Precious Metals Update

You may have noticed that yesterday gold briefly touched $565 per ounce and silver hit $9.44 per ounce and stayed there. Methinks this bull market is just getting started! Aside for some doldrums this summer (since summers are typically quiet for the metals markets), you can expect a choppy but generally upward (stair-stepping) path for the precious metal prices through the rest of the year. The 90 and 120 day moving averages (DMAs) point to the bull market trend to continue WELL in excess of the rate of inflation. There is even the chance of on “upright spike” in the event of a dollar crisis. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: On a macro scale, the second half of this “Aughts” decade will probably resemble the second half of the 1970s. I just hope that the Federal Reserve’s new chief (“Helicopter Ben” Bernanke) can crank up his bubble machine fast enough to avert simultaneous stock market and real estate market collapses. This could get very interesting, folks. I expect that the U.S. real estate bubble will burst, sometime around May of ’06. There are already signs that the bubble is starting to lose some of its hot air. For example, see: http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/19/real_estate/home_money_0602/

David in Israel on Fire Suppression and Fire Fighting

For those with a real retreat in the forest or high desert a more pressing need than complete firearms battery is fire suppression. If you miss my point here, I believe that many survivalists confuse their gun hobby with serious survival preparations.

If the massive combined fire suppression ever stops for even a year massive fires will rip across the United States. Fuel loading from over 70 years of fire suppression and no natural burn-off has made conditions ripe for fires never seen before in North America.  Even if your only survival concerns are foreign invasion or occupation expect fire to be used (as was
attempted but failed during the Vietnam Agent Orange defoliation ops) to clear insurgents out of unsettled areas and deny them cover and natural resources.
This is a massive topic and this post can only give you areas to begin study.

1-Thin the vegetation as far as you are practical able to in the area of your home/retreat ideally this would be a county or community effort and the USFS or State Forestry Agency may be able to assist. Ideally, undergrowth would be burned off and trees closer than 5-10M to another would be removed to slow spread through a forest crown fire.
2-Create a perimeter around your home grass must be mowed to a stubble and raked off, no trees can be within 10M of the house any building or fuel tank.
Try to eliminate flammable trees in the nearby areas to your home and plant less flammable types.
3-Switch to a non flammable roof now, shake roofs are tinder and are almost a guarantee of a burned home in a fire
4-Make active suppression preparations:
– Install a irrigation system, include the roofs and under the eaves of your buildings in this sprinkler installation
– Install a swimming pool or cistern to provide a large supply of water
– Have a portable or installed gas powered water pump 250gpm is a good rate more will support more hand lines but any is better than none have a store of 1.5″ supply line as well as 1″ fire and 3/4″ fire (with garden hose fittings) types, nozzles, adapters, splitters etc will round out the hardware.  Standardize [fittings] with local fire or fed/state agencies who would respond.  BTW, it is best to mark [with a distinctive bright paint color] all of your hardware to prevent theft after a fire by the crews.
A excellent preparation to keep you whole home with pressurized water in the event of a prolonged outage is making a water tower and relying on head pressure to feed both your home and fire suppression systems.
This is as simple as hanging plastic barrels on a tree trunk or as complex as complex as having contractors install a proper water tower. For the improvised tower remember the filled weight of your water (1 gal = 8.33 lbs. and 55 gal = 458 lbs.) and fence around the tower in case of collapse so that nobody is injured.

Here in Israel I have seen the same “pumpkin” tanks that we used in the Forest Service, but built to larger dimensions and more aesthetic colors and sold as swimming pools. Above
ground or in ground is a matter of your pocketbook but be sure that you are able to properly draft to supply your fire operations.

Clothing
Nomex is best, USFS surplus or military flight suits are good as long as no metal zippers contact skin, the next best is cotton, Never wear synthetics or synthetic blends for use around fire.

