History
Original text in English
Some humble anarchist
2023
web.archive.org
Introduction
This is a small and incomplete outline of what questions you should ask yourself, and what obstacles you may encounter when you are trying to have a fun night to forget. Most importantly — how will you emerge from the shadows and disappear back into them without a trace? Risk analysis is necessary for knowing what protective measures to take; being overcautious is better than being careless. How much effort and resources do you think the State and its lackeys will put into connecting you to the scene of your fun night? Can you find out what has happened in the past after other nights of a similar nature? The most comprehensive and reliable resources are going to be the No Trace Project, its Threat Library and Warrior Up.
Preparing for Fun
- Leave your phone out of this. Not just turned off. It should not be in the vicinity of, or used in conversations, planning, or the fun itself. Your phone is an informant that snitches on you using GPS data, cell data, search history, potentially your microphone and camera, your contacts, and schedule.
- Only use Tails or Qubes-Whonix for researching location, directions, or anything else[1].
- Use cash or theft to acquire anything you need, and don't acquire it near your house or the site of the fun.
- OpenStreetMap and Wikimapia are online map resources to help plan your route, though not a replacement for scoping out the area in person.
- Look for the safest entrance route and exit route, prioritizing paths without cameras, identify several options. Scout the place ahead of time. Be cautious while scouting — if it looks like you're obviously casing the joint shortly before something happens there it could make you a suspect. Wear an outfit that makes you unidentifiable and get rid of the clothing after.
- After seeing the place, finding the cameras and blind-spots, identifying an entrance and exit, and where you want to change clothing, you can begin dreaming up the fun you will have there.
Ways To Get There
- Cars: are identifying. From license plates, and specific makes, models, years, colors, to body damage, scratches, and the windows that could show you inside. Avoiding cameras and staying reasonably far away from the vicinity of the fun is one option. Some have claimed they have parked out of sight, had fun, and drove away. Some have claimed they stole another car's plates. Some claimed to be dropped off and picked up. The largest risks are the car being seen by bystanders who think you are out of place and remember the car or call the police, and surveillance cameras, Amazon Ring cameras, highway cameras, there's literally cameras EVERYWHERE these days, depending on if you're in a rural or urban environment.
- Bikes: bicycles can't be easily tracked, yet everything could be identifiable — bar tape, lights, tire tread, handlebars, just the shape or height of the bike. Using a bike that is not your own resolves this issue.
- Public transit: has surveillance cameras, they can piece together where you get on/off. Pay in cash, or don't pay at all.
Dress For Success
Cover every inch of your body to minimize the spread of DNA, and conceal your identity. GET RID OF YOUR CLOTHING AFTERWARDS.
- Unidentifiable yet “normal” clothing is possible with some thrifted baggy clothing. You might prefer this if you expect to be in public view for long periods. You can wear shoes you've never worn before and plan to dispose of after instead of socks over your shoes.
- Socks over your shoes can't avoid footprints, but it can hide the tread of your shoe, making it less identifiable.
- Painters or asbestos/mold suits can be used and are cheap, but they also stand out.
- Dress in this order: Covid mask/cap -> gloves -> get dressed -> dispose of gloves[2] -> 2nd set of rubber or mechanics gloves.
DNA
- Minimize getting your DNA on anything you will be leaving at the scene or anything that will be directly touching anything you will be leaving. Bleach can get rid of DNA in non-porous or fibrous items. As an extra precaution wipe all tools down with bleach, but avoid DNA on them in the first place. At the site of fun happenings, aim to leave as little as possible behind. If you are prepared to leave something understand that skin flakes, spit, saliva in the air, sweat, fingerprints, hair follicles, to name a few, are sources of DNA. If you cut yourself, attempt to pour a caustic liquid on the blood to contaminate any potential sample, but primarily, try to avoid bleeding in the first place by wearing sturdy gloves.
- If you are constructing something to leave behind, make a clean room somewhere besides your own house, or construct it outside, or a motel, somewhere private. First put on a Covid mask, hat/shower-cap, gloves, then open a sealed bag of new, unworn clothing and cover every inch of your skin, a fresh prepackaged painters, asbestos/mold suit is ideal. Once dressed put on another set of gloves. These gloves should never touch or even come near your body. Lay out your items onto the tarp[3] and start constructing. Ensure you have a new resealable container to put it into when finished. Only open when you are ready to use it. Prolific DNA mitigation is largely beyond the scope of this text, read more before having fun[4].
Considering Cameras and Eye Witnesses
- Security cameras can track license plates using Automatic License Plate Recognition.
- If there are security guards, decide if you can maneuver around them, and have a plan for if they notice you.
- If there are no CCTV cameras in an area, Law Enforcement will gather nearby home security footage and car cameras to use as evidence.
- Every witness and camera is a potential snitch. Dressing properly should prevent them from being able to identify you. If someone witnesses you having fun they could confront you or call the police. This is best avoided. If someone follows you, make them stop.
How To Disappear Completely
- Follow your entrance plan.
- Change clothing where you decided.
- Have fun.
- Change clothing.
- Follow your exit plan.
- Burn or dispose of EVERYTHING used in the fun night. Tools can be later used as evidence.
Submitting Communiques
- Only use a Tails USB / Qubes-Whonix.
- Write your communique in a blank text editor and do not save it.
- Submit to counter-info site using single-use email address like tempr.email, onionmail.org, or dnmx.org, or submission form/box.
For the sake of countering identification using linguistics forensics keep it simple and do not under any circumstances include anything identifying. You can run it through an online translator (DuckDuckGo has one built-in) through a few languages and then back to the original language.
For the sake of reproducibility, if you used an innovative or unique method you can describe that.
If the night is reported on the news and you do not wish to write a communique you can send the article to a counter-info site. If the article is difficult to access over Tor, archive it using archive.is or archive.org and send the archive link, or copy it and submit the pasted text and images.
Extra Reading
Visit:
No Trace Project (N.T.P.) note: Although both Tails and Qubes-Whonix are good, secure choices for a number of use cases, it should be noted that only Tails is specifically designed to be “amnesiac”, i.e. to leave no traces on the computer on which it is used. Therefore, Tails can often be a better choice for sensitive action research.
N.T.P. note: This first pair of gloves should of course not be thrown away on site, but be kept in order to be disposed of far away at a later time.
N.T.P. note: The tarp used in the clean room should be new so that it isn't already contaminated with your DNA. A cheaper alternative to a tarp can be a new, packaged shower curtain.
N.T.P. note: We recommend reading the zine “DNA You Say?”.