Posted on 05/06/2016 1:17:34 PM PDT by TMSuchman
Greetings All;
Here is another thought provoking discussion on keeping yourself & your family & friends safe when your world turns upside down & inside out.
It was posted on this ping-list about civil unrest/riot/s, and what would you do, if caught in such a situation/s.
Well for starters for me, I do NOT plan to be caught in such a situation. I avoid the areas where such could occur at anytime. If for some reason, that I would happen be caught in such, I would become a "grey-man" & disappear. Head on a swivel, cell phone turned off, move laterally to the disturbance/s till I was blocks away from the area in trouble. Then start moving towards my safe area/s or bug out routes [that I have checked out in advance] I would not transmit any data until well clear of the trouble [this means NO phone calls to let family & friends know I was safe, till I was was totally safe] Then my comm would be via a net work that I trusted or encrypted voice [ie coded cb,ham radio, ect], then go dark till I either got home or to my secure location. At NO time would I pull a weapon/s unless there was NO choice left. I would try to out think my problem/s than use of lethal force. [that would only draw, very unwelcome attn, from everyone. Remember the object is to blend in & disappear before everyone's eyes. And pulling a weapon puts you right into the cross hairs, esp of law enforcement who are already on edge as it is. So use every means at your disposal to escape & evade & DE-esclate your surroundings.
You mention getting home...which is my plan ... shelter in place.
I realized I would need a great deal to get there...across a river to a barrier Island. Causeways will be closed!
I call it my GO-BACK BAG and it is stowed under the top level of trunk in car. Inflatable, paddle, flippers, life jacket, clothing, water and snacks...on and on and matching jacket for the dog too.
I thought I was prepared and then one day it hit me...GET BACK??
I call mine a return home kit/s. I take them with me when ever I go over 5 miles away from home. I figure it will take me longer than a day to travel over 5 miles to get home. So I have just about everything I would need [including a portable shelter [read as a tarp] & several hundred feet of 550 cord, amongst a bunch of other items including meds for a week or more.
You might want to look towards something like a “Rhodes-car” a 4 wheel “bike”
Most of your LEO don’t have access to the google-borne systems. They still rely on the carrier’s data. I can send you a few screenshots if you private message me.
And a 300 foot radius would be fantastic in my world. You can get that on the newer cell, in the newer cell markets and hopefully even with small cell. But about 99% of the junk out in the woods in the US will get you a 3KM RADIUS. Yes, kilometer RADIUS.
And use Verizon, believe it or not. Verizon is the current “We’ll do anything the government asks of us ... ANYTHING” carrier (They won that from AT&T who won it from Sprint) and their geo tracking based on the network (radios to backhaul) is the worst. Seriously, devices aren’t even in the area that they say they are.
My company solved the issue, but speaking directly to engineers at Verizon they have not. It’s a secret I keep very close to me.
Use iPhones too. They are terrible for results.
But building a functional, non-traceable phone isn’t that hard for smart folk to do. I use my system in fugitive recovery and those 40 IQ clowns manage to build some pretty decent handheld rigs for their craft.
Nothing is secure and perfect, but I’m here to tell you that the same is true on the other side. Geolocating phones is really tough to do.
This is where these ideas are best practice:
1. Get your family to trust you and have confidence in you. Hint: If you tell your wife that you’ll get home because you have a gun, she doesn’t believe you and thinks you’re a fool.
2. I carry FRS on me. The FRS doesn’t work forever, but it works when I get near the house. If we have a power failure, she’s trained to turn it on.
3. Chances are GPS location isn’t going to die immediately. Phrased simply : There is NO ONE PERSON at any company whos job it is to shut off consumer GPS. That means it will take the government days to get one of their guys in to do it ******* THIS IS THE BEST ADVICE I CAN GIVE YOU ***********
So I have shown my wife how to use my google location service. She logs into the computer with my password, types “where is my phone” into google and it tells her where I am. So if there is still power, cellular or whatnot (This works from the cell phone too) she can see where I am.
