How “Nothing to Hide” Leads to “Nowhere to Hide”

From The Daily Bell – How “Nothing to Hide” Leads to “Nowhere to Hide” – Why Privacy Matters in an Age of Tech Totalitarianism

Would you allow a government official into your bedroom on your honeymoon? Or let your mother-in-law hear and record every conversation that takes place in your home or car – especially disagreements with your husband or wife? Would you let a stranger sit in on your children’s playdates so that he could better understand how to entice them with candy or a doll?

Guess what? If you bring your phone with you everywhere, or engage with a whole-house robo helper such as Alexa or Echo or Siri or Google, you’re opening up every aspect of your life to government officials, snooping (possibly criminal) hackers, and advertisers targeting you, your spouse and your children…

When you ask Siri or Echo or Alexa or Google (and others of their ilk) something, it’s great to get an immediate answer… but the corollary is that Siri and Echo and Alexa and Google are listening to every conversation you’re having with your spouse, every fight you’re having with your kids, and every bit of heavy breathing that might be taking place in the dark.

That response inherently grants legitimacy to the search in the first place. The implication is that if you have nothing to “hide,” then the tech companies, the advertisers, the government, etc. should indeed have full access to every aspect of your life…

Technology can lead to convenience, but it can also lead to abuses of power. In its extreme, that is called totalitarianism.

In the end, we must take precautions if we’re to have anything close to liberty. Some of you have, no doubt, read Jonah Goldberg’s excellent book from 2007, Liberal Fascism, the hardcover of which features a smiley face graphic with a Hitler mustache. In the introduction, Mr. Goldberg quotes a segment from a Bill Maher show in which George Carlin says, in essence, (and I’m paraphrasing) that “when fascism comes to America it will be wearing a smiley face.”

I’d go a step further — it will be cloaked in an emoji… seemingly innocuous, friendly, and ubiquitous.

We must stop giving away our privacy. We must start thinking about personal “data” as the commodity that it already is, and even as a weapon that can be used against us.

If we don’t stop and reconsider what we’re giving away, not only will there be nothing to hide, but nowhere to hide.

Read the entire article here

Emergency Management Magazine: Fastest Response Will Be From Your Neighbor

Posted over at Emergency Management magazine, is the article The Public as a Resource with some common sense insights about emergency response.

Far too often, organizations consider the public a liability — something to be rescued in an emergency situation. The opposite is true. The public is one of our greatest resources in times of crisis and should be included as an important part of your resilience planning and training.
The reality of emergency management is this: The bigger the disaster, the less likely the government can provide the best response.

For smaller disasters, there are multiple organizations that can respond, from the Red Cross to the Salvation Army to our own National Guard. For larger disasters, there is so much demand for assistance that we invariably fall short. We cannot get to people fast enough. In those situations, the tendency is to tell the public to be passive and wait. That is not the best solution and increases the number of lives lost.

In the case of almost any disaster, the fastest response will be from your neighbor. There are countless examples of this…

Click here to continue reading

6 Meters: Survivalist Magic

NC Scout writes of the utility of the six meter amateur radio band, while also encouraging people to acquire better radio gear than the cheapest thing they can get.

These days, nearly exclusively, when someone brings up survivalist communications, the default always resigns to some sort of chinese dual bander with the added justification “because its cheap!” Nevermind the fact that the build quality is junk and the thing will likely fail the person using it sooner rather than later, they keep being bought because the personality cults of the Internet tell them to…only because they’re cheap. But if one thought critically, all those folks having the ability to listen to hi band VHF and UHF might be a bad thing- especially if you’re looking for any sort of security.

Your area may be different, but around here there’s next to no activity on some of the other bands…you know, the ones Baofeng doesn’t make a radio for. Especially interesting for Survivalists is the capability the 6M band offers- with little to no overall traffic, great capability in rural terrain and many older repeaters sitting idle, 6M really needs more consideration for those actually concerned with creating a capable net versus those just cosplaying…

Source: 6 Meters: Survivalist Magic  Click to continue reading.

South Africa: “Expropriation Without Compensation” May Be Enacted

South Africa’s ANC party recently concluded a six day meeting discussing various issues.  According to the Sunday Times:

There was a hard push from supporters of President Jacob Zuma for a decision on the redistribution of land without compensation‚ which would necessitate a change to the constitution.

