4,000 200K images, so early on after some TEOTWAWKI event, it is likely that many of these large images would get through. By reducing an image message to 50K or 20K, a sender can increase his chances of getting through considerably. In fact, he can always send a 1K message stating that he is sending an image, followed by separately sending a 20K version of the image, a 50K version, and a 200K version. If there is enough room or capacity, all messages will go through. If there is not enough room the larger ones will be dropped first.

Long before this happens, however, there is another difficulty that is likely to come up. It turns out that computers and these storage devices are usually optimized for a smaller number of relatively large files, rather than very large numbers of very small files. This can cause it to take a very long time, maybe even hours in some cases, to copy even tens of thousands of files from one storage device to another, let alone millions. In a situation where you are trying to conserve battery power, this could be a serious issue. This problem can be greatly alleviated by formatting the USB key or SD card in a particular way. On Windows, you find the device in Windows Explorer; right click on it, and select Format. On a Mac, you go to the Disk Utility application, click on the device, and select Erase. Either way, you will then find some options for how to format it. We want a format that can efficiently deal with lots of small files and one that is compatible with both Windows and Mac, so we choose the “exFat” format and the smallest available “allocation size”, which is 512 bytes. The “allocation size” is the minimum amount of space that a file will take up on that device while formatted in that way, so even a 10 or 20 character message will take up 512 bytes. Also, as soon as a file goes over 512 bytes, even by one character, the file size will jump to 1,024 bytes.

Reformatting in this way will help, but depending on the speed of your computer and other factors, when the number of files reaches a certain point, it may start taking too long to copy the files. This is another place where a tool like 7zip can be extremely helpful. If you have a folder containing hundreds of thousands of messages using up a gigabyte of storage, you may be able to shrink it down to half that size in a matter of minutes. Then you can copy the whole file to a pouch in another couple of minutes. On my computer, I find that the 7zip file manager is much less “laggy” than using Windows directly, especially when dealing with large numbers of files. Your mileage may vary, so this is something that each Postmaster will need to practice with and find the methods that work for him.

Fortunately, these problems are not likely to develop overnight. Initially there will be a much smaller number of files to deal with. By the time the numbers of files get into the thousands or tens of thousands and eventually to hundreds of thousands or millions, Postmasters will have more experience and will have developed techniques to deal with it. At some point, it makes sense to store all of those thousands of little messages in one large zip file and include a copy of 7zip on the pouch as well, in case the next Postmaster doesn’t already have it. When a pouch is being used to store a small number of large files, instead of huge numbers of small ones, then it will perform better if it is reformatted to a larger allocation size.

Eventually, the Postmasters’ disks could become filled to capacity, causing the system to get clogged. By this time, however, there will be more information available to Postmasters about how long it generally takes for files to make it to their destination. Old files can then be deleted or archived to other storage. Similar to the procedure for deleting large files, the Postmaster would simply sort by the date on the file, with oldest first, and delete as many as is necessary to unclog his system. This is the mechanism that prevents files from staying around forever, long after they are useful to anyone. Files will stay in the system as long as possible but only until the capacity of the system cannot handle it. People will come to understand that their files will persist on the network for a finite period of time, which will depend on the amount of traffic and the capacity of the system.

Related to the deletion of old files, the Postmaster would always delete any files he finds that have dates in the future. This is necessary because it’s possible for someone to set a file date to a future date, and this could be used by people in an attempt to make their files persist longer. By the Postmaster deleting any files with dates later than today, this misuse of the system is averted, and he will have more truthful information to work with regarding the age of files.

By definition, each Postmaster has a computer. Ideally, he would have more available storage than any of the portable storage devices being used, preferably several times the size. If he has a smaller capacity, he can find a way to work with that.

In addition to any pouches being used to transfer data, the Postmaster would have a “Master pouch” that he works from.

In summary, the basic process for the Postmaster is as follows:

1. When a new pouch is received for merging, he copies it onto his own master pouch, opting to skip any files with duplicate names.
2. He immediately deletes any messages that have dates later than today’s date. (As mentioned before, this prevents people from falsifying the dates on their files for their own benefit.)
3. The Postmaster now has a complete set of valid messages in his pouch.
4. If the Postmaster’s Master pouch is too full to accommodate more data, he may need to delete large files from his own disk and/or from the new disk coming in. In most cases, deleting a few very large files will probably free up plenty of space. Large files are expendable and must give way for the large volume of smaller files.
5. He then determines whether there is enough room on the pouch he just received for the complete set of valid messages. If so, he can simply copy his master pouch back to the other pouch, again opting to skip any duplicates.
6. If there is not enough room, then he must first delete all files on the new pouch and then copy the files from his Master pouch to the new pouch by file size, smallest files first. In the absence of better tools, he can do this by copying a large chunk of small files, then a chunk of slightly larger files, and so on, until the portable device is full.

