Davy Crockett asked, in a comment, about the applications of cyber-space to resistance movements. Rather than respond in comment form, I decided to respond here.
Davy,
I think there are some valuable insights in your response.
As far as the cyber-space applications, it's important to remember that, at heart, I'm nothing more than a knuckle-dragging gunslinger. However, I would argue that on one level, the blogosphere is an obvious application of the cyber-space paradigm to the initial phases of any future potential resistance. The communications/liaison possibilities represented by this mode of communications should be obvious. In the end however, when/if more active resistance becomes necessary, I think it will get to the point where we will all need to employ more active countermeasures such as open-source encryption, proxy servers, and other cyber-security measures such as the expanding interest in darknets, etc.
On a more direct level, regardless of one's opinions on the different resistance movements arising and functioning internationally right now, I think we've seen ample evidence of how it works, between the applications by the Arab Spring/Sharia Summer activists in the Middle East, Anonymous, and hell, even A/Q. I know Arctic Patriot has expressed some interest in seeing how the use of R/C aircraft and some of the currently available microprocessors can be leveraged into the creation of open-source, free-market UAV/UAS.
As far as further applications? I'll have to revert to my knuckle-dragger status and leave the conversation to the more tech-savvy amongst the readership.
On a completely unrelated couple of notes, I started posting information on this blog on 6JAN12. That was 31 days ago (for the mathematically-challenged). In that time, this blog has received just over 42,000 visits, while the articles have elicited 225 comments, as of now (although that number includes my comments in response to other comments).
I started this blog, largely because of the great deal of sometimes flat wrong information I saw put out in both articles, forums, and books. Obviously (to me at least) others have recognized that need as well. Even I'm not so arrogant as to believe there have been three or four guys running around to the blog, clicking on it 10,000 times each.
I was asked, via email, if I was planning on putting out an archival CD/DVD. Short answer is no. I'm not enough of a fan of tech to do so. I have however, considered cleaning up the editing far more thoroughly than my blog articles have received, and placing them in book form. I haven't figured out the details, but since my thoughts have revolved around waiting for the 100 post landmark, I've got a little while to figure it out.
In addition to the doctrinal/philosophical considerations present in many articles, it would focus also on actual training programs, for both individual and collective task skills. Any interest from the readership?
In closing, I want to thank everyone who's read this blog, and especially those who have spread the word of its existance, for the time you have each invested in it. You have my appreciation.
Nous Defions!
John Mosby
Somewhere in the mountains
I'd be glad to purchase/read your book. It would be great to have this info in a non-electronic format.
ReplyDeleteAnd the inclusion of individual and group drills would be excellent.
Keep up the great work.
Rest assured I'll be printing out hard copies of everything to date and subsequently,
ReplyDeletefor reference use.
BTW, I'm sure I'm 42 steps ahead of where you've gotten to, but consider as fodder
for a future date:
Premise: All successful revolutions - save one - proceeded, in the immediate political
consolidation phase, if not earlier, to eliminate the guerrilla mainforce at the earliest
opportunity.
So how, praytell, might a notional modern movement set about ensuring they don't
end up in a gulag when they "meet the new boss, the same as the old boss"...?
Just curious about your take on that.
Meanwhile, keep banging out the keystrokes. Your stuff is a post-doctoral level
goldmine in actual preparedness, beyond the "Doomsday Prepper/Mutant Zombie
Biker Hunter" wet dreams of 37 year old mall ninjas living in their mom's basement.
So if you keep this up, the average IQ on the 'net may start to keep pace with the
increase in worldwide readership, if not actually be driven upward.
Semper Fi,
Aesop
In addition to encrypted communications and anonymizing, there is a rising sector of financial cryptography taking off presently.
ReplyDeleteFinancial support to the edge of the spear can be funneled anonymously via the Internet IF there is enough uptake / understanding.
This is tax evasion and laundering on an Internet scale.