Lastly, I remember a day before cell phones when you would leave the house and people wouldn’t squirt blood from their eyes if they didn’t hear from you in exactly 30 minutes. Get your family back to this day and age. By building their confidence in your abilities to have a level head, avoid all people and walk back you’re doing them a great, big fat favor.
The BEST thing to do (in my opinion atleast) is what I do.
Before I leave the house, I tell family where I’m going, but also tell them that “should ANYTHING happen, and I mean anything do NOT come looking for me, I will call as soon as I can, IF the cells go down, I’ll try to find a land line, but know if at all possible I will get back here, might take me awhile, but I’ll get back if I can. Do NOT come looking for me”
ALL PHONES are required to do this operation. back in about 2001 the FCC made the switch from analogue to digital, and they pretty much required people to switch over. The analogues were a pain to trace. A trace was utterly worthless.
So if your phone works on a modern tower, ANY modern tower, then it’s fully traceable.
If your phone has a removable battery, then it has enough juice to run for a bit without it. If the phone is sealed it is sealed BECAUSE of this law. The manufacturer gets no benefit from sealing a battery. It’s a compliance thing.
If you’re on the run, ditch the phone. It will do you NO good. It’s worthless. Unless you want to play angry birds or something while sitting in a bush. There is not a single app on a phone that has any value in “the dark”. Nothing good will come from having a phone. It is, however, a good distraction tool.
(Carry a phone charger, any charger. Most buses have outlets in the wall to run a wall charger. Plug it into the wall, and tape it under a seat. The bus will drive whoever would be looking for you CRAZY)
no phone is safe from any of these technologies. Not even jitterbugs. Nothing is safe. Oh, and your ODB3 car is the same story. While there is no database on your ODB3 car because of the used purchase market, your car does have a SIM chip in it (It doesn’t even really need OnStar. OnStar just takes full advantage of the sim chip)
If you want to be best off, get someone elses phone, or find a landline. You can still punch into the boxes outside of homes, buildings or in basements to make calls.
Get a deck of cards with maps printed on the back.
learn to create an antenna, get a baofeng cheapy. Learn it. Learning radiocraft enough to build a rig on the spot takes about a month of youtube watching.
And for the most part remember that all of these “Paranoia” steps are needless. The systems that we talk about - listening on calls, tracking, finding, triangulating, etc. These are all being done by complete idiots. Seriously, these technologies exist but only a handful of people in the world know how to actually use them. The operators at these centers are slack-jawed morons - products of today’s education system.
They have no problem saying “it can’t be done, sorry” then actually trying something. Keep that in mind and use it to your advantage. There simply isn’t enough intelligence out there to catch you.
I tell this to people who think that police or someone will come by and scan their yards for buried guns. We can’t find people to do that in -—Afghanistan-— don’t worry about your yard. If they come after you, they don’t need whats in your yard.
Finally, if you’re in town I have an old saying “The best place to hide is on the roof of the police department.”
Seriously folks, we’re surrounded by zombies. The lowest common denominator. Don’t worry about going toe-to-toe with intelligent people.
Bushwookie !
The only problem I have with this tactic right here is that whoever is in this picture (not sure if it’s you so don’t take offense) doesn’t understand that what you see here is the base of a gilly suit.
This thing should be covered with leaves, sticks, mud.. you name it. What you take out of the bag is only a sticky mess of thread for you to stick stuff into it - thus the real Gilly.
But everyone should have one of these. These are more important for post SHTF roaming than a gun. Underneath it your normal clothes. Gilly to get to and from town. Stick to the woods, don’t let anyone see you. Stash it before you get to town.
Gillys are, of course, good for stationary tactics. But a gilly will get you to and through a town a LOT better than any vehicle will.
Two options:
Get a cheap bike with a good bag. The bike is going to get stolen. Don’t think twice about abandoning your bike. No one needs to die because they hesitated because of a damned bicycle.
Or get a really good bike. Beat it up and paint it to look like garbage. Then apply the first rule up there. You’ve got to have something that is worthless.
If you have a bike, you’re a target to someone who has no bike. If you have a bag, you’re a target to someone who has no bag. Ergo, you need to move stealthy and keep it away from people.
