Why Is The Fed Hiring An “Emergency Preparedness Specialist Familiar With DHS Directives”. – G.G.
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From the guy who turned a shovel into an AK47: Takedown Saiga 12. – K.R.
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An interesting story from Turkey: ‘Thief’ is not Just a Five-Letter Word
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Military hardware still flowing to local police after Ferguson. – B.B.
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Georgia. police chief says he accidentally shot wife – Twice. – T.P.
“Survival is the celebration of choosing life over death. We know we’re going to die. We all die. But survival is saying: perhaps not today. In that sense, survivors don’t defeat death, they come to terms with it.” ? Laurence Gonzales, Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
John Cantius Garand (January 1, 1888 – February 16, 1974) was born in St. Rémi, Quebec. John Garand designed one of America’s best known battle rifles, the M1 Garand. General Patton praised Garand’s design, writing to Chief of Ordnance Lt. Gen. Levin H. Campbell, Jr., (January 26, 1945): “The M1 rifle is the most deadly rifle in the world.”
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Today, we present another entry for Round 56 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $12,000+ worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
Second Prize:
Third Prize:
Round 56 ends on January 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.
Welcome to SurvivalBlog’s Precious Metals Month in Review, where we take a look at “the month that was” in precious metals. Each month, we cover the price action of gold and silver and examine the “what” and “why” behind those numbers.
Gold continued to sputter throughout the month of December, hitting a high of just 1,230 per troy ounce on the 10th, and slowly sinking to a low of 1,175 over the next two weeks, ending on the 25th. Market analysts are again attributing the weak performance of gold to continually sagging crude oil prices globally, lower than expected inflation, and gains to the dollars index. Equities have seen a slow and steady growth throughout December; the Dow Jones in particular saw steady growth over the month, after giving up moderate losses during the second week.
Silver was much the same throughout December, starting the month at 15.75 and ending about even after a month of modest activity.
The story again in December seems to be a surging dollar along with crumbling prices for crude and other commodities. While deflation still remains a serious risk for the increasingly fragile European Union, talks of a strong retail year suggest that Janet Yellen and her friends at the Fed will surely need to increase interest rates to prevent the U.S. from falling too far below its inflation target of 2% annually.
The U.S. Job Report painted a rosy picture for investors looking to start cashing in on equities trading. The total number of non-farm payroll jobs added during November was 321,000, leaving the U3 unemployment rate unchanged at 5.8%. Again, why is it that the Fed seems to think it’s okay to forget about people who seem to be stuck in that discouraged workers category. Some people in the industry, like myself, seem to believe that this is just another fabricated jobs report meant to bolster the image of the Federal Reserve cartel as QE measures have come to a close and the reality of a fiat money system are once again realized.
The story hasn’t changed much over the last month, with the big worries coming from European and Asian markets, which are on the brink of a massive deflation, spearheaded by the continuing economic warfare propagated by the U.S. against Russia, as eloquently put by David Stockton.
As oil prices continue to plummet, the economic forecast for the Russian nation continues to grow darker and darker. An all out currency and commodity war is currently underway between Obama and Mr. Putin, but who will ultimately win?
As U.S.-led sanctions seem to be taking their toll on the struggling Russian economy, staggeringly low oil prices, which were at $115 per barrel just last June, have sunk to an untenable $60 per barrel and lower over the month of December. The question is, at what point is all this economic warfare and commodity price manipulation going to blow up in Mr. Obama’s and Mrs. Yellen’s fiat face. The Russian economy is teetering on the brink of total collapse, which could threaten the economies of China and the European Union. I’m curious to know what makes the cranky Keynesians in the White House believe that undermining the economic solvency of one of the largest trading partners of Asia and Europe won’t have consequences for the American economy down the road.
As Russian bond prices are once again due to be downgraded by S&P, which would put them in the junk category, the White House and the Federal Reserve seem to believe that the United States is insulated from the possible woes that are sure to be experienced by the Russian people over the next year. However, a defiant Putin seems to be determined to break his nation away from the tyranny of a U.S. Federal Reserve system that is determined to use its power as the world currency as a means of coercion and weapon of mass destruction. Not that you should have any sympathy for an autocratic former KGB dictator, but anyone should be worried about the consequences of cornering a pit-bull like Putin, no matter how starved and weakened he may be.