Note that none of this requires any special software. It is done “manually”, using the basic commands of whatever computer is being used. This is not to say that better tools could not be used or developed specifically to help in these tasks, but in the absence of special tools the work can be done manually. This is important, as it helps keep the system from being owned by anyone or controlled in some undesirable way. If the network ever becomes compromised in some way, or is suspected of being compromised, it is always possible to start another network in parallel.

Also keep in mind that this network is a redundant system. There can and should be duplication of files and Postmasters at all times. If one Postmaster only has a small data capacity, he might need to skip a large number of files to update his pouch, but those files that were skipped in his pouch continue to exist on several other devices and may find their way to another Postmaster through some other route. On the other hand, the Postmaster with the small data capacity might happen to pass his files to a traveler who carries his somewhat limited set of files off to the next community or to a larger city, where they end up being forwarded much farther than they would have otherwise. So while large data capacity is preferable, it does not mean that a Postmaster with a smaller data capacity is without value. The ability to seek out or recruit other Postmasters and pass on data is probably much more important. If hundreds of thousands of small messages get through, what’s a few thousand large ones? In addition, if one Postmaster’s computer dies or if a portable device is lost or destroyed or even if the Postmaster himself dies, the network lives on and very little information is actually lost.

How the Network Works

Basically, as soon as people start transferring files between computers, a network of sorts exists. A complex system can then be developed to get information to the right place as quickly as possible and keep everything running smoothly and efficiently. This is what the Internet does now, using millions of powerful computers and extremely complex software.

There is a much simpler way of building a network that requires only the basic technology items listed above and the adoption of a few very simple standards and rules. All we need, basically, is to get a given “file” from point A to point B. If you multiply that by millions or billions, you have a very useful network. The first problem is, how do you identify point B? The second problem is, how do you find a path from point A to point B? The Internet has a system for doing this very efficiently, by having a central registry of addresses and each computer knowing all of the computers that it’s connected to and having a system for finding the shortest distance between points. We are solving a different problem entirely. Sure, it would be nice to have the kind of speed and efficiency that comes with a “real” network, but failing that we just want our communication to arrive as soon as possible. In some cases, next week or even next month would be great!

Let’s say that point A is Sam and point B is Joe. In a TEOTWAWKI scenario, we can’t count on any email servers or text messages. Worse, after TEOTWAWKI, we don’t necessarily know where either Sam or Joe is located, and we don’t know if either one still has a working computer. It turns out that all Sam really needs is a unique address for Joe and the network I am about to describe. As an example, we will just use Joe’s pre-TEOTWAWKI email address as his unique address. There are better ways for Joe to create a unique id for himself, which we’ll cover later, but this will do for now. After all, nobody on the planet but Joe has that address, so it is a unique address. Sam creates a new text file using the computer notepad (or TextEdit on a Mac). He gives the file a universally-unique name (unique across the universe or at least across the network) that starts with the destination address. For example, it could be “Joe@gmail.com-jd8ifdf.txt”. The “-jd8ifdf” part of the filename is just some random characters that were “made up” to ensure that the filename is unique; it could have been anything. Sam puts the file into a “pouch”, along with hundreds, thousands, or millions of other files. If Sam doesn’t have a computer, he contacts his nearest “Postmaster” (anyone with a computer and a willingness to help). In the course of his duties, the Postmaster seeks out as many other Postmasters as he can, and they all swap files by copying from pouch A to pouch B and then back to pouch A, ignoring all duplicate filenames. This results in a “merge” of all files on both pouches. Even if many of the files already existed on both pouches, that doesn’t matter; we now have a copy of each file on both pouches. Each of these Postmasters, in turn, seeks out as many other Postmasters as possible, swapping files with them in the same way. This is why the filenames need to be universally unique; if not, one of the messages won’t get through; it will be “dropped” somewhere along the line. This is “Six Degrees of Separation” in action. Depending on the interconnectedness of communities, it may well take more than six of these Postmaster swaps, but eventually Sam’s message to Joe will be all over the country. No matter where Joe is in the country, all he needs to do to find his message is find a Postmaster. The filename of his message always starts with Joe’s address, so even among millions of files, this is not too difficult. All Joe (or a Postmaster helping him) needs to do is a simple search, or sort the files by filename, and go down to his address.