Boots/Gloves
Never wear steel toe boots for fire fighting, because the steel will hold heat. Kevlar laces do not melt or burn. Keep boots and gloves dry to prevent steam burns. White’s brand were
the best in my day this may have changed. Good leather gloves light enough to work in, do not oil them keep them dry buy as large a supply as possible, kevlar stitching and double palm is a plus.

Gear
Buy a fire shelter for every family member plus extras, have several fire shovels (different than cheap garden/work shovels) and Pulaskies (hoe/axe tool), a helmet should always be worn during heavy work, and possibly blagger bags will help mop up after a fire has gone through. Also, a chainsaw adequate for cutting the local timber and the skills to use and maintain it are a must.

JWR Adds:  David speaks from experience. Heed his advice. Most of you may not be aware, but before he emigrated to Israel, David worked in the U.S. for many years as a full time fireman, and later as a paramedic.  

My $.02 worth on fire suppression/fire fighting:  If you are building a retreat from scratch or if you are replacing an existing water system, I recommend that you spend a little bit more an put in a large cistern, preferably with gravity feed with a substantial head, and put in a 2″ diameter Schedule 40 service line to the house.  Just outside of the house put in a “T” on the two inch line with a 2″ gate valve.  (Downstream of that “T” is where you can reduced to 1″ or smaller lines for your house.) Those 2″ gate valves are outrageously expensive–around $50 each), so shop around–perhaps buy them used.  At the big gate valve you can attach a proper high volume fire fighting hose rig. Effective firefighting is all about dispensing a large VOLUME of water, fast. Anything smaller than a 2″ diameter line will not suffice!  (Okay, perhaps 1.5 inch line if you are on a tight budget.)

Letter Re: Stocking Up on Shoes and Boots for Survival

Jim: 
Two words say it all: SHOE GOO.  I snipped the following description from a retailer online: “Shoe Goo is a clear adhesive and sealant that easily and permanently repairs all types of footwear. Apply it directly from the tube to worn out areas, allowing it to harden overnight. Shoo Goo adheres to all kinds of materials, so use it to mend rubber soles, tears in canvas or leather tops or to stop shoelaces from fraying. It dries to a waterproof, flexible rubber, so it will repair waders and boots without breaking or cracking under stress. Commonly used to cover pitching toes on baseball or softball cleats, mend worn outsole areas especially on running & skateboarding shoes, and repairing loosening outsoles.”  See: http://www.weplay.com/Shoe/Goo/  Expect to pay around $6 per tube.  Wal-Mart sells it, as well.
Shoe Goo is not as durable as the original sole on running shoes, but you can easily double the life of your footwear. And it is easier to pack a tube of Shoo Goo than extra boots. – OSOM

Odds ‘n Sods:

“Eric”, a former charter airline pilot and computer programmer publishes an interesting albeit sporadically updated self sufficiency blog: http://www.selfsufficientfamily.com/

  o  o  o

If you fall into the Club of Rome school of thought on the potential for a major whammy multi-generational societal collapse (See Roberto Vacca’s  book “The Coming Dark Age“), then you might find this site interesting: http://anthropik.com

o  o  o

Two interesting web sites with some useful MicroHydro power info were recently mentioned in a discussion over at the Survival and Preparedness forum at The FAL Files.  See:   http://microhydropower.net/index.php and http://www.utilityfree.com/hydro/ (Scroll down to see their Pelton Wheel offerings)

Note From JWR:

Things are progressing well with my proposed “Paratus Farms” retreat community. (See my post on Saturday, January 21, 2006.)  One gent tells me that he wants to purchase between two and four of the parcels. That will leave at least three more parcels, but these will sell out quickly. Don’t hesitate, folks.  Additional details are available upon request, via e-mail.