Increasingly, we are seeing lower gasoline prices at the pump– a constant reminder of Mr. Obama’s economic war on Mr. Putin. However, for as nice as those gas savings are, there is a price to pay for everything. Continuing their currency and commodity war against the Russian nation threatens to send the whole world into a downward spiraling vortex of deflation, which at a certain point could lead to a worldwide economic meltdown of plummeting prices and unemployment.
One must consider, if Russia has the capacity to bring mutually assured destruction through traditional warfare, what’s to make us believe that they don’t have the same capacity economically speaking. No, they don’t have the same degree of global economic control as the U.S., but they wouldn’t need it, much like they don’t need a nuclear arsenal that matches America’s in order to bring on a nuclear winter.
Whatever the case may be, I have to continually hold my breath as the love lost between Putin and Obama grows less and less by the day. As much as I detest the policies and ideology of President Obama, let us all pray (for our own sake) that he comes out on top of this one. Dueling with a Russian pit-bull takes either a vast amount of “manhood” or a complete descension into self delusion. Let us hope it is the former.
As we stated earlier in this blog-post, American equities are once again on an fiat-fueled frenzy, reminiscent of an ecstasy laden rave club. Janet Yellen’s forecast of low inflation expectations over the foreseeable future have sent the casino gamblers, ahem, I mean Wall Street bankers, on a spending spree that is sure to bring economic doom and destruction, ahem, solid economic performance, over the longer term as the American economy continues to manufacture false prosperity -ahem- recover from the financial crisis.
So, what’s it going to be Mrs. Yellen? As expectations of continually falling commodity prices spur whispers that the Fed will have to raise interest rates at some point in 2015, the question remains, how can an economy that is built with the structural integrity as a third world shanty take the impending beating that is sure to come from a hike in interest rates? On the other hand, with deflation looming throughout the European Union, Janet seems to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. With no more QE money to fuel a false recovery, what sources of fiat sorcery will the embattled Chairwoman turn to this time?
At this point, all the fake money that has been printed to help us pretend that things are okay hasn’t actually been printed at all. It just gets put into the electronic accounts at the many financial institutions that ripped us all off in the first place. Maybe Janet could go to the post WWI Germany well and actually start printing fresh Ben Franklins and Andrew Jacksons. Am I actually advocating for hard currency printing en masse? Of course I’m not, but this is the reality at this point. Since the end of QE3, the Fed is all out of tricks, and the recent “economic gains” over the last couple of months are the calm before the storm.
Now that we’ve printed all the money that the balance sheets of the Fed’s Open Market Committee can handle, we’re faced with either doing nothing, which will lead to the U.S. being pulled into a deflationary downward spiral, or we could engage in more money manufacturing a la the Fed and/or Treasury. Janet already used her last bullet to loot the oil fields of Russia, and she cause great long-term damage to them, the EU, and ourselves, but now she’s out of tricks, and she’s going to be the one left holding the empty bag. Oh, I’m just kidding; you, me, and our children will be the ones holding the bag while she’ll probably be off poolside in Tahiti.
It’s been another record setting year for the U.S. Mint, as sales of American Silver Eagles has hit another annual record at more than 44 million total ounces sold. This has been spurred by the four- to five-year lows of silver, which have created shortages on silver products of all kinds. An interesting report shows how the number of silver eagles sold relative to gold eagle sales has also more than quadrupled over the last year– a phenomenon that can’t be fully explained by falling prices, as gold prices have hit four- to five-year lows in recent months.
In fact, in absolute terms, the number of Gold American Eagles has dropped year over year from 2013, continuing the longer-term pattern of decreasing gold demand. The ratio of Silver Eagles sold to Gold Eagles sold stood at a whopping 84/1 for the year 2014, the previous high being 50/1 during the 2013 calendar year.
The Royal Canadian Mint experienced similar sales patterns this year, with Silver Maples Leaf’s sales setting a new record of nearly 16 million total units, while Gold Maple Leaf’s seem to follow the same pattern of declining sales as the U.S. Gold Eagle, both in nominal and relative terms.
