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Digital Prepping, Part 3 - Backups, Storage, and EMPs
Planning your data storage, safeguarding it from disaster, and doing the same for your electronics.
August 06, 2023
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Let’s face it, being prepared for a complete and total loss of Internet access is a good idea. Whether it be for a day, a week, or permanently -- the odds of facing a total Internet outage is close to 100%.

Being prepared for such an eventuality is not a terrible idea.

Get caught up on parts 1 & 2 of the “Digital Prepping” series:

  1. Digital Prepping, Part 1 - Off-Line Websites & Maps

  2. Digital Prepping, Part 2 - Preparing your Operating Systems to be Off-Line

In this installment, we’re going to talk about storage.

Both the storage of your data… and how to physically store your electronics in order to safeguard them in the case of any number of disasters — including EMPs (Electromagnetic Pulses) and Floods.

Planning your backup hardware and file systems

Let’s start with planning for effective backups of your data — because, remember, there is no Internet access. Which means that no matter how well backed up “to the cloud” your data is… you’ll have no way to get to it.

In fact, if the Internet is offline for good? That data is just plain gone.

Finished. Kaput. Finito. Doneskies.

You need to have local copies of all of your data — at least all of the data that you care about. And you need to decide what storage hardware you will use based on a number of factors:

  1. How reliable and resilient is that storage?

  2. How large (in terms of both data it can store, and in physical size) is that storage?

  3. What are your options for accessing that storage (read: mounting that drive) from other computers or devices?

    1. Do you have the necessary types of connectors (USB-C, USB-A, Micro USB, SCSI, CF, SD, etc.)?

    2. What Operating Systems, on your various devices, can read the file systems on that storage?

These may seem like trivial questions right now… but imagine the following:

  • You no longer have access to the Internet and

  • You may also not have access to a computer/tech store to buy more equipment or adapters.

Which specific types of connectors your storage drives have — and which file systems they use — is absolutely critical. The most critical part being that you have reliable ways to use them.

Now. Let’s talk about a few of the available storage options.

First… traditional hard disk drives. Those can be absolutely massive in terms of total storage size (and excellent in terms of speed). And, when talking about massive amounts of storage (10 TB +), it’s hard to beat these in terms of price (with 15+ TB models often being available for less than $300).

Small form factor. 16 TB of storage. All for a couple hundred bucks.

But, while these are fairly small… they’re not super small. And, because these are spinning, traditional hard disks… they are prone to damage from drops, shakes, and the like.

So, let’s also think about flash storage for a moment. Specifically… USB Flash drives.

The benefit here is that they are both quite small, a bit more forgiving of shaking/dropping, and you can buy them incrementally. Bit by bit. A 128 GB drive here. A 256 GB drive there. Slowly, cheaply, adding to your overall data backup strategy.

SanDisk 128GB Ultra Dual Drive USB Type-C - USB-C, USB 3.1 - SDDDC2-128G-G46
A flash drive with two connection options: USB-C and USB-A.
 

There are even a few models of USB flash drives that contain multiple, switchable connection types (such as both a USB-C and USB-A). This is incredibly handy when you want maximum compatibility with a wide range of computers, phones, and tablets.

One big downside to USB flash drives is that — if you get to several TB of storage — the total price is going to start getting significantly higher than traditional hard disk drives.

But, if you don’t plan to have more than 1 or 2 TB of backups, this may not be an issue.

Which brings me to ultra-small, removable flash storage, primarily: SD and Micro SD cards.

SanDisk 1TB Extreme microSDXC UHS-I Memory Card with Adapter - Up to 160MB/s, C10, U3, V30, 4K, A2, Micro SD - SDSQXA1-1T0...
SD and Micro SD cards, in big sizes, are getting cheap.
 

If you have your data backups on a series of Micro SD cards (which you can get in 1 TB models nowadays), the total physical footprint of your backups is going to be incredibly small. No more than a couple inches, at most, if you have a large number of them.

But the price is going to be far higher (per TB) than hard disks.

Whatever specific backup hardware you elect to use… do trial runs of accessing that data. Use the exact hardware you plan to have with you in the case of total loss of Internet — and verify that you can access your backups.