You may have trails where your bike is useful, but you’re moving so fast that you’re missing the guy up in the tree in the gilly suit who is ready to put an arrow in your head over a damned bike. Slow travel is important for this. You need to be fully aware of stuff around you.
And keeping to roads, regardless of how quiet that road is is also futile. The only way a bike is useful for this sort of thing is under the cover of complete darkness. And you better where pads and a helmet because I’m talking DARK.
This looks real good.
My commutes are very challenging, I spoke about them on my youtube channel (I shut it down because it was affecting business).
My commute from PA to CT was full of strange challenges.. mostly legal. But a large state forest and national park were between my house and work. So my car, even today, has a 72 hour bag in the trunk.
Way, way over kill. But it’s what is needed. I can tell you this though - I’m not sure if your water way is important (I’m thinking Galveston is important) but there are laser scanners that skim the tops of water in places like Galveston. Boats aren’t that good of an idea in places like that.
If you send me a private message with that location, I can offer a more targeted analysis.
There are always ways of getting over water.
I concur with this. normally I wouldn’t bother you with such a worthless ping - but I’ve taken a shine to this thread tonight.
In an emergency, everyone has their job to do. People have got to let you do yours WHILE they do theirs.
If an emergency happens, my wife shouldn’t spend time “Searching for me” (And lets face it.. unless I married a Navajo traditionalist she isn’t going to find me) She should be preparing water, blankets, and whatever vehicle is there for bug-out.
And that has to happen before night fall so dusk gets a little sketchy for her when she doesn’t hear from me.
I’ve had a ton of fun with this thread tonight !
I’d like to weigh in with some of my general tidbits of practiced stuff.
My “get home” bag is very small, and hides under a jacket (I use the Chinese made Walmart molle sling bag)
I don’t carry a rifle in the car. The grey man doesn’t carry a rifle unless it folds down so small that it goes into a completely non-descript bag. AR15s won’t work without some fancy stitching (Did you know that backpacks and gear bags available on the market (not those marked for carrying such) are not ALLOWED to have a pocket large enough to carry an AR upper ? Unless you get a bag specifically stitched for it, anything at Walmart or sears won’t fit it. By law.)
The best pistol for SHTF is the FN Five-seven, or the Keltec PMr30 if you can’t afford the FN. These are good not because of any particular trait, but the ammo and barrel dynamics are “basically the only rifle that fits in your hand”. Highly accurate. Lightweight ammo. Good for small game and decent for self defense.
I carry neither of those so I’m not just being a shill here. I wish I had my FN back, and I wish I could find a PMR30 that I could buy without feeling like a rube.
knives start at $300. If you have a knife that cost you $60 it’s a knife in name only. Since getting real about my knives (fixed blade) I will never, ever go back to anything else. I carry folders, but they are not “save my life” grade.
Do you have a tin with fishing line and a snare rolled up in it ? Add some oiled cotton to that and you have the most comprehensive survival pack you could ever ask for. That and a knife. Get the knife, dammit.
My bug out includes 2 MREs, energy bars (For sleep, believe it or not. If you can’t sleep within an hour of bivvying down, eat a protein bar.) a scope (Or binoculars.. they dont’ have to be much. I have a $20 mono-scope that I bought at a tag sale. Japanese made.) two mags, a decent first aid (real cyanoacrylate, a bandage and lots of cleaning stuff, with a stitch kit) and there is room for 3 mags and my AR taken down (I did the custom stitching to fit it) and a shock blanket.
My bag looks like nothing.
I level up to my car bag where I have some more stuff, then to my duffel which is just full of crap. But I keep it full of crap because I can grab the entire 20 day kit and run off to the woods where I can reduce the load for whatever situation I may need. My duffel is ridiculous.
I also keep extra room in the bag.. lots of extra room. It’s mostly empty. I keep it that way for stuff that I may find along my route. Like a rabbit or something like that.
I found out recently that I’m hypoglycemic now. That was a treat. So now I have to prepare myself to do so much more. Killing two snakes instead of one, carrying a thermos with cooked food in it at all times, moving slower. I tell ya, I’m not happy about this new turn about.