Hong Kong seems to have realized a lower gold demand heading into December, a result of crackdowns on corruption by the Chinese Central government. Despite continued low prices, demand for investment-grade gold and gold jewelry plummeted during December, as Shanghai has been drained of most of its gold and silver reserves. Asian demand has put a serious strain on gold over the last two years, but at this point it’s probably safe to say that their gold-buying frenzy is over for the moment.
January is historically a slow month, economically; look for little in the way of gains during the first month of the new year, as the hangover from too much egg nog and credit card spending starts sinking in.
Reports on retail sales figures for the month of December, and for the year as a whole, will have a huge impact on commodity prices as well as equities. Much as with anything else, yearly reports on employment, earnings, and inflation will be the drivers of economic activity going forward into the New Year.
From everyone here at Gainesville Coins, may you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Terrence Campbell is a content writer at Gainesville Coins.
My experiences as a Sergeant in a Marine Infantry battalion have ultimately changed my philosophy towards prepping. Living in a remote region of Afghanistan, Marjeh district, was very much like living in a TEOTWAWKI scenario. There were no roads, other than small cart paths, used by civilian and Taliban alike. There was no running water and no electricity. Locals pumped water from wells, if lucky, or drank from the canals. Electricity was a luxury and power came from a generator. Many of the locals were so poor they had never owned a single piece of any currency; barter was a way of life. Those lucky enough grew their own food, and villages took care of their own. There was no law other than their god’s law and no one to enforce it, no medical facilities, and no antibiotics; yet people survived.
The most popular method of travel was small motor bike, as they could handle the rough terrain and were relatively easy to fix. Most were Honda copies, which were made in Korea, along with the occasional Kawasaki. The locals chose the small variants– 200cc and under– for their superior fuel economy and light weight, which made it easy to maneuver. They could be picked up by two adult males and moved over terrain that is impossible to pass or loaded into the bed of one of the few Toyota pickups that combed the area. Parts for the Japanese variant of motorcycle, under 250cc, are virtually interchangeable among all the bikes. It was not uncommon to see a bike that was clearly built from the scrap of several other bikes. I even encountered a local that had built a small still. I found this unusual, as Muslim people do not consume alcohol. When asked what he was doing, and being a bit suspicious due to the IEDs manufactured in the area, the man replied it was to power his bike. He was distilling alcohol from fruit and plant scraps; then he mixed it 50/50 with gasoline, even selling the mixture or using it as barter.
Another time, at a road side check point, I came across two males on a bike with strange red wiring hanging out the side. Again my first thought was VBIED (vehicle born IED), but it turned out that they had rigged a battery charger to the stator output and were charging batteries as they rode, instead of powering the head lamp during day light hours. The man showed me a crude toggle switch he used to switch from the charger to the lamp. I am pretty sure it was a wall switch he had cut down and electrical taped together, but it appeared to be working. They used these bikes to transport goods as well as themselves, and it was not uncommon to see three adult males all riding on a 250cc. I once saw a family– Mom and Dad with a newborn baby– and a goat all go by. The man was driving with the goat across his lap with the woman on the back holding the baby in a blanket. A good motorcycle will provide transportation in TEOTWAWKI, both on and off road. I am in the process of saving for a Zero all-electric bike with solar charger, similar to the ones our Special Forces used in Afghanistan.
Another time while on post and observing an EOD team clearing a nearby road for IEDs, I witnessed a man on a bicycle get shot by a 9mm Beretta. The EOD guys had set up a serpentine or “S” shaped barricade to slow down approaching vehicles and prevent VBIEDs from killing them while they cleared the road of IEDs. I watched through my binoculars and was in contact via radio with the unit assigned to protect the EOD guys. I radioed them that they had a man on a bicycle approaching from the west. He entered the serpentine and was immediately told to stop, via interpreter, at the first curve. When he ignored the hand and arm signals by the Marines at the check point, they stepped up the EOF (escalation of force) and fired a pen flare over his head. He kept coming, and at the third curve one of the Marines– a Staff Sergeant I knew– fired a warning shot at the man with his M9. The round hit the ground right in front of him, but it seemed as though he started to pedal harder. I noticed now that he had something on his back wrapped in a blanket. When he did not stop after the warning shot was fired, that same Staff Sergeant began unloading the entire magazine of standard 9mm ball ammunition carried by NATO forces. I remember thinking, “Wow, this guy can’t hit shit” because it appeared that the man on the bike wasn’t getting hit. I expected him to be thrown from the bike with the first shot.