But according to the ANC’s economic transformation subcommittee head‚ Enoch Godongwana‚ both this proposal and the current system of redistribution with compensation remain on the table for debate by branches. Zuma‚ however‚ hinted in his closing address that there could be legislative changes for expropriation without compensation.

“We agree that using the fiscus for land redistribution must be accompanied by other measures if we are to achieve the goal at the required pace.

“Where it is necessary and unavoidable this might include expropriation without compensation‚” Zuma said.

The ANC also agreed that the South African Reserve Bank should be nationalized.  The decisions are not binding and must be approved by the December national elective conference.

Click here to read more.

How To Avoid the Plague

Perhaps you’ve read in the news lately about the current, big virus sweeping across Europe.

Cryptoviruses (a computer virus that encrypts a victim’s data in a way that the data can only be retrieved via a key made by the attacker) are the current weapon of choice of those bent on using malware to either cause electronic destruction or criminally extort money from anonymous reaches of the internet. In 2016, ransomware (a virus that encrypts or otherwise locks away a victim’s data) payments were estimated to hit $1 billion for the year.

The virus currently in the news is called Nyetya:

“After an hour of attempting to spread across the network, computers infected with Nyetya will reboot. After restarting the computers will appear to run CHKDSK (utilised to check the hard drive for errors) but the malware is actually encrypting files. Once this is completed the master boot record (MBR) is overwritten with a custom loader that will display the ransom note on boot.

“The ransom note presented to the user informs them that their files are no longer accessible and that $300 worth of Bitcoin will need to be paid to a specified Bitcoin wallet address in order to get the decryption key necessary to access their files. The user is instructed to e-mail a posteo.net e-mail address with information to identify their Bitcoin payment transaction. Posteo has disabled the e-mail account in question, it is not possible for victims to get decryption keys following payment as a result of this.

“Microsoft confirms that the initial infection vector for this malware was caused by a software update for MeDoc, a Ukrainian tax accounting package, pushed out via a hacked server. There have also been reports of the malware spreading via phishing e-mails.”

Viruses have gone from annoying interruptions which required expensive support to clean your computer of infections, to destructive invasions which destroy all the information on your hard drive. Below are several tips on how to avoid getting infected, but as a home user one of the most important tips is to keep a backup of all of your important data on an external drive of some sort – like a thumb drive, home network drive, or external hard drive – something that isn’t always directly attached to your computer where it could be destroyed by a virus.

Here are a few tips to avoid malware problems both inside and outside work (source is https://blog.exclaimer.com/educate-users-about-email-threats/):

  • Don’t click a link in an email unless you are 100% certain that it is safe to do so. If there is even the slightest doubt, delete it immediately or send it to the Helpdesk (if you have one).
  • Don’t open or respond to emails that look suspicious, unusual or appear to be from someone you don’t know that asks for personal or financial details.
  • Ignore attachments that you weren’t expecting, especially if you don’t know the sender. Many malicious attachments masquerade as Word documents or familiar file types, so check with your IT team if there is any doubt.
  • Check your spam folders regularly in case a legitimate email gets caught in the filter. Whitelist important email addresses so they won’t get filtered in the future.
  • Never give out personal details by email or fill in forms that pop up when you open an email as these will often be phishing attempts.
  • If you haven’t given your address to a business that emails you, do not open or interact with the message.
  • If you get a notice from a financial institution or any other online account stating that you need to upgrade your details or change your password, don’t follow the instructions, but go directly to the institution’s website and see if your account is in order. Financial institutions will never ask for these details over email nor will most other reputable institutions.
  • If you think you might have opened an email with a malicious attachment or clicked or a malicious link, shut down your machine immediately and inform your IT department. They will then be able to isolate that machine from the network and run any necessary scans. If you don’t have an IT department, take it to your local PC technician for a virus check.
  • If you receive an emailed calendar invite from someone you don’t know or it looks suspicious, don’t accept it. If it is from a colleague who is not using a corporate email address, find out it if it is real. In any case, delete the invite just to be certain.`
  • Be careful when logging onto Wi-Fi networks, especially public ones. Always stick with trusted providers and avoid suspicious-sounding SSIDs. Hackers often spoof genuine SSIDs in order to steal passwords and user names.
  • Don’t use the same password for your work email account as your personal one.
  • Avoid posting your work email address in public forums, blogs and websites unless it is absolutely necessary. You will be making it too easy for hackers to get your address and use them for various spamming attacks.
  • Never download any software that has not been approved by your IT department. This could open a backdoor for hackers to gain access to your company’s network and use your computer as part of a botnet that will spew spam across the world. At home, try to stick with reputable software producers or peer-reviewed software that has been checked for problems. If you don’t know, doing an internet search for reviews of a software program will usually produce an abundance of information.

