What can we do to promote the forum? Can we add forums for specific interests? Let’s say, a forum for SomailaFest, or LRN.FM or… some other NH activist thing?
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I posted that cop chasing video… maybe a section on cop blocking… I would make a point to post videos… a section on SomaliaFest would also be a great idea… I’ve been promoting that too. Although mostly to people who are not in New Hampshire. Been telling people about the migration of liberty minded people to NH and Somalia Fest being what it is works really well for the copy"right" and tech circles I’m in cause it’s focused on issues these groups I interact with online care about.
Now… I will say that there are people who freak out at what I’m saying (ie I don’t coddle people, i say we’re for the elimination of drivers licenses, license plates, vehicular registration, government policing, and explain why)… but there are also people who relish in the thought and write positive comments and/or upvote (some things get up-voted a lot).
I’m also promoting a bunch of other sites including Shire Society, Free State Project (as much as I might dislike some things its still got the upper hand in terms of organization, information, and attracting people to an event in NH to come check out what the movement is all about), Derick J’s Victimless Crime Spree, 101 Reason’s Film : 101 Reasons Liberty Lives in New Hampshire, Free Keene, Free Talk Live, lrn.fm, and probably a few other sites I’m not even thinking about like ShireBitcoin.org and similar… all are excellent places to check out what is so great about what is happening here.
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How about a forum for ham radio enthusiasts? Yes, being a ham involves having a government license, but so does carrying a firearm concealed or operating a motor vehicle on a public way. And the knowledge and practice that one gets operating as a licensed ham surely is applicable to unlicensed radio operation.
Or it could be a forum for any radio enthusiast, including hams but also anyone else using similar technology: FRS, GMRS, MURS, CB, Marine VHF or pirate.
maybe a forum for the discussion of anonymity and privacy, how to prevent the state from always watching us. we could help each other avoid the state collecting data on us or how to best minimize our information that they are able to extract. examples of topics would be like what are the best smart phone applications for secure communication, most secure and trustworthy hardware, from routers to phones to desktops or laptops. most secure and trustworthy OS’s to run, OTR chat, the importance of https, all of the different encryption options, utility of VPNs and TOR and how they work, general tech opsec, etc. the content for this topic is endless and dynamic.
also maybe a forum for local gaming, a place for people to start or join and find or host all kinds of different local tabletop games and dnd and lan parties or to join other liberty minded people in online games by providing an outlet for people to connect add each other.
Yea- that is certainly up my ally. Computer forensics can be defeated easily enough and anonymity while a harder thing to be 100% on can certainly be improved significantly via a combination of an up-to-date firewall type device running exclusively free software and Tor combined with an instance of Tails (on a system without wifi/mic/web cam/and some other components). Basically an exploit in Tails and a completely compromised computer with the right setup should not put you in danger of being identified. The only issue or two that might still exist is if there is an exploit in Tor/firewall, but those components are going to be more closely examined for security so it’ll reduce the risk of an exploit being used successfully. There are also potentially attacks that are possible from an all knowing-adversary like the NSA. Whether or not they’re able to perform such attacks we don’t know. However that is all the more reason you need to learn about operational security which basically means don’t do stupid shit like login to facebook over Tor from a facebook account you created off-Tor/have identified yourself with/etc. Or send a death threat to your school from Tor where your the only one connected to the Tor network! Ohh man was that stupid (and multiple kids have done stuff like this over Tor). Understanding some basics about Tor- like what is a bridge, etc. A bridge for those who don’t know is basically a means of hiding the fact your using Tor from your ISP/state. Tunnelling Tor over a privacy friendly VPN/SSH server/etc. would probably have a similar impact although any sort of tunnel that can be identified by a school is going to make you a target for questioning so be prepared to remain silent- or better yet don’t do stupid shit- or at least don’t use your school’s network to do it- and by all means don’t do it on from a system they’re going to seize and for which there will potentially be forensics evidence left on of your actions (ie Tails should solve the forensics problem).