After the first few shots were fired, the man changed directions and went around a large dirt mound to his right and out of view from the Marines at the checkpoint. I watched as the Staff Sergeant changed mags in his pistol and rounded up two other marines armed with rifles to go and check on the man. Fifteen minutes later, the Marines brought the guy who had been riding the bike on a stretcher to the FOB where I was on post. I immediately searched the man, as was SOP, and noticed his torso covered in blood. I counted at least nine bullet wounds and radioed the corpsman to come to the gate. When the corpsman arrived, the man was pronounced dead; I was later told it was from blood loss. The point here is that a man on a bike was shot at least nine times at close range by 9mm ball and still managed to pedal a bike 75 meters. Where is the stopping power in that? It is incidents like this that have prompted the Corps to adopt the 1911 Colt as their primary side arm, going back to a gun it used 70 years ago.
I am still not sure what prompted the man to run through the checkpoint on that bicycle. It turned out he only had two small melons and a bag of rice on his back. It’s just another example of the collateral damages caused by war. I heard a rumor that he had a Syrian ID card, but that was never confirmed and above my pay grade. My gun of choice has always been a 1911. I carry a Kimber Custom Covert II with tritium night sights and a crimson trace laser. I bought it shortly after that deployment with this incident in mind.
Let me start by explaining that the conditions we lived in were primitive. It was only a few months after the 6th Marines had landed in helos in the fields of Marjeh and set up a FOB and scattered patrol bases. We lived in tents surrounded by walls of dirt, moved by a bull dozer, with razor wire strung across the top. The inner perimeter and our outer posts were made from HESCO barriers. All of our food and ammo was dropped by air and often delayed. We used bottled water and had a crude water filtration unit that pumped water from a nearby canal. However, Intel had suggested that the Taliban were actively poisoning the water, and we were advised to use it only for hygiene. We were limited to the amount of water we could use, so most just washed with baby wipes and a wet t-shirt, at least for the first few months. Some of the guys had begun washing their cammies in an MRE box lined with a trash bag. They used small river rocks smoothed by the current to rub the dirt out of their clothes and gear. Before we discovered the local bazaar to be selling soap, some would pour a few tablespoons of JP8 or diesel fuel into the water. Apparently this was a common practice by GI’s in the Second World War, as the JP8 acted as a disinfectant. It did, however, make you smell like fuel. We now know all petroleum fuels to be carcinogens, so I refrained from this practice, opting only to use water and a small supply of dish soap I bartered from the mess hall. This brings me to my next topic.
Before leaving the States, I was talking to an old family friend that had served in Vietnam. He advised me to bring cartons of cigarettes for barter, even though I was not a smoker. At first thought, I discarded the idea as out-dated from an era where we didn’t have the technologies of today, but later I decided to give it a try. At very least, the smokers would get desperate, and I could double my money. I bought four cartons of American Spirits, as I am against the large cigarette companies that poison the tobacco they use, causing millions of dollars of health issues in the United States annually. A month into the deployment, we hadn’t had an opportunity to resupply from a PX. Most of the smokers were running low or completely out. Some had turned to the ANA (Afghan National Army) that lived with us. They were smoking awful cigarettes that smelled like talcum powder and ass. One day, while in the chow line, I ran into a cook from my first deployment in Iraq. We got to talking, and he mentioned the cigarette situation. I still hadn’t torn into my stash and had even forgot about it, amidst the chaos and sleep deprivation we all were experiencing. The Mess Hall was a tent that served platoon-sized MRE’s one meal a day, for dinner. Occasionally, they had Gatorade and Otis Spunkmeyer muffins or Poptarts. I worked a deal for a bottle of dish soap for two packs of Spirits and that night met my friend and made the exchange. Needless to say, my squad and I had the cleanest cammies on the FOB for the time being.