If you don’t have an IT department, here in the Yakima Valley most of the smaller internet service providers and repair shops will be happy to answer your questions on the phone and advise you if they think that you should take your PC to a repair shop. Additional tips can be found here

Autodesk https://redshift.autodesk.com/10-tips-on-how-to-prevent-malware-from-infecting-your-computer/

and here

Malware Bytes https://blog.malwarebytes.com/101/2016/08/10-easy-ways-to-prevent-malware-infection/

and here.

PC World http://www.pcworld.com/article/210891/malware.html

The following YouTube video is a few years old, but the information is as valid today as it was then.

Please take some time to review this information and better protect yourself and your sensitive information. Let’s be careful out there.

The Prepared Homestead: Intro to Family Herbal Medicine

The Prepared Homestead will present an introduction to family herbal medicine on Friday evenings from July 7th, 2017 through September 8, 2017 from 5:30 to 8:00pm in Cocolalla, Idaho.

Family Herbal Medicine

Come spend Friday Evenings July 7-Sept 8 5:30-8:00 PM on the homestead learning about Family Herbal Medicine and working with herbs. Herbalism has been around for thousands of years. It has been the traditional method used by people on every continent to support health and bring healing. Today there is a resurgence, a renewed interest in taking charge of our own health and educating ourselves on family herbal medicine know-how. In this 10 week program my goal is to build your confidence in your knowledge and ability so you feel equipped to take care of your family’s basic health needs. Each of these sessions is available individually, they are also available at a discount as groupings (see description below) or at a significant discount when you register for the entire program.

What we will cover over the 10 weeks –

Session 1: Introduction to western herbalism & Burns, Stings, & Rashes

echinacea

  • Why use herbs? Why study family herbal medicine?
  • Basic safety precautions
  • What herbs are growing around your yard you can use to ease stings and bites
  • How to heal a burn fast and reduce scarring
  • Herbs for skin rashes, diaper rashes, and facial breakouts
  • You’ll also learn the basics of making a poultice and when to use this type of treatment as well as drying herbs, part 1

Session 2: Wounds, Bruises, & Cuts

  • How to stop a bleeding injury
  • Best herbs for reducing swelling
  • Herbs that eliminate infection
  • Herbs to have in your family First Aid Kit
  • In this session we will learn to make a soothing compress and continue our discussion on drying herbs

Session 3: Coughs, Colds, & Congestion

  • Intro to wildcrafting
  • Learn the difference between types of coughs and which herbs to choose for each type
  • How to shorten the length of a cold
  • Herbs that help reduce congestion and allow for easier breathing
  • In this session we will make some herbal honey and cover the basics of an herbal bath & steam

Session 4: Fevers, Teething, & Ear Infections

  • When to worry about a fever
  • What herbs to use for different types of fevers
  • Herbs to soothe teething pain and irritability
  • How to treat ear infections naturally
  • We will cover the basics of making an infused oil

Session 5: Indigestion, Diarrhea, Constipation & Stomach Ache

  • We’ll talk about the importance of regular bowel movements and which herbs help
  • Herbs that are good for soothing stomach ache
  • How to reduce IBS and intestinal inflammation
  • We’ll discuss when to make a decoction and infusion and practice making both

Nourishing Herbal Infusion

Session 6: Tonic Herbs

  • This week we move into using herbs for daily health
  • We will cover my favorite herbs to take and what they are good for
  • Using Herbs as your vitamins
  • I will show you how to make a Nourishing Herbal Infusion

Session 7: Anxiety, Stress, Insomnia, & Headaches

  • Strategies for reducing stress and anxiety
  • How to use herbs to reduce the effects of anxiety
  • What herbs help quiet the mind and make it easier to fall asleep
  • Herbal treatment for tension headaches
  • In this session we will make an herbal tincture

Session 8: Menstrual Disorders

  • Herbs you can use to reduce cramping and eliminate bloating
  • Treating excess bleeding with herbs
  • In this session we will also discuss diet and lifestyle
  • We will create an infusion blend and a soothing massage oil