Ohh- and anybody who begins a discussion about smart / cell phone security I’m going to just write off if one claims to be knowledgeable about security/privacy matters. I like to refer to cell phones as trackers because that is literally what they area. Verizon isn’t even hiding the fact they’re going back to backdooring and spying on every Android user. There was an article the other day about it. It was revealed the only Android devices that weren’t backdoor’d not that long ago (a few years ago at the most) were those running a fork of Android called Replicant that had all the proprietary bits removed. But by no means should you assume just because you have Replicant your phone is secure. The modem firmware is remotely updateable by your cellular provider, you have no control over it, AND it gets worse- the modem has complete control over the rest of your smart phone so any encryption software you use is completely defeated by any significant adversary (NSA or any other intelligence organization or military of any significance). Even the FBI was doing this back in the 1990s. They used it against ‘mafia’ types. I haven’t heard of anything similar since so they appear to have kept a lid on this ability since then. But basically they can turn your smart phone on remotely and listen in to your conversation by remotely updating the modem firmware and from there anything is possible because they have full control over the memory/microphone/etc.
There is a way I believe we can create a communications device that would dilute the resolution of the tracking which is essential in a standard cell phone. What we need to do is design a communications device around a new standard called EOMA68- or a smaller fork of it. By separating the modem component from the rest of the device we can eliminate the ability of the modem to compromise the encryption of the device. Then to reduce the resolution of the tracking of the device one of a few things or a combination thereof can occur. The device would pull/push messages at particular internals and/or locations in a semi-intelligent manor such that the cellular provider wouldn’t necessarily know that you stopped at Wendys on your way home from work. The other thing that may be possible to do is integrate a two-way radio chip. Unlike cellular your not dependant on a cellular provider to communicate- but this would have limited range- so you could communicate across a small town while you are out- but don’t expect it to work when your far from home (at that point your going to have to rely on cellular tech- or a much much better mesh wifi sort of network- which today does not exist- except for maybe some of the bigger cities).
yeah i know. it could be helpful to others if we can present this information and answer questions and talk more about minimizing our vulnerabilities and you can sell your routers haha 
if we could somehow decentralize our connection to the phone towers and avoid/go around phony fed honeypot connections i think that would be the best direction for cell phones. i like the idea of the mesh network, we could maybe actually do something like that for keene in the future.
ha- yea- the routers may help- to one degree or another- but real security depends on a lot more than just adding a VPN [router] to the mix if you have a real security threat like the state. I wouldn’t count on the use case for the routers we sell to do much more than protect oneself against corporations and internet service providers and government/ISP censorship/monitoring (to a degree). What the ISP and FBI can do are not necessarily the same as what the NSA can do. The FBI/DEA though are being aided by the NSA based on what we know about parallel construction in drug cases. So extra caution needs to be taken if your doing something that could get you into big trouble if is of a significant nature/concern to the powers that be. I think for the bast majority of people the VPN routers are more than adequate. For most people it’s more of an issue of ISP spying/logging and selling data or providing said data to the state- but for which aren’t a real target. The other scenario is censorship and corporate legal harassment.
Well, I’ve been funding technological developments to the tune of significant amounts of money to say the least and participated in raising another $200,000 this past summer. We can do something about these problems.
Yea- it’s a lot of work. I would love it if we had more technically competent people here of a high caliber and the motivation to work on projects. Unfortunately while the movement does attract people with a good degree of technical competency in particular there are very very very few people who have a technical competency of the level needed, the motivation, and the means to work on these sorts of projects. I’ve got one person whose competent enough to do this sort of work (maybe two if we’re talking just basic mesh networking) and the main guy I have aren’t here in New Hampshire (ie a lot of this stuff can’t be done from New Hampshire- we would have a LONG ways to go to get to that point).
