2025-03-05
We keep us safe.
This site has a section called Tool Time, which for its first fifteen months was an unpromoted scratch pad for me. Whatever technology I was using, or reviewing, or in some cases aghast that anyone was using, would get stuck in there. It was used more as a wiki, getting referenced, as opposed to being published with the intent to draw maximum eyeballs.
This was the right thing, but the situation has changed since 11/5/24. Previously those who were creeping around dark and dangerous corners of the internet needed to tool up, while those just trying to keep up with things were offered thoughts on tools supporting sense making.
All that went out the window in late 2024; security suggestions have become security requirements. You need to get your head around all of these things, and either do them, or do not … because you understand and accept the risk.
Attention Conservation Notice:
The machine is watching you and everyone you know. The more you do to deprive it of information, the safer we all are. If you were about to exclaim “But I’m not doing anything wrong” please send me an email so we can schedule time for you to receive a complimentary punch in the mouth. Once I am sure you’re paying attention, I’ll explain things again in terms of how quickly/how often you’re going to receive additional bruises and contusion going forward.
Absolute Requirements:
I use Gmail for things that don’t matter, and for Google Voice numbers, but the need for Voice is declining rapidly due to increasing anti-fraud measures.
Microsoft’s operating system has objectively improved, but it’s still just plain awful for most things. There are a lot of retired Windows 10 machines out there, go get one. That syrupy slow thing you parked in 2023 will feel like a rocket once it’s got a proper operating system on it - like Ubuntu Budgie.
Look at your cell phone. Look at the below picture. Rinse and repeat until you understand they are the same thing. I don’t want to hear any whining on this one, I haven’t had a post paid cell in eleven years. I stopped taking a phone with me when I left the house at the start of 2019 and if not for a trick knee I would still be doing that.
OK, most of you are neither as exposed nor as relentless as I am. So for you, one phone that is YOU, and another that is … not connected at all to your life … is acceptable. Just be sure you’ve got either ProtonVPN’s WireGuard or Mullvad as your IP address concealment. Do NOT ever give the carrier number to anyone - you get on Signal, you pick a username, and anyone who asks for digits is immediately suspect.
Optional Activities:
So you’ve got your brand new burner phone sitting next to a ratty Windows 10 laptop that’s now running Linux, and both devices are set to use fail closed VPN services from Proton or Mullvad. You do not ever call, email, text, etc anyone from your actual life. You understand that the phone’s GPS tattling can not be disabled by turning off location services, you get that if it’s turned on in your home it’s blown, and that’s why you are the only one who knows the number to it. That’s not perfect, but it’s a whole heckin’ lot better than getting on a bunch of Join The Resistance lists with your actual devices.
You can definitely go harder …
I hear Exodus is a pretty good crypto wallet. Keep in mind that only Monero is truly untraceable. Any payment related stuff on your phone should be utterly disconnected from your retirement, mortgage, and so forth. Go to a different bank, open an account, but a whole entire financial “you” that’s separate. Keep the important stuff on a retired phone in a drawer at home.
See if you can sort out how to get a state ID that does not have your physical address on it. That’s been a pain in the ass for a while, unless you’ve habitually done it for the last twenty years, and some postal rules changes have made it very tricky. What used to require a poker face and/or feigned confusion may now require court intervention … or a forged lease.
Counter Insurgency:
I have never served in the intel sector, law enforcement, or the military, but I stuck the label “intelligence team lead” on my LinkedIn and nobody has argued about it. In a field full of all sorts of ungulates from various parts of the machine, I am a unicorn, a self taught practitioner, and those first five recommendations you see on the right hand side of this site speak to that. Here’s just a sample of the reading I’ve done over the years as I grew into this role. Five of those books would each serve as the backbone of a three credit college class and there’s a lot more where they originated.
Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy.
Information Operations Recognition: From Nonlinear Analysis to Decision Making
Attribution of Advanced Persistent Threats
Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis
Psychology of Intelligence Analysis
I was reading in a LinkedIn group for private investigators back in 2010 when I first saw the words “link analysis” together. Being a Cisco protocol droid, I already see the world as networks. I Googled, I found Maltego, and I’ve been on it solid as a paying customer since 2012. Since then I’ve also made extensive use of Gephi and I’ve had several false starts with Sentinel Visualizer.
So … when I say that I perceive a hazard in something you are doing (or not doing), I’m saying it because I’ve either had to defend against it in the past, I’ve employed it against an investigation target, or I read about its use … at times in the indictment of someone who lacked wise counsel.
Conclusion:
The first time anyone I worked with came to a bad end was 2009. The last time was 2024. All of that was about heading off trouble … and I have to admit that while I won some battles, I failed to interdict the war. Whatever happens next, I’m a spectator. I do not have it in me to dispatch irregulars to situations from which they may not return.
But I realize that, like me back in 2007, some of you simply can not sit still in the face of what is happening. So I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.