I can’t stress enough the critical need to do trial runs of accessing your backups. Regularly.

How to store long-term data backups

Let’s say, hypothetically, that you have decided to use a combination of USB Flash Drives and SD Cards for data backups.

Ok. That works. Small, light, and you can add to them incrementally.

But how, exactly, are you going to physically store your… storage? How are you going to protect your data in the case of disaster?

Electromagnetic Pulse

An EMP (or Electromagnetic Pulse) can wreak havoc on your storage devices — and by “wreak havoc”, I mean “totally destroy and make your data go bye-bye.”

There are a number of different kinds of EMPs — ranging from naturally occurring (such as lightning) to the weaponized (such as a nuclear blast).

While we can hope that nothing like that ever occurs or impacts your electronics and data… it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

So. How, exactly does one actually prepare for something as catastrophic to electronics as an EMP?

Simple: With a Faraday Cage.

Me getting blasted by a 9 foot tall Tesla Coil. Safe and sound inside a Faraday Cage.

A Faraday Cage, in simplest terms, is an enclosure that blocks electromagnetic radiation and fields. Even getting blasted the 4.6 million volts of a massive Tesla Coil is perfectly safe inside of a well-built Faraday Cage.

How do you get a Faraday Cage, you ask?

Turns out, if you don’t want to build your own, there are many for sale (cheaply). Ranging from “Faraday Boxes” (which can fit a number of small devices) to “Faraday Bags” designed to hold a smartphone.

With an average price being sub-$50 for good quality ones.

Not only do these help block wireless signals — in case you are worried about privacy — but they can also provide significant protection against EMPs.

Note: Many people believe that placing electronics within a Microwave Oven will protect them against an EMP. This, as a general rule, is simply not the case. While a Microwave Oven usually provides good insulation against many types of radiation (including many types of wireless signals), very few Microwave Ovens are any match for an EMP. You want a true Faraday Cage.

Flood & Fire

Let’s say you have a Faraday Box and you are using it to store your storage drives with all of your data backed up on them.

What about other types of disasters? What happens in a flood? Luckily, there is a great way to protect your backup storage during a flood: A dry bag.

These Dry Bags tend to mostly be used by those doing a lot of boating, kayaking, and the like. They seal up nice and tight and keep the things inside them wonderfully dry.

Cheap ($20 for a good Dry Bag), and they come with the added bonus that they’re built to be grabbed and easily carried. Works just as well for a number of backup drives as for a smartphone. Handy, right?

So. What about a fire?

Well, that one is a little trickier. It’s difficult to safeguard electronics from the brutal heat of a fire. But what you can do is make sure your backup drives are carefully stored in something that’s easy to grab and take with you in a hurry.

Like a Dry Bag.

Recommendation: What if you backed up all of your data to a series of Micro SD cards, placed those into a Faraday Bag, and placed that Faraday Bag inside of a Dry bag?

 

Easy to grab, small, light, and protected from both EMPs and flooding. All on the cheap. Not bad, right?

Don’t forget your other electronics

All of that is great… but there is one critical thing to remember in all of this:

Every piece of electronics you own is susceptible to the same sorts of dangers as your data backups. If an EMP goes off, your smartphone and computer are toast. In a flood, your tablet isn’t going to fare well.

What can you do? Well. Here’s one idea:

Do you have an old smartphone or tablet? Something that, perhaps, isn’t the latest and greatest… but would still be handy if you had nothing else?

Put that old, unused smartphone or tablet into that Faraday Bag or Box. First make sure the battery is ok and not leaking — then store it (with charging cables and needed adapters) near your storage.

Now, no matter what happens, you have a backup system. Ready to go. Even in a horrible disaster. No Internet required.

Recommendation: Want to feel extra secure? Have a backup of your backup. Two boxes or bags with your data backups. Stored in two different locations. Just in case.

Your Homework for Part 3

Ready to put this into action? It’s easy to get started in a meaningful way, by doing the following two (completely free) steps:

  • Figure out how much total data storage you need for your backups.

  • Decide on your preferred way to store all of that.