Session 9: Adaptogens & Immune Boosters

  • Reduce incidence of illness by using herbs
  • Increase your ability to handle stress and bounce back faster
  • My favorite adaptogens to use and how to easily incorporate them into your life
  • When to use herbs to boost immunity and when not to
  • Benefits of Bone Broth and basic recipe
  • In this session we will make an infused vinegar

Session 10: Balancing Female Hormones

  • Top 6 herbs for balancing hormones
  • Herbal protocol for taking control of your hormones once and for all
  • Lifestyle recommendations
  • Where to buy reliable herbs
  • Making your own capsules

This is 25 hours of herbal instruction and hands-on learning opportunity!

Each session costs $35 when bought individually.

You receive a 20% discount if you purchase one of my grouped sessions:

  • Session 1-5 $140.00
  • Session 6-10 $140.00

Or if you are ready to jump in and take control of your family’s health, then sign up for the entire Family Herbalism Course for only $250.00! That’s a savings of $100

I have space for only 10 people in each class. This is a very interactive, hands-on herb class so be ready to learn tons and have fun doing it!

**Cost for supplies is extra. The list will be emailed to you upon confirmation of enrollment or you can pay a small fee and I will provide all the supplies necessary for each session.

 

2018 Edit; They now have a ten month herbal school — Huckleberry Mountain Botanicals School.

The Prepared Homestead: Start Your Own Poultry Processing Business

The Prepared Homestead is offering a workshop in starting your own poultry processing business.  The cost is $49 per person and will be held July 1st, 2017 and July 29th in Cocolalla, Idaho.

Who is this workshop for?

Those interested in learning how to humanely, cleanly and efficiently process poultry. And those who are looking for a small business opportunity.

We started out processing our own poultry and in an effort to help us pay for the equipment we started taking on a few other people’s birds. In no time at all, we were able to stay busy processing as many birds as we wanted within our model.

What will you learn?

How to humanely, cleanly and efficiently process poultry (hands on practicum)
How to run a poultry processing line
Learn all the costs involved with processing
Learn the rules and regulations of processing in Idaho
Marketing, pricing and keeping happy customers

Cost? $49 per person

When? Based on the majority interest we came up with two dates: July 1st and July 29th. The workshops begin at 10 AM.

Where? Cocolalla, at The Prepared Homestead. We will provide directions after you register.

Bring a sack lunch!

How do I sign up?

  1. Click on the link below to pay for a class seat.
  2. Comment in the facebook group: The Prepared Homestead – Workshops and Classes on the pinned post with your date. Please keep in mind that we need a minimum of 4 students and a maximum of 10 per class date. First come, first served.

Reserve Your Spot!

Source: The Prepared Homestead – Start Your Own Poultry Processing Business

Brushbeater: Data Books and What Should Be in Them

NC Scout over at the Brushbeater blog has yet another good article up, this one about the importance of data books.

Why Should I Take The Time To Bother With All This? Because, as with everything else, having a handy-dandy back pocket reference to whip out makes recalling critical info easy. If you’re of the mindset that everything as you know it will be the same when you’re shivering, exhausted and afraid, you’re absolutely wrong.

I had a soldier who stepped on a toe popper in Afghanistan. What’s a toe popper? A small IED placed to kill or maim a small group or lone bubba. We were absolutely spent- a 15 mile movement through the mountains, up and down, all night- and boom, he was down. You don’t think at that point, you default to your highest level of training. Time to treat and send up the 9-line…which was the easy part, because it was already laid out. I had not only memorized the 9-line MEDEVAC report on two previous deployments but had written many- and yet I defaulted to the notes. Because I couldn’t think at that point, with the training taking over and the data book filling in that gap.

For our common purpose, there’s a ton of data that could be included that goes far beyond simply what was listed previously (although that stuff is absolutely critical) such as infrastructure information…

Source: Back to Basics: Data Books and What Should Be in Them

Yakima County Volunteer Radio Operators Critical To Emergency Response

The Yakima Herald reports on the importance of amateur radio volunteers in the county.

There are parts of Yakima County — think White Pass and Chinook Pass — where cellphone service is spotty or non-existent. Ham radios have no such problems. They can operate through a system of relays with other operators or even bounce signals off the ionosphere to communicate with stations thousands of miles away.

In a major disaster, the radios would likely be one of the few ways to communicate with the outside world, as they can run on batteries or gas-powered generators.