Similarly, blog entries can be posted by the author using the name of the blog, the date, and a unique suffix, like “survivalblog.com-2015-01-17-UYTRS.txt”. These files are treated just like other messages; however, instead of the recipient’s address, we have the name of the blog. Again, random characters are added at the end to ensure the filename is unique. Thus, anyone interested in a particular blog would just look for that address. There is a caveat, though. Anyone could post something to the blog, which opens the door to counterfeit entries and other problems. There are solutions to this that mainly involve encryption as covered later, but this basic method could be used initially. Depending on the diligence of Postmasters and the lack of saboteurs acting as Postmasters, this method alone could continue to work for some time.

There are a few more simple rules and protocols that must be understood by Postmasters in order to keep the system from getting clogged up or sabotaged. There are also much better ways of creating secure addresses and making messages secure, but the basic idea of how it works is the same. There are sure to be numerous complexities and enhancements that can and will be added by Postmasters over time, but the key ideas are:

1. Messages are stored in small files.
2. The name of the file is the destination address of the communication, plus some random characters to make it unique.
3. “Postmasters” (anyone with a computer and a willingness to help) swap files (pouch A to pouch B, then back to A), combining all files together, and pass the contents of their pouch on to as many other Postmasters as possible. They also purge large and old files from the system, as necessary, to keep the network from becoming “clogged” with data.

Basic Techniques and Definition of Terms

Before discussing protocols, there are some basic techniques and terms that need to be defined.

• Destination Addresses. A simple example of a destination address, as used above, is to use the recipient’s pre-TEOTWAWKI email address. A much better way to create a destination address is for the recipient to come up with his own address (or addresses) and give them out to those who he may want to receive communication from in the future. We need the address to be unique, but on this network we have no way to check if someone else is already using a particular address; we do not have any way to access a central “registry” of addresses. Instead, we use enough random characters to ensure, or nearly ensure, that nobody else will come up with the same thing. Software could be used to come up with the random combination of characters, but it’s not necessary. Anyone can simply come up with their own series of random characters. They don’t actually have to be random; they can mean something to you personally. The idea is to try to create an address that is highly unlikely for anyone else anywhere else to have come up with. For example, if you were to choose “Patriot” or even “Patriot88” as your destination address, there is a fair possibility that eventually someone else will come up with the same address, at which point it’s no longer unique, and your messages will be mixed in with someone else’s. However, if you choose “k23mXX”, you should be okay, since there are some two billion possibilities of letter/number combinations for a six character address.

  Of course random characters are not easily recognized and they are hard to remember, so you’ll have to write your address down. If you lose it, you won’t be able to find your messages. It’s not very convenient. If you want, you can use a combination of a readable address and some random characters, such as “Patriot88-YR56”. This way, even if there is another “Patriot88” in the world, there probably isn’t a “Patriot88-YR56”. In fact, even if you lose your notes and forget the YR56 part of the address, as long as you remember Patriot88, you still stand a chance of finding a message that belongs to you and can recover your address.

  It’s okay to use both upper and lower case letters along with numbers, but it is important to realize that this does not contribute to the uniqueness of the address. In other words, addresses are not case sensitive. Most computer systems will treat aaaaaa.txt and AAAAAA .txt as the same file.

  There is no hard rule against using special characters and punctuation, but they can cause confusion and possibly even interfere with the recipient’s attempts to locate files. If you are using a pre-TEOTWAWKI email address, there is no need to change any of the special characters in it. Any characters allowed in an email address can be used. However, if you are making up something new, it’s best to stick to “-“,“_”, “.”, and “@” to keep it simple and avoid problems and confusion.

  When someone wants to send you a message, they would begin the filename of their message with your exact address, making sure to get it exactly right, and then follow it with a random set of characters to ensure that the message filename itself is unique. For example their message to you might have a filename of “k23mXX-d7d65s”, which is “k23mXX”, followed by the random characters “d7d65s”. I used dashes to make it clearer, but it’s not necessary.