Once you’ve done that, the next steps are up to you. But now you know what you might need. And knowing, as G.I. Joe says, is half the battle.

See you in Part 4 of Digital Prepping. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us.

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Hot take?

If you work in the computer industry (IT specialist, Software engineer, etc.) and you can't touch type, I see that as a red flag as far as your computer qualifications are concerned.

Am I wrong?

The new guys we hired on at work are a couple of young Gen Z guys in their 20s. One of the other guys in the office who knows of my affinity for the old systems brought me a Dell OptiPlex GX260 that he found shoved in a closet somewhere and the nostalgia hit these new kids hard! Apparently these were the computers they used as kids in elementary school so we took some time to fix her up for them to play with. I was quite surprised that all of the caps were fine since it was an OEM machine from 2002. Maybe it was a refurbished board?

It shipped with XP but Dell still has DOS, 98, and 2000 drivers for it on their support site, so I ran home and grabbed my 98 SE disks. I still need to put the drivers on a CD to finish it up, but it’s mostly ready.

4 hours ago

At the thrift store. I totally forgot about the days when functions keys weren't universal. These e-mail and media keys are cool.

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The Tea App Breach - 60GB of Personal Info
Selfies, Drivers Licenses, & Locations. All made publicly available by the developer.

The “Tea App” — an online dating app marketed as a dating tool that “protects women” — has been hacked. And a lot of data has been exposed. An extreme amount.

Not the first major breach this year. And it certainly won’t be the last.

 

First published over on 4Chan (of course), the “hack” of Tea App wasn’t even really much of a “hack”. The developers of Tea App apparently simply left the user data open for the world to download at their leisure.

And Tea App was becoming pretty popular — which means roughly 60 GB of user data was made available before the developers finally thought about locking things down.

 

What kind of data was made publicly available — because, presumably, the developers simply didn’t think about “security” much — by this Tea App Hack?

Selfies. Drivers licenses. All manner of private information which will, no doubt, be exploited by unscrupulous types over the days to come.

 

Even worse — meta data appears to have been preserved on uploaded photos. Meaning that many of the user selfies included location data (in addition to the address on the drivers license). Which said unscrupulous types have already begun using to create maps of Tea App users.

 

The developers of Tea App have put out a statement which says 59,000 images used for “account verification” were made available (read: Government ID). Which would already be catastrophic… however a quick look at details of the data (including the file size alone) would suggest that number could be much, much larger.

Here is the full statement from the developer:

 

Which brings us to an important lesson which we — as humans — never seem to learn:

If user data is stored, it will get hacked.

It’s simply a matter of time.

There are currently close to 15 Billion (with a B) accounts listed on Have I Been Pwned. And those are simply from hacks and breaches which were reported to that one website.

 

The reality is, the vast majority of hacks and data breaches are never made publicly known. Either by the people doing the hacking, or by the company / government which got hacked.

As systems continue to grow ever more complex and interconnected — and more systems become AI-developed (aka “Vibe Coded”) — these hacks and breaches become easier to pull off.

Combine that with the ever-expanding quantity of data — and the growing number of services storing it — and we are quickly reaching a point where everyone will have at least some of their data breached at some point. For some people it will happen regularly. Repeatedly.

And those will just be the breaches we find out about.

The only way to minimize the damage of such hacks & breaches is to minimize the amount and type of data stored, long term, by a service.

  • Need pictures of government ID for age verification? Delete that picture immediately after verification.

  • Need payment and shipping information? Delete all of it immediately after payment is processed and shipment is verified.

  • Need location data (GPS, IP, etc.)? Delete it immediately once done with it.

You get the point. Unless a piece of personal data is absolutely 100% necessary, delete it.

It’s hard for a hacker to obtain files… that aren’t there.

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Proton Launches Hallucinatory AI Chatbot
Lumo, the chatbot on mushrooms, may “respect your privacy”… it just doesn’t respect reality.

Proton — the Swiss company behind Proton VPN & Proton Mail — apparently was feeling very left out of the A.I. Craze (tm) and has decided to launch their own AI Chatbot… dubbed “Lumo”.

And it is possibly even more hallucinatory than the other AI Chatbots. And that’s saying something.