Anyway, I look forward to continuing this - I just wanted to plop this down here to give my two cents. Not many topics make my tail wag like prepping.
no bikes after sundown :)
“There is NO ONE PERSON at any company whos job it is to shut off consumer GPS. “
Actually, there is. I used to do command and control for GPS/Navstar. The USAF can turn it off within minutes. Given the command, about 3 minutes. I don’t know where you got your information, but mine comes directly from experience working with GPS.
OH and I forgot my most important “bug out bag”.
Since having my baby daughter my ideas on “bug out” have changed. I’m simply not built, and my wife isn’t built, to grab a 2 week old baby and walk into a northeast snow storm. Not gonna happen. When the baby came, I tried my hardest to design a plan of attack. But a few issues came up:
1. Under times of stress, breastfeeding can shut down.
2. Babies can’t eat MREs nor are they gonna eat a squirrel. The modern baby isn’t setup like that anymore.
There is a LOT of gear to make your baby comfortable, and that is of the highest concern to me.
I don’t pack for a “bug out”, really. Because until a child is a certain age you’re better at a bug-in or some other strategy .. other than “We’re hittin the woods in a snow storm”. But what I DO plan for are fires.
With a baby, getting out of the house with a “bug out bag” is next to impossible. What do you have in this bag ? This bag is so full of baby stuff that it would take two people to carry it. So I decided I was going to keep it in the Jeep (Cherokee).
Low and behold, the jeep trunk isn’t big enough for everything I have in mind. So I bought a Yukon.
The Yukon is full of stuff. water for a week, food for a week, the baby’s food non-perishable or at least stuff that I can keep for a week in the cooler. (The winter is the most crucial time for this sort of thing). So now if there is a fire all I need is to grab my pants and grab the baby and I’m out. Within 1 minute the truck is far enough from the house to remove danger, and within 5 minutes everyone is getting warm. 3 days, minimum, of stuff to live on before finding another domicile.
So my top level of bug out is an entire SUV that is mostly dedicated to the purpose.
Now the baby is older, so I don’t need all of that room and two heaters and AC outlets and things of that nature, so we’re back at the Jeep. But the best bug-out plan is one that you don’t have to think about. It’s a plan that just “happens”.
You can say that, but they always think they can help and go out looking. ALWAYS communicate if at all possible. It is far better to plan various means of communication than to plan not to communicate.
Mine comes from AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, et al.
Not “mil-spec” by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t think there is any MILSOP that calls for an immediate shut-down of GPS even in an instance where they don’t want civvies to have access to it.
Because there are still contractors and responders who use civilian GPS that need to get their shit together when the lights go out. I don’t think there is any plan to “shut it down, shut it down now”.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
“Mine comes from AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, et al.”
Your, what? GPS? GPS doesn’t come from cell carriers. ONLY the USAF provides GPS signals from satellites. Cell carriers have nothing to do with it.
” I don’t think there is any plan to “shut it down, shut it down now”.”
Don’t believe everything you think, you’re not that informed. Yes, there is a protocol for turning off GPS.
Travel at night is the only way to go, if you’re in danger. An open fire that is good for night profile isn’t easy to make quickly. And a small fire won’t keep your stationary body warm enough.
Take advantage of this time to spend time working and moving - producing your own heat. The daytime is a good time to spend sedentary.
Building a quality, hidden fire like an Arkansas stove, or a buried breather takes time that you may not have.
A larger fire at night is only where I go to warm up for a few minutes anyway. Other than that, I’m up the ways a little bit on my stomach in my shock blanket waiting for something to come to my camp and tent to raid it.
Your mileage may vary. I live in an area with some good rivers and streams. I’m trying to design and build a survivalist Kayak this year. I never thought of it until my wife turned me onto the idea.
If Cell carriers are using GPS to track you (As the conversation I replied to) then they aggregate that GPS data. I’m aware of how GPS works.
There is a protocol for turning off GPS but it wasn’t instantaneous when I was in the field.
If it is now, it seems kinda stupid. Not all key resources have access to the milGPS.
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