Two Letters Re: On Suture, Staples, and Glue for Wound Closure

James:

After reading David in Israel I had a few further suggestions. All open wounds do not have to be sutured, in fact most wounds that are dirty should not be sutured but allowed to drain, and heal by “secondary intention” or basically healing from within. Not all soft tissue wounds need to be cleaned, and dead and nonviable tissue trimmed away. Abscess and further extension of infection can occur with a dirty wound that it sutured closed. Wash with copious amount sterile water, dilute betadine, or dilute hydrogen peroxide. Non dilute solutions often can cause more damage to the tissue than necessary. Straight bleach, rubbing alcohol, vinegar are all too strong and will cause additional damage. Oral or IV antibiotics may be needed during this time. Now organ lacerations are a different animal, particularly with bowel wound, these need to be isolated and repaired. Obviously only a well trained person will be able to do “surgery” to this extent. Leaving sutures in can scar, so a rule of thumb is 10 days for most wounds, 7 for thinner skin, and 3-5 on the face. Obviously scar formation is less of an issue in a SHTF case, and some wounds may need to be over sutured in order to transport a patient over rough terrain etc, but these will need to be followed closely and even allowed to drain.
Staple guns work great, and pretty much anyone who has had surgery recently has seen how widespread they are used. Highly vascular skin heals just as well with staples as sutures.
Dermabond or cyanoacrylate works great for small wounds, I have even seen some ER docs use this over suture which I do not recommend as it is very difficult to remove the sutures, but makes for a strong barrier. – Mike M.D. in MO

 

Jim:

David in Israel gives some unfortunately common, and bad advice about suturing. Unless you know (like a physician or physician assistant/nurse practitioner) what is UNDERNEATH the skin, and how to suture them back together, untrained people should NOT close wounds.
The body is made of layers of different tissues – skin, fascia (underlying tough fibrous tissue), muscles (in several layers, usually) and other things, like blood vessels, nerves, and organs. Each of these layers has different ways of being sutured, requiring different types of suture materials and needles, and just sewing the skin closed will allow blood to leak out of vessels and decay, causing infection.
The best thing for the untrained to do if there is a deep wound is to wash it out (as David in Israel said) with clean water or saline solution (a teaspoon of table salt per quart of water), maybe with some Povidone/iodine (Betadine solution (not scrub), and then pack the wound loosely with gauze and let it heal from the inside out. Such healing will take much longer and leave a worse scar, but closing prematurely can be disastrous.
Other closure techniques (glue, staples) are great within their limitations. Glues should not be used on wounds under stress, and staples are great for small skin or scalp lacerations. Neither addresses closing the underlying tissues.
Even in normal times, a minor wound that has gone for more than a few hours (six hours, in my hospital) is left open for at least a few days, to make certain that no foreign materials are trapped in the wound, and are closed after 48-72 hours. The skills for suturing itself are quite simple – the knowledge to know when to and to NOT suture is not. – Flighter

JWR Replies: Suturing does have its purpose under some circumstances.  I recommend that you stock up on suturing materials, as part of a comprehensive set of medical supplies for your retreat. OBTW, I recall that the folks at Ready Made Resources (one of our advertisers) has pre-loaded surgical staplers in sealed sterile packages (tres cool) available for sale.

Letter Re: “Shooter” on The Draw Technique, or “Shooter’s Five Steps to Keeping Ten Fingers”

Jim,
I’d like to add three observations to Shooter’s otherwise outstanding tutorial on weapons drawing and presentation – “Shooter” on The Draw Technique, or “Shooter’s Five Steps to Keeping Ten Fingers”. First, it is absolutely critical to be aware of your state’s protocols for use of lethal force in armed encounters. The most common elements that must be met to protect yourself legally is opportunity, ability and jeopardy. Go to www.packing.org and review your own state’s statutes. Second, I highly recommend that prior to reholstering and reversing the steps of the draw stroke which Shooter outlined, the weapon is brought from extension to the midriff pointing perpendicular from your body in the same two handed position and you conduct a 360 degree scan without moving your body to assess any additional threats and then you reholster WITHOUT looking at your holster (this will take some practice). This 360 scan must become a habit for the rest of your life whenever your reholster. The intensity of focus and tunnel vision common in these “Condition Black” encounters can insulate the shooter from being alerted to any additional threats that may be around or emerged during the shooting. You will never exceed your highest level of training. Third, register or indexing of the trigger finger is critical for safety and efficiency. There is never a reason to do otherwise until you are ready to fire. This probably accounts for most negligent discharges (“NDs”) in police departments as a result of sympathetic flinch on the trigger during stressful situations or reholstering with the finger on the trigger. In conclusion, seek professional training in tactical shooting from a local school or a nationally recognized marquee like Thunder Ranch or Gunsite. Training dollars should become a household budget item. Cordially, B.B. in North Idaho

Letter Re: Getting Your Group to Buy In: The $20 Medical Kit, By EMT J.N.