The state’s Military Department, which oversees disaster response on the state level, notes that many agencies — including the state’s Emergency Operations Center — successfully used ARES teams for communications during last year’s Cascadia Rising earthquake and tsunami drill. State emergency officials recommended that local agencies should establish a “habitual relationship” with ARES teams — if they don’t have one already — to ensure coordination in an emergency.

In Yakima County, the team works with the Yakima Valley Office of Emergency Management to prepare for emergencies, and has a radio room at the county’s Emergency Operations Center in Union Gap.

Jeff Emmons, the county’s emergency management director, said the ARES group gives the county an alternate means of communicating during disasters.

Yakima’s two hospitals have amateur radio stations that can be used for emergency communication with authorities in disasters, Whitney said. And today’s radios are capable of linking computers together so they can share data in emergency situations if internet connections are not available.

 

Click here to read more.

 

There is also a related article by Yakima Herald staff over at govtech.com Radio Volunteers a Key Component of Public Safety

Federal Bill Introduced Against Cash and Cryptocurrencies

Senate bill 1241 was introduced last month entitled “Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Counterfeiting Act of 2017.” Simon Black of Sovereignman.com writes a summary.

Recently a new bill was introduced on the floor of the US Senate entitled, pleasantly,

“Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Counterfeiting Act of 2017.”

You can probably already guess its contents.

Cash is evil.

Bitcoin is evil.

Now they’ve gone so far to include prepaid mobile phones, retail gift vouchers, or even electronic coupons. Evil, evil, and evil.

These people are certifiably insane.

Among the bill’s sweeping provisions, the government aims to greatly extend its authority to seize your assets through “Civil Asset Forfeiture”.

Civil Asset Forfeiture rules allow the government to take whatever they want from you, without a trial or any due process.

This new bill adds a laundry list of offenses for which they can legally seize your assets… all of which pertain to money laundering and other financial crimes.

Here’s the thing, though: they’ve also vastly expanded on the definition of such ‘financial crimes’, including failure to fill out a form if you happen to be transporting more than $10,000 worth of ‘monetary instruments’.

Have too much cash? You’d better tell the government.

If not, they’re authorizing themselves in this bill to seize not just the money you didn’t report, but ALL of your assets and bank accounts.

They even go so far as to specifically name “safety deposit boxes” among the various assets that they can seize if you don’t fill out the form…

Click here to continue reading at sovereignman.com

Political Violence is a Game the Right Can’t Win

David Hines at Jacobite writes on how the Right fails to organize, and how it refuses to recognize lessons from the Left.

If there’s one thing righties believe, it’s that they could beat lefties in a fight.

You see this attitude reflected over and over again, to the point that it’s probably something engrained in the right-wing psyche. Pajama Boy vs. tactical deathbeast? Pffft. No contest. Look, righties have the guns, righties have police and they have the military. If one day the balloon ever goes up, righties will just organize behind a leadership of their veterans, coordinate with the active service, give all the lefties free helicopter rides, and live happily ever after. Right?

That’s pretty much what the Confederacy thought about the Yankees, and it didn’t exactly work out well for them.

From the perspective of a mainstream righty who’s a right-to-keep-and-bear-arms guy, this dismissive attitude is remarkably familiar. It’s the same attitude of somebody who buys a gun “just in case” but never goes to the range, which is a great way to discover when somebody kicks your door in at three a.m. that you don’t know the difference between the magazine release and the safety. Organization requires time, communication, networking, and above all practice, and vanishingly few right-wingers are interested in doing the necessary work…

Continue reading at JacobiteMag.com

Brushbeater: Quantity vs. Quality: Putting the Handheld Radio in Context

From NC Scout over at Brushbeater comes another excellent communications post.

During the Communications presentation at the PatCon I focused primarily upon the common radio equipment among preppers and survivalists- CB radio because of its inherent commonality (and overcoming potential weaknesses) and the Baofeng UV-5R because it’s cheap and everyone owns them ‘BY THE CASE!’ as one gentleman in attendance pointed out. While that’s all good and well to have plenty of units in the field, and there’s a lot that can be done with them for those thinking outside the box, the ubiquitous  chicom handheld is FAR from ideal for any use other than an inexpensive testbed for antennas or running alternative modes going beyond just pressing a button and talking. The prevailing issue is that people want to do what is not easy to accomplish alone without knowledge of limitations- compounded in part by equipment and a larger part by knowledge.

