Cyber Warfare : if power grid down, personal information stolen, bank accounts hacked, internet down, etc.
"It has been reported that over 100 million Americans’ personal data has (already) been compromised"
How do you prepare / alternatives ?
Cash reserves, Life Lock, credit monitoring, food and water storage, medical billing theft, credit card callback verification ?
Identity theft and EMP preparedness are 2 separate concerns.
Everyone should have paper copies of important documents. Make copies of bank, stock, IRA info, etc.
Would need paper documents to prove accounts, etc.
I also have LifeLock—maybe that is a luxury...
Identity theft would be least of worries in an EMP or grid hack, tho a factor.
NO idea how would deal with billing in a catastrophic event...Would bill collectors find us LOL Eh who knows probably could.
Excellent post! Yes, I need to get off my ass and get Life Lock or something similar...anyone have any suggestions? Recommendations?
I believe that my solar bank will still work if the grid goes down by cyber attack...in fact, I am sure of it.
If you are really concerned abut medical records info security and privacy, you need to find an independent provider that uses paper charts (or electronic records that do not connect to the internet), self pay, preferably with cash if possible. If you have a conventional health insurance plan or have government insurance, your records are exposed potentially to thousands of insurance companies and government agencies even before any hacking has taken place. With the world becoming darker and crazier, can you trust these people? If you receive a controlled substance (opioids, sedatives etc.)your name and address will be on a state database and in the majority of those states, your information will be available to law enforcement WITHOUT a subpoena. Can you trust these people?
You have to believe that there are more than a few bureaucratic thugs at state and federal agencies busy cross referencing things like concealed carry lists with visits to psychiatric clinics and controlled substances databases.
Cash will be king and precious metals will be the emperor.
Life now is good for most folks, in a crash it will not be so good but many of the things we enjoy can be preserved. Roof top solar can provide electricity even if you have no money to pay an electric bill. Cellular technology will not likely go anywhere but prepaid plans will become the norm.
Food purchases could be problematic, just look at Venezuela.
You should have storage at home. Food will be available but it may be available only sporadically. If you don't have means to keep refrigerated food your options could become unattractive. Get a deep freeze and a means to keep it going for at least a couple hours a day.
Have a means to protect what you have and hide what you have from others, family will be the most important associations you will have.
The value of cash will fluctuate, likely in the wrong direction as the government prints more and more of it, it will be nearly worthless. Keep a good portion of your cash in pre-1964 coin, quarters, dimes and half dollars. They will always have value. While gold has a lot of value is worth violence to get, people will kill for it if they know you have it, be careful. Ammo will be a good barter tool and likely as good as money. If you have an opportunity to get ammo for a good price it doesn't matter that you don't have a gun that will shoot it. If ammo is scarce then guns will be cheap.
Organize your family to help hold what you have, be a survivor.
Enough cash to pay for essentials for at least a month. Also useful if there’s a disaster and you need to run, and the credit systems are down. We’ve been in ice storms where all the antennas for credit/debit card verification were down, but I could still buy milk, diapers and wipes with a $20.
At least one other financial institution like a credit union from which you can pay bills, withdraw cash, even if the main one you work with is breached or frozen your account. We had to rely on this when Bank of America saw several online bill pays and transactions I did in one sit down session as suspicious and froze everything - not even fraud, but now locked out until they were happy we proved that it wasn’t.
Several weeks of food and water in case services are disrupted, whether hack attack or major snowstorm.
All of the account and financial information printed off in a secure place, so that you find yourself unable to access anything on a second computer in case the first is hit by malware or ransomware.
Check all accounts at least weekly for anything unusual, usually reconcile after every update for purchases/sales.
Don’t bother with Lifelock or credit monitoring, they take too long to find anything compared to my vigilance. I’ve reported suspicious stuff the day it was pending and had to wait for the bank to open to talk to someone to deal with it.
You’ve received a lot of great advice from other FReepers - I just want to add from my own experience of subsistence income & lifestyle after being downsized from a fantastic job nearly a decade ago. From my perspective, SHTF back then, tho I recognize it can certainly become worse.
1. Some have recommended precious metals. As an *investment* that may be fine, especially if you have extra income to set aside w/ no anticipation for need to liquidate for financial emergency needs. But if you actually try to buy from me w/ gold? I can’t make change for your gold piece, nor can I eat, shoot or pay my bills w/ it. So hope your neighbors w/ whom you are most likely to trade are of an equally wealthy situation, or you’re getting nowhere w/ your precious metals.
More to say, but must go get caught working for now...
To continue...
2. If computers or their network is down, good luck accessing those records you need to produce before you can continue w/ the transaction you are desperate to make during a crisis event.