The 40mm grenades for our M203s became scarce, as they were the best weapon to repel an enemy assault, and patrols that came under fire used the grenade launchers to repel much larger enemy forces until air supports could arrive. The success of the 40mm made it scarce, as we sent much of our supply to patrol bases of squad-sized units that more regularly came under attack and needed the ammo more than we did on the FOB. One day before a patrol, my 203 gunner came to me saying he only had two rounds of HE for the patrol and that the ASP (ammo supply point) guys were being jerks and wouldn’t give him any. It cost me six packs of Spirits, but I managed to get 12 rounds of HE and HE/DP assorted. I did the same thing for hand grenades on a later patrol.
On one patrol we came across an outpost manned by five Marines and four ANA soldiers. It was little more than a liberated house with sand bag bunkers on the roof and some razor wire on the perimeter. It looked in rough shape; you could see the impacts from the RPG fire, and the walls were littered with holes. The senior Marine– a Corporal– inside asked my LT if we had any claymores they could have. He explained that the Hajis liked to sneak up at night and attack them with RPGs and recoilless rifles. They used the claymores to cover some avenues of approach they couldn’t, due to the terrain. Initially my LT said no, even though I knew he had several in his pack that we would most likely not need. However, when the ANA inside offered some goat kabobs fresh off the BBQ, the LT complied. This is proof that, when food is scarce, people will trade next to anything for a good meal, even of superior value. A hungry man will trade a beautiful firearm to feed his family for a night.
Tomorrow, we’ll continue this article with topics that include food, determining friend or foe, using animals for detection and security, and more.
Mr. Latimer,
I read the article “Prepper Digital Security“, by A.B. and would like to offer a couple of comments.
The article mentions the use of TrueCrypt. I was a serious user of this software package until June of this year after Microsoft ceased support of Windows XP.
When that happened, the development of TrueCrypt was ended with very little explanation. I run Ubuntu Linux and used TrueCrypt. Now that development has stopped, I cannot get updates so am no longer protected if NSA finds another exploit.
The website has the following to say:
WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues.
This page exists only to help migrate existing data encrypted by TrueCrypt.
The development of TrueCrypt was ended in 5/2014 after Microsoft terminated support of Windows XP. Windows 8/7/Vista and later offer integrated support for encrypted disks and virtual disk images. Such integrated support is also available on other platforms (click here for more information). You should migrate any data encrypted by TrueCrypt to encrypted disks or virtual disk images supported on your platform.
?A more exhaustive analysis of the termination of support is found online.
?So, what to do? As a computer software engineer with many years of experience in systems development, I have concluded that nothing is secure. If the government wants your data, it will get your data using whatever backdoor function it can gin up, not legally, and with or without force, torture, or financial ruin.
This is especially true in this day and age when we have “nation states” writing cyberwarfare applications, like Stuxnet.
I’ll leave it at that. I won’t make an effort to suggest any specific solution, since any I suggest could be circumvented by our government. – J.H.
Why You Should Be Prepared for Both Inflation and Deflation
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From the desk of SurvivalBlog’s Editor At Large, Mike Williamson: Corn ethanol is of no economic use
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Items from Mr. Econocobas:
Russia Says Ruble Crisis Over as Reserves Dive, Inflation Climbs
Japan Struggles to Escape Recession as Production Drops
U.S. Bond Sentiment Is Worst Since Disastrous ’09 – It is my opinion that the Fed won’t ever raise rates but will always pretend or let the markets believe they will, and use just use the excuse du’ jour to put it off. Perhaps I will be wrong…
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License Plate Reader Technology Looks At Faces. – G.P.
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Der Spiegel Reveals Loose Standards Needed for Drone Assassination. – RBS
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Be American . – B.B.
“The weak fall, but the strong will remain and never go under!” ? Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
Living in our over-taxed society (now with a top marginal Federal income tax rate of 39.6%), it is important to remember that December 31st is the last day to make charitable contributions for Tax Year 2014. Please give generously to the worthy charities of your choice. We may be biased, but we have some suggested charities linked at our Charity static page. Thanks, and May God Bless You, in the New Year. – The SurvivalBlog Staff.