Imagine helmet-cam videos hosted on a Darknet, receiving payment for "services rendered."
An article on how impotent lawfare is against this, at the moment.
I discovered your blog about 2 weeks ago and have read all your posts. The info you provide is a very welcome, professional breath of fresh air. I am a 52 year old father of two fine sons, never served in the military, a steelworker/welder by trade. I have no Rambo/Mad Max fantasies, but do like being prepared. I really liked your comments on the contributions of older persons with health issues. Keep it coming and thanks again. John in WV
ReplyDeleteIf your willing to teach, then you have some enthusiastic students. Thanks for the feed back. When your green you grow when your ripe you rot.
ReplyDeleteI'd also be glad to purchase whatever book you may write from your materials here. In fact, I'd pay you now (and if you knew what a cheap bastard I am you would realize what a compliment that is). I'll make some room on my bookshelf next to my old issues of "The Resister".
ReplyDeleteI think that you should address the role of guerrilla operations within the wider subject of revolutionary warfare. Some of your readers appear to be confusing the two concepts. For example, while the American Revolution may have started with guerrilla operations on the side of insurgents, in order to win they had to beat the enemy in conventional battle.
Post Script:
ReplyDeleteHow can you be contacted by e-mail?
Q,
ReplyDeleteI did briefly discuss the differences between the paramilitary guerrilla force, the subversive underground, and auxiliaries in a couple of early articles. I'm not sure my use of doctrinal terminology and divisions really sank in with some folks. Not their fault, mine. It's my job as the "teacher" (for lack of a better term) to ensure I am passing on information in a manner that can be understood and built upon. I've been thinking about a way to clarify it more.
I find it interesting that you mention the Resistor (for those that don't know, it was an underground newsletter put out by SF soldiers at Ft Bragg in the 1990s) since I actually discussed that with another former SF soldier via email about this blog recently. He mentioned that to the best of his knowledge, the editors/authors of the newsletter had never been compromised, and he initially thought, upon seeing this blog, that I may have been one of them, and this a rebirth of the Resistor. Alas, not the case. although I do remember the furor. How many issues of it do you have? Interested in turning them into pdf for a fella?
Email is linked on the blog here, but to make it easier, try this one: nousdefionsranger@hushmail.com
ND,
JM
I think it will get to the point where we will all need to employ more active countermeasures such as open-source encryption, proxy servers, and other cyber-security measures such as the expanding interest in darknets, etc.
ReplyDeleteBesides just endpoint to endpoint crypto, there are other interesting developments within the technological sphere.
An interesting article on the impotence of lawfare vs this new threat.
The possibilities of "dark" economies are waiting to be tapped by the next evolution of guerrilla units - financial help can be anonymous, broad-based, and direct to the pointy end of the stick.
Building this economy is also a way towards resilience - removing your consent from the current system and "going dark" with your side business could be immensely profitable.
JM - thought I posted something like this yesterday... Dunno if it was a technical failure or a policy violation so I'm reposting. Apologies if it was the latter.
I think it will get to the point where we will all need to employ more active countermeasures such as open-source encryption, proxy servers, and other cyber-security measures such as the expanding interest in darknets, etc.
ReplyDeleteBesides just endpoint to endpoint crypto, there are other interesting developments within the technological sphere.
An interesting article on the impotence of lawfare vs this new threat.
The possibilities of "dark" economies are waiting to be tapped by the next evolution of guerrilla units - financial help can be anonymous, broad-based, and direct to the pointy end of the stick.
Building this economy is also a way towards resilience - removing your consent from the current system and "going dark" with your side business could be immensely profitable.
JM - blogger appears to be eating comments from Tor...
LastBox
JM,
ReplyDeleteI'm having trouble reading the non-plain text areas of the blog. It took me two days to find the "reply" buttons in the bars below your posts. I may have to get my other computer hooked up but I won't be able to do that for a couple of days.