Dear Mr. Rawles,
I was very interested in the blog on the $20 medical kit. I was thinking of the situation where in the event of a major storm, hurricane, blizzard, fuel crisis, nuclear attack or where transportation and communications are severely disrupted over a wide area for an extended period, it may not be possible to get to the doctor or pharmacy or if one could get there, it may not be open due to a lack of electric power or severe damage to the facility.

Instead of discussing a group buy, a more practical approach may be the development of several master lists of the items needed or names of the drugs, the approximate cost of these items, a place to buy them and the primary use of the drugs. Some obvious things needed were not included such as hydrogen peroxide to clean wounds, Pepto Bismol for indigestion, [syrup of] ipecac to induce vomiting, colloidal silver for internal and external use, a thermometer to take temperature, blood thinner for circulation problems, and curved needles and nylon thread for suturing wounds. Information to help identify and overcome dehydration issues would also be helpful. The $20 price cap may be too low. Is there a source where the general public can buy Novocain to deaden teeth for dental work, dental pliers to pull teeth, and some type of pain deadener to inject into an injury to kill the pain while the suturing is being done? Most people could not think of all of the things that may be needed and would not know where to get them if they did have the list. What is the answer to the problem of an inability to refill prescriptions because the pharmacy is no longer open? Are there substitute drugs available? Some people with heart problems, diabetes, kidney problems, and other major health problems may be at serious risk if their drugs are no longer available. Is buying drugs in advance from Canada or Mexico a realistic option considering that mail and parcel services may no longer be available after the disaster? I am talking about people with the resources to purchase these items and it would be a disservice to not include them in an effort to stay below a specific dollar limit. Does anyone know of any hospital supply companies that sell to the general public in small quantities? Some of these items are readily available without a prescription if the person can know that the item would be needed in an emergency and think to buy it before it is needed.

It may also be desirable to develop different lists to reflect different situations. The man hunting in the woods or cutting wood with a chainsaw has a totally different risk and needs situation as compared to the elderly lady who may never go into the woods or the pregnant woman who is expected to deliver within the next six months or the person on antidepressant medications.

Would some medical types, EMT, nurse, retired medical doctor, or other types familiar with these issues be willing to develop a comprehensive list to cover one or more of these situations or to provide links to other sites that may include such information to be posted here for the benefit of your readers? It would be greatly appreciated and could greatly assist people surviving in a future emergency.

It appears that most of the medical articles and books are too general and tell you to provide fluids, clean the wound, and see the doctor etc without specific instructions on what to do if the doctor and pharmacy are not available. Any information on low cost books on these subjects that provide the necessary details would be greatly appreciated. People hate to buy the book and later find that the specific drugs needed are not listed or are not available. – S.F.

Odds ‘n Sods:

Defense Aerospace reports: “Future of US Nuclear Arsenal in Flux after Peacekeeper Missiles De-Activated”  See:
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/cgi-bin/client/modele.pl?prod=66020&session=dae.17150781.1138033046.Q9UBgsOa9dUAAGt1mV8&modele=jdc_1

 

  o  o  o

Reader OSOM (“Out of Sight, Out of Mind”)  recommends the recent Popular Mechanics magazine article on “Worst Case Scenarios”  See: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/worst_case_scenario/

  o  o  o

Check out http://www.FreeCycle.org. If you have the storage space, this is a great place to pick up free items for charity or barter.