Yesterday (December 30, 2014) was Book Bomb Day for Tools for Survival: What You Need to Survive When You’re on Your Own. Because of the strong ordering on Amazon.com yesterday and today, it pushed the price of the book down to just $11.84 USD (a 34% discount), even for folks who pre-ordered. When I last checked, the book was ranked at #64 overall on Amazon.com! (Getting into Amazon’s Top 100 in overall book sales is difficult for a non-fiction book, because it competes with the many popular fiction titles.) Thanks for making the book launch such a great success. If you want to order a copy, I recommend that you do so soon–before the price reverts to somewhere above $12.50 per copy. For any of you who have already read it, your brief honest reviews on Amazon would be greatly appreciated. (There have been two 1-star reviews by trolls who obviously hadn’t read the book.)
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December 31st is the birthday of Dr. Cynthia Koelker, SurvivalBlog’s Medical Editor. It is also the birthday of Frederick Selous (born 1851, died 4 January 1917.)
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Today, we present another entry for Round 56 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $12,000+ worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
Second Prize:
Third Prize:
Round 56 ends on January 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.
In this day and age of digital information, our communications and data are open to a world of invasive agencies. Some of these agencies may be your nosy neighbor out to see what you are up to or an activist group gathering unguarded data to send to agencies of various domestic and foreign governments. Many of us in the prepper community have taken some measures of security to safeguard our data. Some people avoid the digital world altogether to dodge this issue, though not all of us are willing to go to that level of abandonment of technology. There are many benefits to using digital technology to assist in preparing for the future. I am not going to go into heavy technical detail about every aspect of digital security. However, I am going to describe what is called defense in depth, which is both a military term and a cyber security term, and then touch upon a way to utilize a key generator. If there is enough interest, I can definitely write up instructions on how to install /setup the programs and procedures I will be discussing.
Many of us have taken the threat of our email being read in transit seriously. With agencies, such as the NSA and foreign intelligence, trying to track and read everything we do, simple measures no longer can be counted upon. Another circumstance to consider is what happens if one day someone was to simply confiscate your computer to see what you have been up to. How many of your personal systems have no protection whatsoever, if someone simply sits down at the system?
According to Wikipedia.org:
Defense in Depth (also known as Castle Approach) is an information assurance (IA) concept in which multiple layers of security controls (defense) are placed throughout an information technology (IT) system. Its intent is to provide redundancy in the event a security control fails or a vulnerability is exploited that can cover aspects of personnel, procedural, technical and physical for the duration of the system’s life cycle.The idea behind the defense in depth approach is to defend a system against any particular attack using several independent methods. It is a layering tactic, conceived by the National Security Agency (NSA) as a comprehensive approach to information and electronic security.
Defense in depth is originally a military strategy that seeks to delay, rather than prevent, the advance of an attacker by yielding space in order to buy time. The placement of protection mechanisms, procedures, and policies is intended to increase the dependability of an IT system where multiple layers of defense prevent espionage and direct attacks against critical systems. In terms of computer network defense, defense in depth measures should not only prevent security breaches but also buy an organization time to detect and respond to an attack, thereby reducing and mitigating the consequences of a breach.
What we are going to talk about is beyond simply using TOR as a browser or PGP for email encryption. What I propose is: utilizing VMs (virtual machines) running on encrypted virtual hard drives contained on removable media that is itself encrypted.
In layman’s terms, we are going to have a computer within a computer that is stored on a secure USB (or other) device. Basically, you will be using a virtual computer system to do your data storage, prepper browsing, and/or secure emails.
Disadvantages:
- The machine will be slower (unless you have a really powerful computer system),
- You must remember passwords. (Key note: Remember, do not write them down everywhere),
- You also need some degree of technical aptitude for the setup, and
- You must secure your device when not in use.
Advantages:
By walking you through the following scenario, the advantages will be clearer than if I just list them.
X Agency comes to your house and seizes your personal computer to use as evidence. Their claim is that you have been distributing banned reading materials.
- Any initial password to gain entry to a system is easy to bypass. (It’s a government agency, so they can get the manufacturer of the machine to give them the backdoor access. Sorry; it is just the way it is.)