Q
I'm thinking that a YouTube channel might be in order if you're up for it - maybe even just to supplement the written material. It's one thing to read the info, but to see it put into action is another. Here I'm referring mainly to the drills you've written about recently. There's a ton of garbage info put out on YouTube, so it would be good to see a real QP set folks straight.
ReplyDeleteRegarding cyber space stuff, I'll make a couple observations because I make a living off the internet. Whatever you do on the 'net, whether it's Google searches, purchasing books on Amazon, etc. you need to realize that you're being tracked in everything you do. Corporations are doing it so they can profit off you and governments are doing it so they can spot current/future terrorists. So if you leave a cyber-trail of purchasing survival books on Amazon, Googling subjects like making things that go boom, and you're loading maps of high-value geolocations, some analyst somewhere is going to become interested in you.
ReplyDeleteGoogle the term honeypot and consider whether you're being sucked into one. Both reading and posting on this blog will potentially get you on some electronic list. There is a wealth of information on the 'net and I access it every day - I just try to do it in a way that defeats pattern recognition.
Am I understanding you right Sparty? Your implication is that I'm a plant? Cool. Thanks. You may have noted, if you've read this, that at NO time, have I ever suggested anything illegal. Nor, have I suggested armed insurrection against the legally constituted government of the United States. In fact, if I remember correctly (and I may very well not, I edit my articles a lot before I post them, even if I still manage to slip quite a few typos in), I believe I suggested that, as long as we still arguably have the ballot box option, we should continue to use it, no matter how seemingly useless and endeavor it is. Until "they" come for me, or my friends, I'm not going hunting. After that? Yeah, I'll probably go apeshit, since I KNOW I've committed no wrongs.
ReplyDeleteIf I misunderstood your intent, I offer you my sincere apologies. As far as me personally posting this blog...as a friend pointed out to me some time ago....if there is a "list," I've been on it for a long time. "They" can come looking for me any time they want. I just hope they recognize, I take that whole "De Oppresso Liber" motto seriously.
Nous Defions!
JM
MG, you took my post all wrong. I'm not saying you're plant or that you're operating a honeypot. I'm saying that anything anyone does on the internet travels in bits and bytes over different network paths. So whether someone is reading your blog or ordering something on Amazon, those activities can be tracked by third parties like your ISP, Google, governments, etc. I once worked on an email gateway and a very big country's government would not let us install it unless we built in a 'tap' they could use to electronically follow any particular user's email activity. Some folks just don't understand how easily lots of their internet activity can be tracked and analized - I'm just trying to get them to realize that.
ReplyDeleteI just re-read my first post and I can see why you mistook my comments; I should have worded the last paragraph so my meaning was more clear.
ReplyDeleteBTW, we're on the same side. 35.050054,-79.48578 was one of my favorites, especially since it was the last one, IIRC :)
Sir,
ReplyDeleteI would be interested in a book, as well as youtube videos showing training, and barring that, what about a training DVD to accompany the book?
I've went back and read all your posts to the beginning, then printed them off, and am now implementing several pieces of your advice into my training.
A couple questions if you don't mind. Are you going to delve deeper into the medium-long range marksmanship training for improving shooting out to 600 yards as you have just done with the close quarters? And if so, will you discuss optics as well?
I've been holding off on buying an optic for my AR-15 till I heard your thoughts on the matter.
I appreciate you taking your time with this blog, it's part of my daily reading, and I am certainly benefiting from it. Thank you very much.
HP
I would purchase that book.
ReplyDeleteI am unlikely, for various reasons, to be a part of the active mountain resistance. I am much more likely to be a part of the support squand, and provider of medical care. Question: what sort of technology does the OpFor use to discover hidden caches, and what could be done to circumvent same?
JM,
ReplyDeleteDid you ever get the PDF versions of The Resistor? I know I have one in hard copy,
I could use the others in file format, though...
Please let me know.