 

  o  o  o

Some details and commentary on “Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran” prepared by the US Army War College. (plus a PDF link to the original document) can be found at The Belmont Club. See: http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2006/01/coming-of-bomb.html

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"For earthly princes lay aside their power when they rise up against God, and are unworthy to be reckoned among the number of mankind. We ought, rather, utterly to defy them." – John Calvin, 1509-1564

Note From JWR:

Please mention SurvivalBlog.com whenever your are a caller or a guest on a talk radio show. Keep spreading the word. Thanks!

Three Letter Re: Internet and Search Engine Privacy

Jim:
I’ve done a lot of experimenting on this and offer my take:

Rule Number One: The U.S. Government is monitoring domestic internet traffic. Anybody visiting Survivalblog is already suspect by the government because of it’s very subject matter. Assume that you are being monitored. Let’s not be naive here please.

Anonymizer is obviously monitored by the Government because it maintains logs of in/out IP Addresses.

Tor…the Onion Router is the best way to go if you have DSL or Cable high-speed internet connection because there is no central logging. I use it.

CCleaner [Cache Cleaner] at http://www.ccleaner.com/ is the very best way to keep your computer free of what snoops want. It is FREE, tiny, fast, easy, and I click on it after every internet surf. It instantly removes all tracking cookies. It also instantly removes all those useless internet temp files that clog/slow your computer. Download it FREE right now. -Book

 

James:

You mentioned that your readers might be interested in a brief write up of privacy on the Internet and how to keep yourself off of the radar. I’ll try to oblige.
First some background: My company and I do Information Security for small businesses, so we and I have experience in keeping private things private in the real world. What I’m doing is basically putting into text the Security Speech that I give any client who I consult for (and will sit still long enough to hear it). I’ll stay away from technical terms and specific products/’solutions’ until the very end where I’ll describe a few different levels of ‘security’ in real-world examples. Specific privacy stuff is further towards the end.
Rule Number One: There Is No Such Thing As A Secure Computer (or Anything Else)
Perfect security is impossible. Computer security researchers are fond of saying that the only secure computer is one that’s unplugged from the network, turned off, sealed in a vault and protected by well-paid guards, and they’re only partially joking. (Yes this is what passes for humor in the computer security profession.) No matter what steps you take to keep your stuff secure, someone, somewhere can break into it and steal them; given sufficient time and money all computers are vulnerable. The only thing you can do to an attacker is slow him or her down. All of modern security is devoted to slowing attackers down. This has two effects: it makes you less appealing to casual attackers and it frustrates determined attackers.
In WWII the Germans used an encryption device called “enigma” to send secret messages to their troops. They thought it was unbreakable. The allies broke it. The moral of the story is that what we think is ‘secure’ today will be as tough as tissue paper in fifty years.
Rule Number Two: Security Is Not A Product.
What I mean by this is twofold: one, anyone who sells you a “secure” widget is lying. Widgets, computers, servers and networks are not secure or insecure by their nature; they are merely tools. Any tool can be used for good or ill, just think of the climate concerning guns. This is a continuation of the first rule; not only is there no such thing as a secure computer, any steps that have been taken to create a more secure computer can be blown away by the mentality of the user. This rule probably should read Security Is A State Of Mind, but this way I can combine two rules into one. In a nutshell, every system is only as secure as the users of that system are willing to make it.
The canonical example of this is a hospital. Hospitals have insane oversight in terms of confidentiality of patient information and they can get in real trouble for letting the Wrong People see certain files. So the natural step is to make each level of access have a separate password and each user must login to separate authentication levels, blah blah blah. Its a ‘very secure system.’ End result? Nurses get tired of remembering so many passwords and write them down on sticky notes on the monitor. Security that is too hard to use will be defeated.
Rule Number Three: Your Computer Is A Castle.
Traditional security is a good analogy to computer security. Things that people would never do in the real world they don’t think twice about doing online. When you open an attachment you’re not expecting, its like licking your neighbor’s doorknob. When you blindly click ‘OK’ on every pop up window, its like walking around in a bad neighborhood with a roll of hundred dollar bills poking out of your pocket. Remember the Trojan Horse? Trusting everyone online will get you in trouble, just like in real life.
Likewise, when you evaluate a system for security the first place you look is the place where security is the weakest. If you double-encrypt everything and lock your computer in a safe but your password is ‘secret’, you’re not really secure. Always look at the big picture and don’t lose the forest for the trees. Likewise, if you have an uber-secure locked-down machine but its in an office where the cleaning staff have physical access, you’re not secure.
Rule Number Four: Security is Boring
This is the hardest thing to get right. The best way to be secure online is to do the little things all the time. Boring things like keeping your security updates up-to-date and getting an anti-virus. Being paranoid about your email and choosing the right software go a huge way towards keeping your stuff safe. Have a legal copy of all your software, especially your anti-virus. Pay for it. If you don’t want to pay for it, AVG anti virus is free and damn good. More detail later.
That’s it for the theory, there will be a quiz on Thursday. Now the practice. There are a few things that you can do to keep yourself secure and protect what little privacy you still have.
The first thing to know is that email is not secure. Think of email as sending a postcard, there’s nothing to stop anyone who touches it from reading it. Email is hard but not impossible to anonymize, but there are few remaining anonymizers left. Any old Hotmail or other free account will work for certain values of ‘anonymous’ but they probably will not stand up to a legal search warrant unless you are very careful. Gmail is not a good provider for anonymous email because of the invite system. Unless you can get an invite anonymously anyone tracing it can simply look up who invited you and compel them to spill the beans.
Another thing is that any site you visit on the web can get a huge amount of information on you that your browser just sends out on its own. Things like your IP address which can be traced to a rough location and if the government gets involved can probably be traced down to whoever pays the bills. This can be mitigated by using anonymizing proxies, Tor and privoxy. More detail further on
Yet another key facet is that anything that is on your computer is something that you are trusting fully. If you follow good protocol, you are trusting Microsoft with all of your data, and you are trusting whoever makes your anti-virus or firewall with all your data. There is precedent for law enforcement using the anti-virus update to compromise the computer of a group that was holed up in their cabin to prevent them from emailing out. In case I wasn’t clear, this has happened and will happen again.
Now for some details and the all-important links:
In terms of an operating system, Windows is the default and there’s no budging most people from it. With good practices and by keeping up to date you can keep windows tolerably secure. I would trust it for mildly embarrassing data but not critical data. Please upgrade to at least Windows 2000. Windows XP with Service Pack 2 is best. I know its expensive, but Windows 95, 98, and ME are outdated and not secure.
Since no one has access to the code that makes Windows tick, there is no way to determine for sure that there is not an easy back door that could be leveraged against you. I cannot recommend keeping mission critical data on a Windows machine. If you have a bit more freedom about what you run, I heartily recommend getting a Macintosh. The new Apple OS X is built upon a very secure BSD base and it strikes an excellent balance between usability and security. Any version of Linux or BSD can be made secure, but if you’re running those you probably know how to secure it.
Web browsers: There really is only one. Firefox is the best that has come along yet. It can be setup for decent everyday browsing and keep a good rein on your cookies and history. In the firefox settings, you can exercise very fine control over what sites are allowed to set cookies on your machine and when to expire them. Please do not use Internet Explorer on ANY OS. It is not secure in any way. A good addition is Privoxy and/or Tor. A must-have extension for Firefox is Adblock Plus and “Filterset.G”