- Once in your system, they will first make a backup of the hard drive(s), so they can work on the copy rather than the original.
- They perform their initial scans of the system and are unable to find anything located on the local hard drives. (Defense layer 1)
- One of the X Agency techs notices that you have virtual machine software installed (Oracle Virtual Box, in this case). He runs the software and sees you have VMs setup, but they are not located on the local hard drive. (Defense layer 2)
- After many days, weeks, months, or years, maybe, they finally locate your USB flash drive that you had been using to hold your VMs. (Defense layer 2.5)
- Once the drive is in place, they attempt to access the files, only to be asked for an encryption key for access. Since you had used the highest level of security that the program used (True Crypt, in this case), it could take years in real time to break the encryption. (Defense layer 3)
- Let’s say they got lucky and broke it in a matter of weeks and now can access the USB Drive. They start the VM up all happy to see they have finally got you. Only, the VM is encrypted (True Crypt again) and requests a password to start the virtual machine. (Defense layer 4) Again, they get lucky and break the encryption, and finally are able to search your VM to their heart’s content.
- Only there is nothing there to incriminate you, since you had keyed True Crypt to use a shadow operating system. (Defense layer 5) I could go on and describe other layers past what we already have done. One thing you need to understand is that they will be able to get to the information, but it will take time. How much time, you ask? I refer you to the following article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute-force_attack So what is the main advantage for DiD (Defense in Depth)? It’s time– the time it will take someone to break into the system is your protection. Be glad we do not live in Great Britain, which has a law on the books to force you to give them any and all passwords to your systems. Even in a situation like that, storing the device and holding the VMs separately from the actual PC, will buy you time. Remember, all the security in the world is useless if you violate your own rules.
- Plan the system you will use.
- Implement the plan.
- Document the plan. (This doesn’t mean write down where your USB drive is, or write down your password!)
- Refine and update the system, and plan over time.
(Another good note to remember: Do not use the same password for each level of the encryption; that will drop the time to break the code astronomically. Once they have one, they have them all in that case.)
There is yet another use for encrypted removable media. It can be used to move data between groups or individuals in a more secured manner. There is a way of developing a code system for generating the keys used by the software. I’m going to give an example of one of these methods for key generation and sharing. Some one of you will remember from history about code words being used by the Allies in radio transmissions and how random words would have a meaning. What if we could use that method of hiding a key generator in plain sight?
This will depend on everyone having the same reference point they are using to encrypt/decrypt from. In our case let’s go with the Bill of Rights, which is something most of us have in some form or another. I’m going to keep it easy here; let’s make a key for a wireless router running wpa2. We need a 13-character key to implement the security properly. So on our friendly broadcast, the announcer reads off the 5th amendment of the Bill of Rights. You know from prior planning that the amendment number (5 in this case) +1 is how many characters you count over in the text of the amendment. So in this case that’s every 6th character until the end of the text and then loop back around to the beginning until you have the amount of characters you need (13 in this case). Look at the example below. I have counted out the characters and bolded the ones we need. (Yes, you count punctuation and spaces; however use _ instead of a space. At the end of a line, keep count on the next line.)
Amendment V:No person shall be held_to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.So in this case our key code would be “rhe_soa,tsaru”.It’s completely random and contains no dictionary words. Yet anyone with the knowledge of the key process could unlock this router. Another candidate could be the King James Bible, where the chapter and verse are the text, and the month could be how many characters you count over. Make it even more interesting, you could plan your generator so that even months count from the start of the verse while odd months count from the end of the verse. The ways of doing this are endless.
Letter Re: New Kind of Bucket List
HJL,
I would like to add to the article of the “New Kind of Bucket List“. When stacking buckets I use 1/4″ thick plywood squares a little bit bigger than a 5 gal. bucket about 13″x13”, this way any size bucket can stack. It helps prevent cracking on the inner part of a llid. I also being older and having weenie upper body strength, have been sealing dry goods in smaller sizes and placing in smaller buckets. One little bucket can have a variety of 1,2, or 3 pound bags of food rather than a 40 pound of only one thing in a larger bucket. – DCN