  Be careful about using numbers and letters that can be confused with each other, such as “1” (One) and “I” (India) and “L” (Lima), “8” (Eight) and “B” (Bravo) or “0” (Zero) and “O” (Oscar), or even “D” (Delta) or “Q” (Quebec). This is especially important when addresses will be saved on paper and transferred to computer later. One incorrect character will almost certainly prevent a message from being received. The message will not “bounce” like it does in a regular email system. The sender will never know he used the wrong address, yet the message will be lost.

  When you have a choice, especially when creating random addresses that will be stored on paper whether handwritten or printed out, it’s a good idea to avoid these letters and numbers altogether, or be very, very clear about how they are printed:

  0 (Zero) O (Oscar) D (Delta) Q (Quebec)

  1 (One) I (India) L (Lima) | (Vertical bar) ! (Exclamation point)

  2 (Two) Z (Zulu)

  8 (Eight) B (Bravo)

  Obviously, this is a rather “picky” system. It’s easy to make a mistake and cause a message to get lost, but there are reasons for this. It’s actually an important part of what makes it so secure and anonymous. Any mechanism put in place to make it “easier”, more convenient, or more like what people have accustomed to, could compromise it severely. It may not be a convenient system, but used correctly it is effective, secure, and anonymous.

  Note that the filename you choose is completely meaningless to anyone who does not know what your id is, even the Postmaster himself. It also, by itself, provides no information about the sender or the recipient or the location of either one.

Communication, outgoing and incoming, is obviously vitally important, but we tend to take for granted the various channels available to us at this time. The telephone, email, and even television and radio media rely on a huge amount of civil infrastructure– the same infrastructure that we rely on for water, sewage service, food, electrical power, transportation, shipping and basic mail, and both fire suppression and law enforcement services. The Internet has become a vital part of that infrastructure. Without a functional power grid and cable or telephone service, the Internet does not exist. It could be argued that, even in the total absence of the rest of the infrastructure, very basic Internet services, such as email and even limited access to local, national, and world news, could mean the difference between survival and death for many, or at least the difference between sanity and insanity. At the very least, they could become a substitute for the postal and telephone services and would be extremely helpful. There is a way to provide these basic services without the normal infrastructure. By transferring files from computer to computer in any ways available, it’s possible to build a very broad “Internet” of sorts.

Imagine your favorite (or most dreaded) TEOTWAWKI scenario. Now, alter it slightly by introducing very basic, albeit slow, email service, access to at least a few of your most trusted blogs, and some community or national news sites for security information, news, and want ads. It’s at least an improvement, isn’t it? Is it really practical? Absolutely!

In case you think that I am just talking about copying files between computers in your neighborhood, or on the other hand that I am talking about some grand idea of replacing the whole Internet, please hear me out. This is something that is inevitably going to happen anyway if/when the infrastructure fails. It will happen in some form and to some degree. However, with a little organization and adoption of some very basic standards, it could give us all a viable substitute that could provide the most vital elements of modern communication and media, even after TEOTWAWKI. When this happens, it will probably have a name of some sort, but there is no telling what name will stick. It could be called “Internet Without Infrastructure” (IWI), “The SneakerNet”, “SneakerWeb”, “Big SneakerNet”, “The UnderNet”, “The UnderWeb”, or any number of names I could think of. In this article, I will just refer to it as “the network”.

Executive Summary

Here’s the summary of how it works, with much more detail to follow:

1. Each separate communication or blog entry is put into a small file (text, binary, encrypted or whatever).
2. The filename of the file is unique, but it also always starts with the unique address of the recipient (which is mutually agreed upon in advance or, if not, the recipient’s pre TEOTWAWKI email address). In the case of a blog entry or site, the URL is used.
3. The file is put onto a USB key, flash drive, or SD card, along with hundreds, thousands, or millions of other messages. The USB key, flash drive, or SD card is called a “mail pouch” or just a “pouch”.
4. A “Postmaster” (anyone with a working computer and a willingness to help) seeks out other Postmasters and swaps files with him/her, copying all files from pouch A to pouch B, then back to A, ignoring any duplicates. At this point, both pouches now contain a combination of everything from both.
5. Each Postmaster, in turn, seeks out other Postmasters and exchanges the messages in their pouches with them in the same manner.
6. To receive a message (or see a blog or website), the recipient contacts any Postmaster and searches for his own unique address, or the name of the blog or site, in the master mail pouch.
7. Postmasters apply a few simple protocols (described later) to purge old messages, prevent sabotage, keep the system running, and maintain the integrity of the network.

