Using something like Graphene OS or Lineage will result in less ad tech monitoring you, which may be useful in the event of sudden increased persecution (worse than what exists).
Keep your phone in airplane mode unless absolutely needed to avoid providing information about your routines that can be used maliciously by corrupt government forces. The government doesn’t need to know your route home, so go into airplane mode!
KryptKey is an excellent FOSS App and that allows cryptography in regular text messages. If a conservative coalition blocked VPNs, KryptKey provides ways to communicate using traditional methods if certain servers for encryption Apps are blocked.
A low tech way of letting people know you aren’t being held or killed is to update your voicemail with the date. For example. “Hi, it’s me SATL. Today is April 2nd as of this recording and all is well. I’m still a Windows user not spending all my time on a Linux addictuon! Leave a message after the beep.” A failure to update the message for an extended periods could indicate a problem. Because people can sometimes get arbitrarily banned on Facebook for no reason, relying on Facebook for this function is a bad idea.
Community Assistance Groups using SimpleXChat: create a group using SimpleXChat of other marginalized people and make certain agreements. In the event anyone is missing, the remaining group members will place at least 10 calls per day trying to find them, and if they know where they are they will continue to each spend at least 10 minutes per day trying to make contact. The reason for this is if you are locked up, you can only hope people are trying to find you, but a contract like this let’s you know in advance people will be looking for you, providing comfort. The rules of the groups could be modified as needed.
Go Bag: everyone needs a good go bag. When you really need to flee, your ability to this plan is going to be diminished because of stress. Stress result in flight or fight: logic skills go down and running speed goes up. That’s why you want your go to bag packed beforehand. You should know that when the emergency happens, you will always accidentally leave somethings behind. So a go to bag, in any easy to grab spot, helps and if it’s economically possible don’t take stuff in and out of the bag. It is very important to already have a different burner phone ready to go with a different IMEI, preferably with Graphene OS installed or Lineage. You must not connect to any accounts like Facebook with this phone. Instead, use SXC and invite your contacts to the burner phone before you leave or reach contacts using Signal, storing numbers in the Graphene phone using a notepad App. It maybe beneficial to get a non-Graphene phone with a removable battery so you can keep the battery out of your phone unless needed if you wish to be especially careful.
Plan to flee: if you plan to flee, having a go to bag isn’t that helpful without a way to eat and sleep. Consider a sleeping bag or tent, car, and cash. Consider bags of rice, noodles, and oatmeal to keep locked in a car as well as plastic bowls. These items can be edible with gas station water given a long enough wait for them to become less hard and dry
Know the route to take: if you notice someone following you and expect you are being sent to an oppressive prison, you may wish to flee to Mexico or Canada and then depart from there to another country to avoid inhumane treatment. Have an exit plan in advance and know which way you intend to go.
The biggest threat marginalized people may face is if VPNs and other remote encryption technology are banned. A result of this could mean Signal Servers are banned, SimpleXChat servers are unreachable, and there is no way to send secret messages. This is why it’s so important to download KryptKey now, not later.
Briar can work via Bluetooth even if cellular technology is down. It should be in every emergency phone.
Financial prudence: with prices going up and the economy being difficult, sometimes just surviving is a victory. But if you can, be careful to save, lower expenses, and be strategic with money so that you can be more ready for emergencies.
What can less marginalized folks do to help? Offering an coffee/sleepover area for any of your friends to stop by is a wonderful way to connect with your neighbor, like a modern day salon! You can get the games and crackers and snacks in advance and have pillows waiting for anyone who needs to stay the night, as well as some pre-selexted philosophical topics. “Do parallel universes exist? What is the best food and why? Do NPCs really exist? Why or why not?”
Please add suggests or criticisms.
On the note of “keeping your phone in airplane mode”:
No Bluetooth enabled devices is a good point too.
Those devices broadcast identifiable data whenever Bluetooth is enabled, and that data can be logged very easily. If an app has Bluetooth permissions it has the capability of logging that info. Or a simple device that logs nearby Bluetooth devices. About 2 years ago I placed a device in my apartment next to a road and within a week I had the habits of my neighbors logged with accurate timestamps. I took that device apart after that, it’s a macropad now.
So for the sake of privacy, no Bluetooth headphones, watches, etc near your “Go bag” phone when it has a battery in it. IMO avoid such devices in general.
Bluetooth devices is the main way stores track their shoppers if the shopper is not connected to the “free” WiFi.
Thanks for the effort post with great tips!
I would also really recommend having a physical community near you, not just online contacts.
I would even go so far as to say: join a progressive protestant church It’s not a silver bullet, but the fascists in the US are Christian Nationalists and some of them will hesitate to mistreat a Christian. And some of them will feel an obligation towards a Christian.
This is a big part of why Martin Luther King wasn’t killed earlier. The thugs in the 50s had no problem persecuting “godless heathens” in the McCarthy era, but black Christians were Christians.
And yes, they were also mistreated, but it would have been much worse if they had been atheist or communist.
Fascists divide the world very black and white. Us v. Them
Looking like them provides a survival advantage.
some of them will hesitate to mistreat a Christian
I don’t believe that. They don’t regard non-fundies as being Christians.
And how will they know if you’re a fundie or not?
What they’re doing is checking phones and social media. If they see you are a member of some antifa or BLM org, they’ll get you.
So don’t do those things via Facebook. Use meshtastic and hide your receiver.
