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Condensing Your Life on to a USB Flash Drive?
Fear the Clam asks: "My wife and I figure that if we plan for the worst, it'll never happen, so we've been putting together 'If public transportation bites it and we have two minutes to grab our stuff and start walking, never to return to NYC' getaway knapsacks. With luck they'll live in the closet forever.
Coincidently, this morning the New York Times has an article about what to take when you have to leave home in a big hurry [DNA verification required], and they suggest making a list of all of things like Social Security and credit card numbers, scanning birth certificates, marriage license and tax returns, and saving it all on a USB flash drive. Since this would be a complete identity kit, encryption is of utmost importance. What's the best solution? A flash drive that claims to encrypt or a platform-independent, self-extracting, encrypted file on a regular drive? Any suggestions for sturdy drives?" Of course, the choice of USB flash drive covers only a part of the problem. What other data would you put on this piece of "contingency hardware", and how would you protect the drive itself in case you did have to "swim for it"?
Wouldn't accepting scanned documents of identification open many a door for counterfeiters and scam artists, and even, dare I say, potential terrorists? *Raises terror alert to mauve*
....is your friend. Don't trust the key vendor's utility. PGP can be accessed from any platform and isn't Win32-specific as the vendor's software is.
Why not just email all that to yourself in a gmail account? Holds 2.5GB and counting, and you can get to it from anywhere. No need to worry about taking it along with you.
Fujifilm. I just had one of those suckers go through the washing machine a while back. Still works.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
That's why you should use the plausible deniability built into TrueCrypt. Giving the attacker the password to the outer volume (who has been robbed at knifepoint for a USB memory device? that'll be the day..), and they still still have no idea an entire volume of your real data is hiding in the noise that is the freespace of the aforementioned outer volume. the outer volume needs to be FAT and it can have innocuous stuff on there like fake financial documents.. Enjoy!
click here to incinerate homeless people
As others have pointed, more politely than I think they needed to, "In case of a nuclear war, nobody's going to give a damn." You'll be struggling just to live. So will everybody around you. Nobody's going to give a damn about your stupid keychain drive with the password to all your porno-sites on it. And if you make it to a part of civilization where you actually get to *use* the damn thing for it's intended purpose, being to recover your life's data, you'll be lucky to find somebody's computer with a compatible document format to read it, let alone figure out how to recover the data from your ultra-secure storage method.
Get a LIFE!
If it's pure science fiction, then why does the U.S. MILSTAR/NESP communication system have an operation mode for just such a scenario?
This is called "scintillation", and is very real.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
My ideal 'out' kit;
My personal records are scanned in high-res PDF format and kept on a jumpdrive. Identicals are kept with both of my parents on identical hardware, and my grandmother holds the originals. (This includes my birth certificate, my SSN card, my high school diploma, last 3 years of 1040 forms, my insurance policies, my driver's license, my EMS certification, and a few odd bills here and there for 'proof of residence'.)
I keep a backpack packed with a dry pair of pants, fresh socks, two t-shirts, a sweatshirt, a bright orange-and-yellow 'RESCUE ME' vest, emergency self-inflating flotation device (rated to 225 lbs), 4L of drinking water, 6 MREs, a space-warmer blanket, air-activated hand-warmers, a flashlight, batteries, sweedish-firesteel, 600$ cash, a rescue strobe light, a leatherman, a wide-band two-way radio and scanner, a GPS reciever, a universal hand-crank charger, a map, a compass, pencil, paper, an emergency contact card, and the aforementioned USB keychain.
It's not a huge bag, one just has to know how to pack. I do not live in the countryside by any means, but I travel through such areas often, and you never really know where you're going to end up if you need help quickly.
I also keep a proper EMS bag (affectionately known as the 'blue bag') in my trunk, as well as a large ammocan with more space blankets, MREs and fresh drinking water. The assumption is that I'm not alone in the car, and we have to create a shelter-in-place.
Worse-comes-to-worse, eat someone.
Informatus Technologicus
Don't forget to scan all your family photos and all the photos from your parents collections of you and your siblings. Scan high resolution like 600 DPI.