We really need to integrate a two way radio chip that supports data and there are FCC issues. Maybe there is some way we can just put together everything we need to make it happen on a small scale utilizing a variety of techniques, paying premiums for stuff (ie spending $5000 for several samples), etc and ignoring regulatory issues. That assumes we’re doing it at a small enough level within our community. But the problem with that is the amount of time and money you’d end up investing is going to be significant and unlikely to work out financially. I mean- the labor involved is the expensive bit. Not the $10-20k it might take to get some samples manufactured. If you spent a year on such a project that’s $50-100k in labor. Although it maybe would be possible to do a legal project and then re-utilize the design and get some FCC violating two-way devices manufactured. Then maybe we could start something that really would work well. I don’t know. This is all probably a pipe dream. The cellular-only communications device with separate modem component though could still work out financial from a business perspective and get FCC certification. Maybe there is a cheaper simpler more hackish solution to the problem too- like combing a standard radio with a small computer. Some of this stuff already exists. Though carrying around a small computer with wires to a radio is probably going to be a bit awkward and unworkable in practice for day-to-day use. Maybe in a guerrilla war scenario it would be good enough- but I don’t see that happening any time soon in NH amongst a group of principled libertarians. In part because we lean toward non-violence and particularly because I can’t see it making tactical sense in any near-term scenario. Now that said I think it is a mistake not to develop the technology that would give the people of New Hampshire an ability to defend itself against a federal aggression. One may not necessarily need to fight an all out war to kill a federal invasion in the case of independence where war was involved. The principle of attrition I believe applies where one need merely ware the enemy down over time and/or cause the opposing force to spend itself into a death spiral or otherwise cause enough economic damage to where it just doesn’t make sense to continue fighting. Ultimately though we’re so far away from any realistic scenario particularly when it comes to technology that we have probably no hope on that front. A low-tech or no-tech warfare set of tactics would probably work better and that likely would end up being non-violent in nature anyway.
i think that we can put something together in keene to attract others. we can make it a long term project
Yea- it’ll probably have to be. I was never under the illusion that we’d have a free place to live overnight or that any of the projects I’ve worked on over the past 10 years would be quick and easy to accomplish. I’ve spent a lot of years working on a lot of different projects and so far all the big ones we’ve been successful with. The migration movement is a different sort of project- but… I think we can succeed. I think we have succeeded to a degree already. The biggest issue to overcome was getting people to move and it’s the early movers who really sold this to me as a real project. I’d never have moved if it wasn’t for people like Ian Freeman, Mark Edge, Derrick J, James Cleaveland, Darryl W. Perry, and thousands of other lesser known figures who moved prior to the projection’s completion and who helped to promote and/or sell the idea. The project is literally a dream come true for me- even if it isn’t an island of total freedom because at least I can see a future- hope. Not something I can say I’d have without these people.
This last big project I’ve been working on has taken maybe 4 years and in some respects I actually started investigating possible solutions all the way back in 2009. Specifically the project is a 100% freedom friendly laptop that is entirely in the users control (no proprietary software bits, no backdoors, etc). It only became within my grasp thanks to succeeding in other areas on other smaller projects (ie freeing wifi adapter chipsets and shipping products based on it, funding developing of 100% free wireless router firmware and shipping products based on it, etc). From that good fortune I was able to plough insane amounts of money into projects no sane person ever would. It’s financially stupid- but I care about solving these issues enough to do it that the value to me is in the output and not the profit (or lack thereof) so long as we can get it off the ground and self-sustaining (I think we can do that even if I never personally break even). And then we’re only succeeding because of sheer determination of the main engineer involved, my contributions (financials and some level of business input), crowd funding, and having a sizeable customer base/following/reputation already to build off. In fact this entire project is being built off a person with a tattered reputation- rightly or wrongly- so I’m lending credibility to something I believe in- but it could end up backfiring. I don’t think that’ll happen because of him- but it could happen because of the sizable undertaking of the project. I think at this point he actually came through with everything. We do have completed prototypes, schematics have been released, etc. The only thing we don’t have is the final manufactured goods (well, any large quantity of them) and it’s one of the risks that we could run into problem in spite of having working prototypes. But we’re minimizing those risks as best we can. Supervising manufacturing, etc. If at first you don’t succeed don’t give up! Try something else. The success of AOL was down to several failures. The guy failed numerous times and yet he wasn’t fired. Finally he got it. That’s the thing to remember. You won’t always succeed every time, but if you give up you’ve definitely failed.