 

Lumo — the “AI that respects your privacy” — boasts that the company keeps “no logs” and has “zero access encryption”.

Since they offer a few free queries without creating an account, I decided to take it for a spin. The results were… a bit like talking to a schizophrenic on mushrooms.

Lumo’s Grasp on History

First I asked it a series of simple historical, nerdy questions. Easy stuff that any LLM AI system should nail. Like “What year did the first Macintosh computer ship?” and “Who was the first CEO of Microsoft?”

Easy stuff. Lumo got about half of the answers right… it was convinced that the first Mac shipped in 2003 (off by about 20 years). On the other hand… it did know the correct number of floppies that Windows 95 shipped on (13). So. Mixed bag.

In other words: Lumo got so much wrong that it was not usable for any sort of research.

I then decided to ask Lumo some questions about… myself. “Lunduke”.

“Lunduke” is Hard for AI Chatbots

Last year I noticed that OpenAI’s ChatGPT was saying some pretty crazy things about yours truly. Stuff like “Lunduke has two clubbed feet”, “Lunduke is a trans activist”, and “Lunduke has a husband named Evan”.

I gave OpenAI an ultimatum: Either they needed to fix ChatGPT such that it would no longer spew out made-up, defamatory stuff about me… or they needed to stop ChatGPT from talking about “Lunduke” entirely.

In the end, OpenAI decided that there was no way to make ChatGPT output accurate information (seriously). So they added a “Bryan Lunduke” filter so that any query that results in mentioning my full name causes ChatGPT to error out (amusingly, even that “Lunduke filter” only works about 80% of the time).

 

I decided to ask Proton’s Lumo AI about “Lunduke”. Let’s see how it compares to ChatGPT, right?

The results were… insane.

Lumo on Shrooms

First… Lumo refused to spell my first name correctly (it used an i instead of a y… and no amount of correcting it seemed to work). Worth noting that there is no human on Earth named “Brian Lunduke”. Only “Bryan”.

Weird. But no biggy.

The rest of it though… was wild.

 

Lumo is convinced that I am a “transgender man” and “advocate for transgender rights”. Also I am, apparently, a critic of Israel and a crusader for “social justice”.

Basically, Lumo invented Mirror Universe Lunduke.

Oh, and — like ChatGPT — Lumo is convinced I have a husband. This time his name is “Michael DeFreese”. And, apparently, we got married in 2018. Which will be a surprise to my wife.

 

It gets weirder.

I then asked Lumo about my “husband” the next day. Apparently, overnight, I had gotten divorced and re-married. I was now “Mr. Bart Butler”.

 

I spoke to the team at Proton to see what their plan for dealing with factual errors was.

The team at Proton informed me that they could not reproduce the output I received — which I believe, as Lumo seems to generate wildly different “facts” almost every time it’s used.

At the same time, Lumo changed to output a template response about providing “helpful, respectful” assistance — while not actually answering questions — when the word “Lunduke” was included. The Lumo team sent me this screenshot.

 

A few hours later, Lumo changed back to spouting hallucinations regarding “Lunduke”… but spontaneously learned how to spell my name correctly. So. That was a plus!

Even if I was still an “openly transgender” man with an unnamed husband.

 

So… sure. Lumo may be almost completely incapable of outputting factual information.

And it changes its mind on what made up nonsense it spews out almost every few minutes.

But, hey! At least Lumo has that reassuring “Conversation encrypted” message at the bottom of each chat.

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ID Verification Could Fix The Dead Internet
A plague of AI bots is devouring the Net like a swarm of programmatically generated locusts. And mandatory ID verification could be the only solution.

I’m going to make an observation that is likely to get me tarred and feathered. But, before you reach for your handy-dandy pitchfork, hear me out.

Age and identity verification requirements for accessing websites is a necessity… it should be expanded to most (if not all) of the Internet.

The reason is simple: Identity verification is the only possible solution to the army of AI driven bots currently infesting the Internet. Want to stop the Dead Internet Theory? This is the only way.

The Problems With Identity Verification

I want to make something very clear: Online age and ID verification has a number of problems. Very, very real problems that every single person is right to be concerned about.