Scan examples of the work that you have done. Source code, schematics, written documentation, blueprints, photos, letters of recommendation. Include these with the family photos and financial info. Don't forget medical records (remember also childhood immunizations and disease records, ask your parents if you don't have them) and hi-res scans of any X-Ray photos and dental records if you have them.
Buy or borrow a DVD recorder and copy all your photos, along with high resolution scans of birth certificates, tax returns, property deeds, financial records, etc. onto many copys of DVD ROM of all this data. Encrypt only the sensitive financial data. Make a copy of your and your family member's finger prints. Be sure to encrypt these before writing them to the disk. Make recordings of your voice. Record your spouse. Record your kids. Shrink these recordings into MP3 and OGG files (high quality 256KBPS) and include them on the disk. Not sure what to say? Dictate a will. Make a list of all your possessions. Include serial numbers, descriptions, digital photos, and estimated value. X sweaters, Y pairs of underwear, ect.
When you've done all this stuff listed above, make many copies of the CD/DVD-ROM. DVD-ROM blanks and CD ROM blanks are very cheap now (about 50 cents or less) and they can hold a great deal of information and photos. Send a copy each to your parents and spouse's parents.
Keep a copy of this disk in your car. If you get hit with a big disaster and have to get away quickly, you most likely will not remember to gather this stuff or you may have forgotten where your 'life disk' is located.
I'm not sure if this applies to you but sooner or later it applies to most people. If you are 'illegal', no proper immigration documentation, no passport, expired visa, fugitive from computerized bench arrest warrants regardless of how long ago it was issued, or if you are at risk of arrest because of lifestyle (you sell weed for a living) or are a political activist in a dictatorship, you might consider creating a complete new and separate identity for yourself. And keep the paperwork for this identity on a CD-ROM, encrypted of course. Put a few soft-core porn pictures (be sure to use ones that are not illegal) unencrypted on the CD in case you are forced to display the contents of the CD to the police (resulting from a search at a traffic stop or a random police stop-and-frisk on the street). You may want to have this info on a 512K Flash Disk (or a 3.5 inch mini CD) that you can carry with you at all times. If you are undocumented or a fugitive, you may find that you have to escape without being able to go back to your home to get your papers, contacts, or alternate identity papers. In this case, having a flash disk with a complete new identity on it is a big help in maintaining your freedom.
Shalom
Either you are completely full of it. . .
.or this is the best slashdot comment. Ever.
If I'm full of shit it's because I know my shit, not because I'm bullshitting.
. .
A bit slipshod stream of conciousness really. I left out the "Shake & Bake" flashlight, which is important, the cornstarch, which isn't, but it's nice to have a bit around. Didn't go into sewing kits and why you should make up your own instead of purchasing one from a camping store, the Therma-Rest pad, which could be important, even lifesaving under certain conditions, or even that you get all this stuff from Wal-Mart or something, not a camping store (except maybe the Therma-Rest). There are also any number of small items that can disappear in the bottom of a side pocket that can make life easier (like the G.I. can opener), but I've learned to live without them and take life as it was before such manufactured items were available. Many people on this earth do so as part of their everyday lives. I know. I've seen them do it.
It wasn't part of the subject, so I didn't even touch on how you either get out of or into a disater area safely. That's a bit of a longer subject then a short, slipshod post. I'm not even sure I could write it. I think I'd have to show you. Bicycles are often better than cars though. A guy I know bicycled from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego with his wife. It took a whole team of pros from Land Rover to accomplish the same thing with motor vehicles.
I was born in Manhatten, but grew up in large part in the Vermont woods, climbed Mt. Washington in a minor gale (by Mt. Washington standards) when I was only 6, been from the subartic to the tropical rainforest, city to wilderness, land to sea, often with nothing more than I could carry, my stepfather is a travel journalist who ghost authored a best selling camping book (no, I won't say which one. There are these things called lawyers. I like to avoid them when I can) and been in, into and out of disaster areas for various reasons. I sorta grew up knowing how to get by with only what you could stuff in a daypack just so long as the conditions were actually survivable without heavy gear. I've never checked luggage on an airline. Everything I need goes carryon.