Email client: I recommend either Mozilla Thunderbird, but basically anything but Outlook (Express) is acceptable. Outlook is massively insecure, Please do not use it.
Anti Virus: They’re all equally mediocre. I use AVG which is free for personal use. Pick one and keep it updated.
Firewall: Again, the windows firewall cannot be trusted. I recommend Kerio Personal Firewall, and I use it myself. Tiny Personal Firewall is good too. Zone Alarm is less powerful and Black Ice is worthless.
Proxies: Privoxy is a nice semi-anonymizing proxy that runs on your local machine. It can’t hide your IP but it will strip out a lot of identifiable information. Its pretty easy to set up too.
Tor is a very clever onion routing network that passes your traffic through a few levels of other machines so that theoretically not only does the site you’re visiting not know who you are, nobody could trace your connection back to you. An added benefit is that Tor servers are encrypted so your traffic is harder to snoop on as well as being more anonymous. The disadvantage is that this is SLOW.
Encryption: BestCrypt can create secure images that can be viewed on Windows and Linux.
Below I’m going to outline three levels of security and what they should be reasonably protected against.
The first is an easy to use everyday machine. You will be protected from most common automated and non-directed attacks but a determined attacker will still be able to penetrate as will a governmental entity. If there is demand I can work up a similar profile for a Mac.
Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP.
AVG anti virus or similar.
Kerio Personal Firewall of similar.
Firefox, Adblock Plus and Filterset.G set to only allow same-domain cookies.
Privoxy
The second is more anonymous but it sacrifices speed. You will use this if you want to do something that you wouldn’t want broadcasted.
The same as above except Firefox is set to expire cookies on close, and keep no disk cache or history. Privoxy is also connected to Tor for anonymization.
For email, Thunderbird and Enigmail can be setup to encrypt your email to a very strong degree, as long as the recipient has a similar setup. New Enigmail versions are very user-friendly in this regard.
Also, it is possible to have two different “profiles” of firefox on one machine, one that simply browses normally with sane cookie rules, and another that passes through Tor/Privoxy and keeps no history or cache and clears cookies on exit. This is simple to do and a good mix of usability and the ability to be more anonymous if desired.
One note: Remember that today’s “uncrackable” will be a joke in fifty years. Also, encrypted traffic will probably raise a certain level of awareness among those doing the spying. Legally this poses no problems but if you’re doing something you wouldn’t like discovered sending encrypted e-mails to osama@alqaida.com it is probably a bad idea.
A Proviso: The above two systems rely on closed code and trusting updates. They would be very vulnerable to any form of governmental intrusion and nothing can be done to mitigate this. IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO SOMETHING ILLEGAL, DON’T USE ANYTHING CLOSED-SOURCE TO DO IT WITH. If you do intend to do something illegal, or even if you’re just paranoid like me, a good idea would be to have a second machine. This is similar to what the NSA does internally: Classified machines cannot talk to Top Secret machines, and none of them can talk to Unclassified machines.
A good Classified or Top Secret machine might look like this. This machine should be reasonably secure against anything but a direct, physical attack.
BSD or Linux OS, properly configured (details are outside the scope of this article. I will be happy to provide further information upon request).
A solid, encrypted file system or BestCrypt for any user data.
Not connected to the network. Use a USB flash keychain/thumb drive for getting data off of it.
Again, none of this is any good at all if your master password is your birthday.
I hope someone finds this useful and I’m happy to answer any more detailed questions either via SurvivalBlog or directly. – Paedrig Hawkwing (PaedrigHawkwing-at-gmail.com–change the “-at-” to an @ symbol)

JWR Adds:  Our web statistics show that 19% of our readers now use the Firefox browser, up substantially from the 16% when we started SurvivalBlog back in August of Aught Five. My advice:  DUMP that back-door ridden, data mining Microsoft Internet Explorer. Firefox is free!

Hi Jim,
Another option for anonymous web browsing is to install Tor, an “onion routing” package that sends your data through ‘layers’ of different servers before reaching your desired destination. After I first installed Tor, I visited Google and was surprised to see it looked a little different — Google detected that I was coming from Austria (since the last server ‘layer’ was located there) and presented me with “Google Österreich”! Tor is free and easy to setup. The EFF has instructions for Windows ( http://tor.eff.org/cvs/tor/doc/tor-doc-win32.html) and OSX (http://tor.eff.org/cvs/tor/doc/tor-doc-osx.html ). Regards, – MP