Computer hacking, cyberattacks, and government spying on its citizens are all over the news. Mention to someone you are thinking of buying a cargo trailer and suddenly advertisements will start showing up on your phone for….you guessed it….cargo trailers. Cyberattacks are increasing dramatically. I know several people who work for companies that have been infiltrated and had their information networks held for ransom. Social media networks are closing accounts left and right if they are on the “wrong” side of an ideology.
I see a time when running a website such as this will be extremely difficult to operate. How will we communicate in the not too distant future if our tools for communication are restricted? There are companies trying to create secure, censorship-free phones. Regardless – they remain on the same networks as all others and are susceptible. Anything on the internet is risky, although, there are ways to reduce the potential to be spied on and hacked.
Many use social media to communicate with friends, family – and to network with like-minded folks. With platforms such as Facebook and Instagram deleting accounts and restricting content it’s becoming more difficult to carry on communication as we used to do. Alternate platforms such as MeWe simply are not populated to the level needed. Rumble – an alternative to Youtube – is such a poor replacement as they have been unable to attract the number of users necessary to truly be an alternative. There are reasons why Facebook, Youtube, and even shopping sites such as Amazon have grown so large. If the alternate versions for these sites fail to match or better yet improve over what the mainstream sites offer they will not take hold.
What’s the answer? Hell, not sure. I would assume that someone somewhere needs to invest the money into entities that will not only match the attraction to these communication tools but improve on them – all while offering anonymity and security.
We could always just send a letter.
Rourke
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I use the old fashioned home phone and send many letters. Maybe some
very wealthy conservatives could set up a site that could be safe and more politically incorrect.Thanks for keeping this site up and running Rourke-you do a great job . Arlene
PS If you e mail me your address I want to send a check and also enroll in
your Patriot site but I do not want to pay on line.
Arlene – email me at emergencycd at gmail.com. I sent you an email a couple of weeks ago but you may not have gotten it.
Good luck with the letters. In my community, they are so short on postal workers that we sometimes don’t get mail for a week. I am hearing it’s that way in a lot of communities…
Good point Floid. I’ve had difficulties with the USPS with losing packages and slow deliveries.
It is interesting that I have not experienced any of this (except the hearing center in town that sends me a mailer every month). I do take precautions about my electronics or perhaps it’s about being in fly-over country that makes them think it’s not worth the expense.
I, along with Arlene and others on this site wish someone would set up a site that would allow free speech with out fear of being banned, I don’t think facebook, twitter, Google and others would be in business very long.
JohnP – You’ve got me thinking about the possibilities. Forst issue: Money. Second issue: Time. I’ll look into it. I know a couple IT people that may be able to assist in putting something together. A small FB-like social media platform for preparedness-minded and Constitution-loving people would be fantastic. Well worth the effort as I imagine the final product would be a fantastic resource.
ALL of the major resources you’ve discussed now operate in one of several “cloud vendors” … all of which house and or own one of the restrictive services you mention. Make no mistake they have absolute control IF they want it. Parler for instance ALLOWED free speech .. the vendor “amazon cloud”.. shut them down and they had to re-platform on a new vendor. Even a completely (if financially prohibitive), company were formed that would buy or build all it’s own infrastructure, they have would have to use the infrastructure communications available to get you to it. The FED has the largest privately held and underground datacenters in the world, and even they are required to use that. The FED has small islands that are air gapped for secured operations in SCIF etc.. but then you can’t get to it.. a that’s the point.
That leaves the security of communications . encryption schemes are commercial. Recon who uses them that might have access ? It is possible to produce unique keys to share information for discreet access, which screams .. you are hiding something like a terrorists would and they will set about cracking it IF they think it has merit.
As you can imagine doing all this for a modicum of security in transmission has a very high overhead personally for the user. Automation can help, but only to a small degree.
I don’t mean to be dark in my assessment, it’s just that easy means someone else is in control, where as completely secure communications is hard and attracts attention.
Ok so I have radios .. YUP.. recently one country eliminated HAM communications by “illegally – internationally” by generating a signal on all communications bands… Essentially HAM’s depend on co-operations between users for bands to be available. A state actor doesn’t HAVE to co-operate. That leaves local area communications on frequency agile radios, and field phones with dedicated lines. I am sure smart people can come up with area communications .. but that isn’t nearly as ubiquitous and easy or simple as what we started talking about here.
About the only secure communications is by “one time pad’s” or book cods if all have the exact same book, and it’s been out of print since before being able to have them all electronically available. “Don’t use the Bible, they are not that ignorant of our thoughts”. Even snail mail is available to whatever agency wants it.
Face time comms is about it and even then could be compromised with tech. Of course hosting your communications in a country that doesn’t play silly games yet is a possibility. Like proton mail at this point, and using thier VPN service. until it isn’t of course.
Much has been invested via the Patriot act (the opposite of it’s name) to monitor BAD people.. BAD is defined as whomever they want to point it at, like any tool. The WHY or justification does not matter, after the fact.
Bottom line it .. The only security would include not being interesting, and be low volume using code to be unknown or more to the point, uninteresting. being lost in the myriad of bits and bytes is essentially hiding in plain sight.
the weakest of any of these links of course is the humans using them. So OpSec is essential IMO.
I’m not predicting, only to attempt to imply that we should not be completely comfortable with our first amendment rights, and to be circumspect/mindful in all communications.
Sounds pretty “tin foil hat” doesn’t it? You decide.. it’s your risk.. this is at least food for thought.
Be deliberate my friends
GG58
GG58:Exactly all the above.Nick Turse,Oldschool comms.Censorship has always been around.What did reular people do then?workarounds,plausible deniability,snailmail.Tutanota.c email,Not Proton is secure.Adaptability,builtin redundancy,flexibility.Closed,invite only social clubs,still may be recorders via phone.Chaff vs. Wheat!! Bible is in code.Oldschool printed newsletter on one sheet.Satphones,c.b.s with booster,TOR browser secure,donate$$!Read books by survivors of Stasi etc.Brighteon.c,Freedomtube.c,Brandnewtube.c,Flote app.,Quorum.c,Oddyssee.c,Patriots4Truth.org,bitchute and d.d.go are compromised,archive.org censors,Citizenwells.c,whatreallyhappened.c,Experimentalvaccines.o,medicalveritas.o,u.s.righttoknow.org,Judicialwatch.o,happypreppoer.c,Lowtechmagazine.c,stopthecrimes.o,Forbiddenknowledge.tv.net,greatgameindia.c=uncrappy news/interviews,MeWe.c,Minds.c,Substack.c,Theburningplatform.c,Start a local newspaper.,do a cable community access show.By law,cableco.s have to give cheap access to local citizens that’s why there are all thise weird ethnicy shows on at weird times like 4 a.m.