Already off of your schedule & stuck dealing w/ strangers to fulfill your needs? Might wanna have a printout of your medical records to document your need to refill your prescription from an ...unusual source. Like your vet, say, or a neighbor who happens to be a medical professional. Because if your usual pharmacy/provider is out of stock, or their system is down, you’re screwed - and I can attest that it seems to pile on when you’re already stressed by unexpected & unwelcome conditions. Gold & silver are handy, but I find paper, as in cash and record hard copies, much more useful.
Bureaucrats are morons. Their system is set up to prevent deviation & your crisis does not exist in their world. If they cannot see you on their system, *you* do not exist. But a compassionate neighbor or trusted friend, operating out of the norm in a home environment, can be swayed.
3. Lifelock & credit/banking fraud protection “services”? I have no experience w/ the former, but the latter has been awful. I learned to w/draw my meager paycheck soon as possible every payday, tho this prevents the convenience of paying at the pump for gas.
Why?
Because when I left it banked to make purchases using my debit card, & would make a lot of stops as I worked my way home shopping sales... they would block my access until I answered the automated call (if I could hear it incoming) or reached a human freaking being to beg them to please let me have my own money, purty please. I was being held hostage on the damn phone before I could continue w/ the business of my day!
Then came the time when my (former) credit union disregarded not just one but two Nevermind-that-garnishment-request from a tax entity, & seized an entire paycheck & sent it away w/out even questioning me. The reaction? A shrug & not even an apology. Oh & charged a fee for the trouble of garnishing my acct w/ no apology for the bounced checks that ensued.
Yet accused me of fraud repeatedly thru the automated system & even threatened to w/hold a 401K distribution check for an additional week unless I explained it to their satisfaction. It was MY money in the first place, yet clearly, they were only protecting my money from me! If it’s resting in my pocket, there’s no hacker gonna get it. But I must first wrest it from the grasp of my financial institution.
A friend of mine made a bank deposit that evidently got credited to someone else’s acct, but resulted meanwhile in several bounced checks. Luckily he’d retained the deposit slip. Eventually the bank acknowledged their error but only after a looooonnnnnnnngggggggggg investigation handled by the headquarters branch many miles away did they repay his deposit & then credit each NSF fee that accumulated. The tedium of their “investigation” made it clear that it is designed to discourage rather than satisfy the customer who has been wronged.
The point I make here is that, even when you’re right - you’re not right to the powers that be until their stupid dadgum computers say you are. Maybe you feel comfortably well off & therefore insulated from such insults to your dignity & financial well-being.
For your sake, I hope you are correct in your assumption of financial security. But when the PTB are withholding your money or medical needs at gunpoint (or curserpoint, as the case may be), you my FRiend are screwed & you are already in crisis mode & don’t got no time for this sh!t. At least, this has proven so time & again in my situation. Impoverishment = helplessness until I learned to seize the reins by seizing my own cash & printing out my VA health records at the Release of Information office.
Please excuse the long rant. It’s just that I have had this discussion with my parents & get frustrated(for their sakes). I have reached a workable solution & am comfortable & content. I have adjusted. I simply wish to help them avoid the hassle of their earned money (ostensibly housed safely in the bank) suddenly poofing away *can you say Greece* or otherwise being withheld while an “investigation of a banking error” or “suspicion of fraud” wends its way thru the cogs of bureaucracy. You can only fully comprehend once it’s happened. Crippling yet avoidable.
4. Accumulation of water & food against a bad day/week/year is good & lots more than some folks bother with. But lack of *proper* storage or preparation of your supplies for storage can result in loss of property. Several FReepers have already mentioned fuel & energy needs. No need for me to.
However, grains & grain products like wheat, flour, cornmeal, pasta & rice come w/ their own supply of worm eggs & should spend (by my own reckoning) ~3 weeks in the freezer soon as they enter your home. Otherwise, you will proudly unseal that longtime food storage supply only to learn that it has already been consumed - but then again, it’s been replaced by protein-rich bugs & may be a welcome blessing during a SHTF situation so long as the sight of their dead, cooked bodies floating in your bowl doesn’t trigger the ole gag reflex. ;o)
As w/ the convenience of already having your paperwork/cash on hand when a crisis hits, I recommend that along w/ staples for making food, you should also have ready-to-eat, directly-consumable food for when you’re already juggling problems & don’t have time to prepare meals. You can eat (for instance) Vienna sausages/Spam & other canned meats, beef jerky & canned legumes straight out of the packaging. Are these sodium-rich foods of high quality or especially tasty when eaten cold out of the can? Well no, but they’re a quick source of both protein & some carbohydrates to fuel your body while you take a break from filling sandbags or running back & forth to the hospital to take care of a sick relative. Or whatever Mr. Murphy decides to drop into your lap.
OK. I think I’m done. Carry on w/ your day, LOL.