But if you practice good OpSec and all they see is baseball, BBQ and church, then they won’t be able to tell the difference.
Meshtastic network is a communication system that doesn’t rely on mobile phones. Have a look at it, it’s simple, secure, cheap, and rapidly growing
Go outside. With a sign, maybe, but you may also find you have a sound-making enabled face-hole.
Voting also helps, if the chance is ever provided. That ship may have sailed, though, so you may find you need to go purchase a time machine type device instead.
Maybe it’s just getting grumpier in my old age, but I’m increasingly annoyed at all these posts going “here’s how to lock down your comms from all the people coming after you for all the protesting you’re not doing. Now hold tight while sitting at home, I’m sure the official summons to go do the revolution is incoming from the official revolution organizers any day now”.
I get the point but this post is more geared towards communities who could be targeted by ice and may/may not get a tip-off ice is in the area
The post is also geared towards a future in which trans people are rounded up for required mental health assesments, and since definitions of mental health disorders are so arbitrary and often have psuedoscientific reasons for their criteria, that would be scary for trans people.
Protesting is great, but the religious idiots outnumber the nonreligious idiots. I’m not sure signs and yelling will deprogram cult members.
I’m increasingly annoyed at all these posts going "here’s how to lock down your comms from all the people coming after you for all the protesting you’re not doing.
People aren’t going to be coming after LGBTQ+ people “for the protesting” they are or are not doing.
They’ll be coming for them because they’re queer.
If you’ve even been paying a little bit of attention the magats have made it clear the two main minorities in their sights for the first round are immigrants and trans ppl.
They’ve already sent a US citizen to an El Salvadorian camp and shrugged and said sorry, can’t reverse that now.
If you think the rest of the queer minority are not in their sights you’re kidding yourself (and us)
Check your privilege.
No, I am absolutely sure they’re coming after queer people and other minorities.
I’m questioning what infosec will do to prevent that. I’m questioning where political action from both directly affected people and supposed allies is. I’m questioning where all this was during the campaign and the election. I’m questioning why people are choosing to express fear and anger online and share progrom tips in social media instead of organizing.
I genuinely can’t parse how Americans are processing this. Turkey, Serbia? Yeah, I get what’s going on there.
The US? Alien planet. It’s like they never heard of civil society or political opposition before.
I think you have comprehensively missed the point of this post.
This post: “people under threat here’s some things you can do to lower your profile, mitigate risk a little” (positive actions)
Your comment (initial & reply): " how did the US let this happen & why didn’t you fight it, why aren’t you fighting it now"
That assumes a) the people most under threat are the same people who should be/can be fighting it b) that they didnt before the election and c) that the actions you prescribe will be effective.
So. Are your assumptions valid and do they actually add anything by voicing them ?
I know many in the US queer community worked tirelessly to prevent Trump being elected (assumption b) but now they really do need to get as low profile as possible, because there is a pogrom coming. Straight white people can afford to protest, the numbers are there. Minorities in small numbers not so much. Easy pickings.
See, when people need to rephrase your point to answer it, that tends to not be a great sign for good faith engagement. Case in point, ignoring the inclusion of “and supposed allies” at the core of my point is doing a lot of work in your argument with an entirely fictional version of me.
For the record, you’re not off the hook because you’re a targeted minority. Plenty of organizing and activism is driven by vulnerable people rallying society at large around them. The idea of arguing that protest is for white people because they have the numbers is bafflingly individualistic, which I suppose is on brand. The point of collective action is… you know, that it’s collective.
Look, my argument here is that Americans are handling this situation from an absolutely bizarre set of assumptions and cultural behaviors. I fully stand by that. The passive compliance while bemoaning the ineffectiveness of actions they’re not taking is not unheard of historically but man, is it weird and frustrating.
If you choose to take that as a knock on you specifically that’s your prerogative. I will say that it definitely doesn’t exclude you or the OP. It’s a society-wide issue. Identities aren’t segregated bubbles. The entire framing of this argument is part of the bizarre self-exculpatory, entitled set of cultural assumptions that re-elected the same fascist idiot twice because milquetoast liberals weren’t exciting enough or whatever the hell.
I think the part that gets me is the one-two punch at the very visible performative outrage at Trump doing exactly the things he campaigned on paired with the extreme passivity as they watch it unfold. The impression from the outside looking in is the US, from elected Democrats to marginalized citizens, is collectively waiting for the regional manager or the kindergarten teacher to come out of the back room and fix things while sharing safety tips and sternly worded objections. And there doesn’t seem to be any sign that things will bubble over into actual action. They will be carried to the camps while aggressively demanding a refund. It’s a grotesque spectacle to watch, being perfectly honest.
A question about kryptKey - why Signal protocol instead of just letting me import a PGP key and paste plain text in and use PGP for encryption and get ciphertext oit, like Kleopatra or GPG? I use that for DNMs and it’s swell.
KryptKey is much easier than Kleopatra. It works as a keyboard and encrypts and decrypts on the fly. It’s a powerful local too that’s very usable. Kleopatra is great for people who can learn the OPSEC but it may not be great for have a quick back and forth text message discussion.
It’s better to use SXC to protect metadata or Signal (if they can’t get in) to protect metadata. Texts show who is chatting with who. PGP also has a more identifiable structure and they could ban PGP and then scan for it easily based on PGP headers. KryptKey is more censorship resistant because the outputs can’t be scanned for as easily since data can be encrypted with normal words.
