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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"?
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
because in the event of a "leave nyc forever" caliber event, you have no idea where the hell google's gmail servers are geographically. and then google has all your personal data. that seems like a pretty terrible idea from a security standpoint, even if it is encrypted. nothing's completely unbreakable. if you're leaving on foot, take paper copies of everything, tape it to your chests so your bodies could theoretically be ID'ed if you were to die (we're talking hyptohetically, lets go all the way) i'd be way more worreid about water purification, food, and the ability to cover enough ground on foot to get away form the disaster before you run out of food and water. if you're a typical person i don't htink you're going to be doing more then 20 miles a day with plenty of food, and that's being generous. do you have shelter? i'd suggest a water proof pack from granite gear that weighs 1.5 pounds without anything in it. that's what i'm brining when the shit hits the fan and we're all dead.
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.
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