This all writes much more impressive than it really is. I'm just another dork like anybody else and my day to day life is just as humdrum and unexceptional at any given moment as anybody else's. I just occasionally have these "episodes" where it looks like things should have been exciting, but they're not at all like Indiana Jones has. Pulling people from their homes in a rowboat is really a rather mundane affair. Crawling through the priest tunnel of a Zapotec pyramid is too.
No Nazis, face melting or anything. Just dirt and deadly snakes.
Snakes, why does it always have to be snakes?
KFG
I have heard that you can put some documents in the freezer, as it will be mostly waterproof when the FD floods your house and stands a decent chance at being fireproof as well.
We bought a little fireproof waterproof safe for like $50.
I think the topic of this post was mostly for big chemical, bio, or nucular attack on NYC or DC. What would you take? How prepared would you be to never come back to your house?
BTW, Foxfire books are awesome if you don't have the series already. Great stuff with good detail on everything from building a log cabin to making moonshine to making a violin.
What if you are allergic to wool?
Then it really sucks to be you. That's ok, I'm intolerant to most "food" and when other people are sitting down to a hot meal I'm sometimes off scrounging for edible weeds or something, so I know what sucking to be is like. Go with one of the polyester microfibers if you really have to, in a weave, not a knit. The structure of a weave is important. They're sold under various trade names, like CoolMax. Maybe the larger piece in a water repelant Supplex nylon. When I'm not traveling ultralight I often add this to the list anyway. Staying warm when you're wet is good. Staying dry in the first place is better and the Supplex is a sturdier tarp and more pleasant to wrap in than the emergency blanket.
There are also "technical" wool fabrics available now. Waterproof, windproof, breathable. Some people who have problems with wool don't seem to have a problem with this stuff, some do. I've fondled some samples. It's amazing stuff. It's also godawful expensive and I don't know how well it holds up to abuse. I can't afford to find out empirically.
I wish there were some true substitute for wool. It requires more care than synthetics, doesn't last as long, it's expensive (the good stuff will run you about $20/yd. for shirtweight. Get the good stuff. It's worth it. Pendelton is one of the few brand names left on Earth that is still what it purports to be, as good as you can get) and I have vegan tendencies. Any of the synthetics do something much better than wool. Cotton is lovely for warm, dry weather and when I absolutely know it's going to be warm and dry what I almost always turn to. None of them do everything put together as well as wool though, which is why when you have to chose one it's the one to choose. When I'm traveling strictly urban I'll carry the two smaller pieces in cotton and only the larger in wool.
Come to think of it, I'm dressed in those two pieces of cotton right now. This stuff isn't just camping/emergency gear for me. I use it all the time and almost never wear "normal" street clothes around the house or hotel room. Once you get used to wearing wraps and drapes you'll start to wonder why people ever adopted tailored clothing in the first place. In some places they still haven't.
Don't you even think about taking away my trenchcoat though. Yeah, it's cotton, but the lining is wool.
Aaaaaanyway, like my issues with food ya gotta do what ya gotta do and live with it. If I have to eat weeds while everyone else is eating lasagna, it's better than dying. If you can't use wool, don't use it.
Oh, by the way, the antihistimes on the list are for allergic reactions, not colds. I should have mentioned that.
What are some of your favorite books or links regarding being prepared?
I was afraid someone would ask that. I really don't have any. That's why I simply said "poke around" instead of posting some links. Yeah, I've done that poking around myself, but I haven't made any particular note of any particular sites. I read them with a critical eye, pick up a clue here and there, bang my head against the keyboard at others and absorb into my brain, not my link collection, since none of it is entirely new material to me and much of it is intended to sell you something that's really just a manufactured version of what you can obtain for free as you need it (like pebbles).
Search on firestarting, Greek clothing, Egyptian clothing, Indian clothing, draped clothing, sarong (you need to completely rethink clothing, starting with realizing the word simply means "cloth," "clothes" is simply the plural of cloth, not something from the Gap), soda can stove (there's a Wikipedia article on these), tarp craft, twisting cordage and knot craft. That'll get you started. Most of the stuff on food is, unfortunately, pitifully simplistic ( "Here's a pen and ink drawing of a burdock. Its root is edible") or completely ridiculous ("How to prepare freeze dried Nouvelle Cuisine in the woods"). I don't r