In one sentence, it’s: “Put your message in a file, give the file a unique name that always starts with the destination address, and then spread the message far and wide.”

There are technical aspects to this, which I cover here for completeness, but not everyone needs to know everything about it. The better it is generally understood, the better it will work, but Postmasters will inevitably be the specialists who know the techniques better than anyone else.

As soon as I’ve described the few technology items that are required to bring this about, I’ll give the rest of how it works, what the protocols are, and various ways that it can be used to provide secure, anonymous communication in a community, a region, a country, or the world.

Details

What’s Required?

Only a few basic technology items are necessary, but no real infrastructure is required.

Computers. Some computers, of course, must have survived any EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse, caused by a solar event or military nuclear device) that might have been part of the event that triggered the TEOTWAWKI scenario in the first place. Of course, they must be kept powered or charged as well. These computers could be desktops, if someone has the ability to keep them powered, but laptops would be very much preferable, requiring less power and being more mobile. In theory, tablets or smartphones (iPhone or Android) could be made to work, but it would require special skills to set them up and probably some custom applications. For now, let’s assume that we will use full computers, such as laptops or desktops, running Windows, Mac, or Linux operating systems. Another thing to remember is that computers, like anything else, eventually break. So, of course, the saying “two is one, and one is none” applies to computers also.

Power. I can’t stress enough the importance of being able to keep the computers powered or charged. This can be done with solar cells or generators, but don’t count on fuel being available or wait until after TEOTWAWKI to find out that your solar cells won’t cut it.

If there is an EMP, it’s very likely that any computers that were plugged directly into the grid at the time, and even many (or most?) that were not plugged in, will be “fried”. In addition, even those that were not plugged in, especially those with antennas inside them (which is really ALL laptops, tablets, and phones these days) are likely to be unusable, unless they were protected by a Faraday cage. A Faraday cage can be built inexpensively and easily in a variety of ways with common items, such as aluminum foil, an ammo can or a metal trash can, et cetera. The subject of Faraday cages is covered elsewhere, so I won’t go into it here.

Portable Storage. Portable storage can be in the form of USB Keys, SD cards, micro SD cards, or small external USB drives. All of these items have become quite inexpensive, which is good, because we need lots of them! I will call each device a “mail pouch” or just “pouch”, just to give them a common name and so I don’t have to keep writing “USB Key” or “USB Key or SD card”. Writeable DVD’s could also be useful for making backups or possibly transferring data between machines that have compatible drives, but USB Keys and SD cards are best.

Adaptors. The only other thing required is adaptors. Just about all laptops, at the time of this writing, have a USB plug, but not all have SD card slots. A simple and inexpensive USB adaptor, available at Amazon or eBay for under $10, solves this. A micro SD card normally comes with an adaptor that makes it into an SD card, so these can be read and written using the same USB adaptor. Some adaptors come with slots of various sizes to accommodate all available sizes of SD cards, which is nice, but not absolutely necessary.

In spite of their low cost, adaptors may be the weakest link in this whole scheme. Computers are everywhere, and lots of people have USB Keys lying around. There is an SD card in just about every digital camera. Micro SD cards are in many smartphones, but adaptors are a bit less common. Post TEOTWAWKI these adaptors might not be available, so make sure you have extras. Without them, we can still use USB keys only, but that would be a shame considering how ubiquitous the SD and Micro SD cards are, and because of their other advantages that will be covered later. Micro SD cards are slower and more expensive than SD cards and USB Keys, but they also may be surprisingly easy to come by after TEOTWAWKI, since they can be “mined” from piles of now useless cell phones.

What is SneakerNet?

SneakerNet is an old term (see WikiPedia, lots of good information there). It started out as a joke. I remember it from the 80’s. Basically, it’s the idea of transferring data between computers by copying it onto some medium, which could be a USB key, SD drive, CD drive, or in the old days a floppy disk and then walking it over to another computer (in your “sneakers”) and copying it to that computer. One of the most important things that a computer network (including the Internet) does, is to transfer information between computers. Without a broad civil infrastructure, most networks fail. However, as long as you have computers and portable storage, you can still have a network of sorts, even if it’s just “SneakerNet”. Reportedly, Osama bin Laden evaded the NSA for years and kept his organization running using his own SneakerNet. However, what I’m talking about is much broader than that.