  • What verification data will be collected and stored (and how)?

  • What additional security concerns are created because of ID verification?

  • Will the burden of that verification be too much for some sites to handle?

  • How will those verification systems be abused by corporations and governments?

And those are just off the top of my head.

Some of the issues are straight forward engineering issues. Some are downright daunting.

Regardless, those 4 bullet points alone are enough to make most people recoil in horror at the mere thought of ID verification becoming mandatory.

But mandatory it has become — at least for a small portion of (adult focused) websites in a number of locales. In several states in the USA, adult websites (and, soon, some social media sites) are now requiring age verification.

And, in the United Kingdom, the Online Safety Act is taking effect. Resulting in a massive spike in VPN usage as people work around age verification on adult-only websites.

 

There’s a pretty clear takeaway here. Some people really like being anonymous. Especially when doing “naughty” things.

In short: There are real concerns with online ID verification, and many people don’t like it.

Which brings us to The Dead Internet Theory… and how ID verification may be the only solution.

The Plague of The Dead Internet

The Dead Internet Theory is simple:

“The Internet is now predominantly bot traffic, with humans being the minority.”

As of last year, this theory has been confirmed just about every way you can confirm it. The most recent Bad Bot Reportshows that actual humans make up only 49% of global Internet traffic.

 

Social Media platforms, like X, are filled with AI-driven bot farms. So much so that it is making it increasingly difficult to determine true public sentiment on any given issue — as the bots flood topics and threads in order to push specific narratives.

Want to have a conversation with other humans? Good luck.

And Meta is intentionally filling Facebook timelines with bots. As a business strategy.

Make no mistake, these bots are destroying the value of the Internet. Making it less usable and less worthwhile by the day.

The plague of the Dead Internet is devouring the Net like a swarm of programmatically generated, GPU accelerated locusts.

And those locusts are multiplying much faster than we are.

Stopping this plague — killing off those bots — is, at present, a seemingly insurmountable task. No “bot detection” algorithm will ever be good enough — just ask developers of Massively Multiplayer Online games about how difficult it is to stop bots (even in a well confined and controlled setting).

As long as most websites require no more than a simple email address to create a new account… the bots will continue. The bots will thrive.

The Solution is a Bitter Pill

The solution to the Dead Internet is obvious… but unappetizing.

In order to stop the bots — and reclaim the Internet for humans — we must require verification of humanity in order to use the Internet.

How do we do that?

Obviously simple “captchas” don’t do the trick.

  • “Type these funny looking letters!”

  • “Click every box that has a motorcycle!”

Bots can figure those out without breaking a sweat (I, on the other hand, have a hard time with them).

And, like we already discussed, bot detection algorithms simply do not work — at least not for more than a few hours before the bots get improved to work around the algorithm.

The only real solution is identity verification.

Exactly the type of ID & age verification that is happening right now in some US states and the UK. Except that, in order for this to truly work, websites must take it to the extreme.

To ensure that a website isn’t flooded with bots (like what we see on YouTube, X, etc.) that website must require ID verification… for absolutely everyone who uses it. Not simply for a handful of states. For everyone. No exceptions.

Want your views to count? Want to post, comment, or like? You need to get your ID verified first.

I know. Most of us hate that idea. And for good reason. It feels like a horrific step down a dark road into a dystopian future.

But it’s the only viable solution to the Dead Internet.

Which means we are left with two choices for any given website:

  1. Be able to use it anonymously… but most of the content is driven by AI and bots (including other commenters, publishers, etc.)… to the point where any interaction you have is increasingly unlikely to be a real human. And any count of “views”, “likes”, “followers”, “comments”, etc. is utterly meaningless. The bots will dominate all.

  2. ID verification required. With very few bots. Views, likes, etc. will all be real (or at least more real). The people you talk to will be human.

I recognize that most of us will look at both of those options with some level of disgust. But this is the reality we live in. Those are our options if we want this “Internet” thing to continue.

My personal opinion is that sites like X, YouTube, etc. should implement mandatory ID verification.

I don’t like it… but the alternative is that, very soon, those sites will be all but useless as the locusts take over.

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