There exists a strong differentiation which must be made; Survivalist or Retreat Communications is a different animal from Tactical Communications...

Continue reading the article at Brushbeater.com by clicking here.

Florida Sheriff Declares “THIS IS WAR!” Tells Americans To Arm Up

Thanks to SHTFplan.com for bringing this to our attention.

Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey … urged citizens to arm themselves in self-defense saying “this is war.”

He doesn’t mean war in the sense that nukes will be flying, but the war against mass homicides and sociopaths who only seek the destruction of human life.   “What’s next is to fully understand that this is war, and you better be prepared to wage war to protect you, your family, and those around you if attacked,” he said. Ivey stressed that attackers rely on people running, hiding, and waiting for help, rather than fighting back.  And they will use guns, knives, bombs, and even trucks to kill innocents. “What they don’t count on is being attacked themselves, having to become defensive to save their own lives,” Ivey argued.

Click here to continue reading at SHTFplan.com.

CSG Groundrod I & II, July 6-9, 2017 in Prosser, WA

Combat Studies Group will bring their Groundrod Primer/I and Groundrod II classes to Prosser, WA in July.  Groundrod I (Primer) will be held July 6th and 7th. Groundrod II will be held on July 8th and 9th.

GroundRod Primer  –  Internet and digital tradecraft

 GroundRod Primer is designed to address the fundamental concerns of journalists, concerned citizens, activists, whistle blowers, missionaries and liberty lovers in general, with regard to digital security. Whether hackers, governments, criminals or acts of espionage; our privacy is in serious jeopardy.

You will learn to secure your devices and communications in the following ways:

Properly employ symmetric and asymmetric encryption
Create and safely store powerful passwords
Guard against common criminal and state level intrusion techniques
Recognize unsafe software you are using now and explore safe replacements
Surf the web anonymously
Explore the deep web
Transfer files safely
Communicate securely and privately
Understand and deal with malicious firmware

GroundRod Primer is meant to take the uncertainty and guesswork out of digital security, give you a fundamental base of knowledge to grow from and get you up and running with the highest levels of security available TODAY.

Follow on courses will delve deeper into these subjects and address escape and evasion techniques and other tradecraft.
​
Gear Requirments

* Laptop
* Three USB thumbdrives (4-8 GB)
* Note taking materials
* extension cord

Cost
$ 350

GroundRod 2  covers the following:

– Review of GroundRod Primer skills

– Discussion of current events as they relate to privacy, security and liberty

– In depth study of the Invisible Internet Project / I2P

– Setting up anonymous mail service via I2P

– Exploration of Zeronet and other distributed networking systems

– Setting up and using Retroshare with extra anonymity

– The latest in encryption techniques, including ECC

– Setting up open source router firmware

– Metadata analysis

– Testing secure alternatives to Skype and other mainstream teleconferencing software

– The latest in crypto-currency trends, techniques and software

– Real-world tradecraft application

– Setting up resilient, “Ministry of Truth” proof websites

– Hands on training for SEPIO laptop owners

– and tons more………

You can find a review of Groundrod I (Primer) on Forward Observer through this link.

If this course is centered on two things, it’s problems and solutions.  In a more technical sense:  vulnerabilities and countermeasures.  What is an adversary’s “attack surface”and how do we harden ourselves against that attack?  Utilizing electronic means to communicate — whether that’s via the internet, a cellular network, or radio signals — opens us up to electronic surveillance (at a minimum) and possibly direct targeting to exploit our communications.  As was discussed in the class, Gen. Michael Hayden (Ret.), who was the director at both CIA and NSA, famously quipped, “We [the US] kill people based on metadata.”  Your cell phone number, its IMEI number, call times and duration (what’s referred to as “exposure”), and geolocation of those calls are all examples of metadata.  Furthermore, your email address, IP address, and MAC address are metadata easily found via the internet.  This metadata is associated to the caller or emailer, which is another data point in your pattern of life.  With sufficient data points, analysts like myself  can map out your pattern of life and begin to anticipate future activity.  That’s a vulnerability, and it’s one that deserves a hard look.

To register for the classes, go to the Combat Studies Group website and then the Store page and scroll down to Class Deposit with the Buy Now button. You will need to then email them after making the $100 deposit to specify the class date and location for which you are registering.