The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “JWR”.  Today we are pleased to report on the release of a novel One Time Pad Generator.

New AMRRON One Time Pad Generator and Printer

Alex Barron (aka The Bard of the American Redoubt) has posted a video blog review of the ADL-1 One Time Pad Field Generator and Printer. JWR’s Comments: Finally, someone has come up with a truly secure, stand-alone one time pad device with a printer! It all fits in a small waterproof Pelican-style carrying case. This development of this unit is credited to an anonymous group of Redoubters in the AMRRON radio network. I really, really like the approach of having an air-gapped stand-alone device. Beware of any OTP generator that is Internet connected. Those are an invitation to prying eyes, malicious intrusion, and untold mischief. Granted, you can get away with using a OTP generator on a USB device, attached to a laptop. But that had better be a dedicated spare laptop of yours with NO hard wire or wireless Internet connection! I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Partisan Labs ADL-1 One Time Pad Generator-Printer sells for under $160. Alex Barron also posted some operating instructions. Congrats to the guys and gals of Dark Labs and AMRRON!

Recipe for More Venezuela Chaos: Just Add Russians

Reader Gregg P. sent us this: Maduro Urges Supporters To Hit Streets As Russian “Security Contractors” Arrive In Venezuela. The included geopolitical map showing the disparity of support for the two “dueling presidents” is quite illuminating.

Strasser Evolution Multi-Barrel Rifle

SurvivalBlog’s Editor At Large Michael Z. Williamson suggested this video product review: IFC debuts the innovative Strasser Evolution rifle. That rifle has a very clever design execution. These days, with a good scope costing as much as a rifle, this approach –albeit costly up front — is actually cost effective. But it is only apropos if you need just one rifle to handle everything from varmint shooting to big game hunting and a long range counter-sniper role.

Damaging Screen Time

Regular blog content contributor DSV spotted this: Screen Time Is Worse For Kids’ Brains Than We Thought. Here is a brief passage: “The average adult consumes five times more information every day than the average adult did 50 years ago. Further, we spend as much as 12 hours a day in front of TVs and computers—and that’s just while we’re at home! Because of all this, how we interact with one another and the world around us is evolving, with research suggesting our time on social media shows measurable, causal differences in our mental health.”

Schaeffer Cox Update

An update to American political prisoner Schaeffer Cox’s website has been posted. Here is an excerpt:

“We are pushing hard for a presidential pardon. Attorney and founder of Judicial Watch, Larry Klayman, is working his channels to try to get my story in front of Trump, who he thinks will likely pardon me if he sees what’s been done to me.

Klayman came out and visited me here in the prison during the lock down. We sat in a freezing cold room that was about 25 degrees Fahrenheit, and talked for nearly five hours. He’d gone over my whole case and said that what the Deep State and this secret prison has done to me makes the other cases he’s seen ‘look like a warm up act.’ I don’t know if that should make me feel better or worse. I just hope it all comes to light soon.

At the moment, Klayman has filed a FOIA lawsuit on my behalf in Washington D.C. and he has taken over the FOIA suits I had filed on my own. He’s consolidating those two lawsuits into one. 

And here’s the luckiest break of all: The judge in D.C. that our FOIA cases got randomly assigned to is judge Emmet G. Sullivan. That’s the same judge that conducted the 2012 trial of my pro-gun Republican US Senator, Ted Stevens, who was railroaded by the same corrupt prosecutor who railroaded me. When judge Sullivan found out that the prosecutors had been hiding evidence in the Stevens case, he got so mad that he actually appointed a special prosecutor to prosecute the prosecutors!!”

Please pray for Schaeffer Cox and his family. If you want to help with the appeal legal costs, you can do so at: FreeSchaeffer.com/donate

The Death of Goodwill

Reader H.C. suggested this essay at Keith Weiner Economics: The Death of Godwill.

Dropgangs: An Interesting Dead Drop Variation

For those interested in fieldcraft a reader suggest this interesting article: Dropgangs, or the future of darknet markets.  Here is a selection from the article:

“The problems of darknet markets have triggered an evolution in online black markets.

To prevent the problems of customer binding, and losing business when darknet markets go down, merchants have begun to leave the specialized and centralized platforms and instead ventured to use widely accessible technology to build their own communications and operational back-ends.

Instead of using websites on the darknet, merchants are now operating invite-only channels on widely available mobile messaging systems like Telegram. This allows the merchant to control the reach of their communication better and be less vulnerable to system take-downs. To further stabilize the connection between merchant and customer, repeat customers are given unique messaging contacts that are independent of shared channels and thus even less likely to be found and taken down. Channels are often operated by automated bots that allow customers to inquire about offers and initiate the purchase, often even allowing a fully bot-driven experience without human intervention on the merchant’s side.

The use of messaging platforms provides a much better user experience to the customers, who can now reach their suppliers with mobile applications they are used to already. It also means that a larger part of the communication isn’t routed through the Tor or I2P networks anymore but each side – merchant and customer – employ their own protection technology, often using widely spread VPNs.

The other major change is the use of “dead drops” instead of the postal system which has proven vulnerable to tracking and interception. Now, goods are hidden in publicly accessible places like parks and the location is given to the customer on purchase. The customer then goes to the location and picks up the goods. This means that delivery becomes asynchronous for the merchant, he can hide a lot of product in different locations for future, not yet known, purchases. For the client the time to delivery is significantly shorter than waiting for a letter or parcel shipped by traditional means – he has the product in his hands in a matter of hours instead of days. Furthermore this method does not require for the customer to give any personally identifiable information to the merchant, which in turn doesn’t have to safeguard it anymore. Less data means less risk for everyone.

The use of dead drops also significantly reduces the risk of the merchant to be discovered by tracking within the postal system. He does not have to visit any easily to surveil post office or letter box, instead the whole public space becomes his hiding territory.”

Both preppers and leaderless resistance cells should learns from this.

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Please send your news tips to JWR. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) These are often especially relevant, because they come from folks who watch news that is important to them. Due to their diligence and focus, we benefit from fresh “on target” news. We often “get the scoop” on news that is most likely ignored (or reported late) by mainstream American news outlets. Thanks!