Why You Should Be Networking

Networking has been given a bad name. Most people think of it as meeting in some dining haul and throwing business cards at each other for a couple hours and then going home. True networking is as far from this as could be and it should really be known as relationship building.

If you want to support us take a look at our TRUSTED RESOURCES page. If you decide to use any of the links and purchase anything we may get  a small commission that helps support the

Sign up for our email list and you will receive exclusive content that adds to the articles we post here and Get the most out of our posts by subscribing to our telegram

This relationship building is one of the corner stones that HUMINT operations are built on. whether it’s an intel operative in a foreign country or a patrol officer working his own city. One of the first things the good ones do is start developing relationships. These relationships allow them to keep a finger on the pulse of the area they are working.

Building a network is just as important in every day life but that is amplified when traveling, especially if you are traveling solo, or in times of disaster or crisis. Your network can tell you where the good restaurants are, which neighborhoods to avoid, and are more likely to lend you a hand if something goes wrong.

It’s better to be known than to be a stranger especially if you are somewhere new that you don’t know well. If you’re a stranger people might be suspicious of you, but if they know you they might give you the benefit of the doubt. This can be good if a large emergency or crime is committed as it might keep you from being public enemy number 1 just because they don’t know you and can keep you from becoming a target of their criminals because you have some connection to the locals.

Network building is pretty simple in theory. Build relationships right? Most of us can do this on a natural basis somewhat effectively if all the conditions are right but when we set out to do it deliberately it tends to not work out as well.

This is because most people don’t fully understand the patterns and behaviors that are established in our instincts when it comes to building relationships but whether it’s for business, intelligence, or your personal life, if you want to be successful at anything you need to be deliberate in your actions.

Like so many things it starts with research and planning. You need to know what your goals are for your network. If it’s for business what are your business goals, who can help you achieve them and if you don’t know the people who can help you, who do you know that does? Map it out if you have to and start there.

Most networks consist of three kinds of people, your inner circle(your most trusted contacts or friends) long term contacts(your vetted, People that will look out for you and vice versa.) and short term contacts(your acquaintances/intel sources) They may owe you a favor, or just be someone you just met that hasn’t moved up the ladder yet.

Short term contacts are just what they sound like short term. These are the people that you have recently met, maybe you haven’t vetted them completely enough to make them long term contacts yet, or you just haven’t found a way to work them into your network in more long term way.

These are the people that you maybe threw a bone and did them an easy favor and now they owe you one, or a trade show rep you just met and had drinks with, or maybe the B&B owner who just let you into the property. They may be able to open some doors or point you in the right direction on something if you need it.

You wont spend as much time or effort maintaining the relationship with these contacts but they are good to keep in some contact with as you never know when you might have a need they can help you with, vice versa, or how they could wind up as a long term contact someday.

On the security side this is where you do need to be careful as this is where you have the best chance of stopping insider threats before they start. Trade shows and other events where you will be meeting these new contacts are usually a hunting ground for corporate espionage agents as they are always looking to gain access to some form of insider information that they can either sell to the highest bidder or take back to their own company.

Someone at the hotel or air B&B might be feeding marks to a thief ring or worse.

Long term contacts, these are those you have vetted and given strategic positions in your network. They maybe business partners, friends, they could be your family members, and trusted intel sources but you still may not trust them completely And most of them are not in your inner circle.

These people support you, and protect you and you them. You can generally depend on them but they may or may not drop everything to help you if you need it and vice versa. You’re regularly in contact with them and you may even spend some of your personal time with them.

From the security stand point as you don’t trust these people implicitly you should remain careful what you say around them and monitor what they have access to as this is where they would likely start having access to the more critical information or access to you or your business. This is where some damage can be done in one way or another if a threat has made it this far.

Your inner circle, is where you have your most trusted friends and business contacts that you trust implicitly. This does provide a security risk as they will have the most access to you and any private information, however you should have vetted them and established a tight enough relationship that you trust them in this position. Provided you are careful, only the long cons, very good liers, and people with good back stories or resources should make it this far as threats. The major threat you need to be carful of is people within this circle becoming compromised to the point that someone can control their actions.

You should always strive to have at least a couple super connectors in your network. Especially when you’re growing a business network.

Super connectors are people that either intentionally or as a side effect of their situation (profession or socially) are connected to a large number of individuals in a variety of bubbles (industry or location), professions, or social circumstances.

If you enjoyed this post take a look at our TRUSTED RESOURCES page. If you decide to use any of the links and purchase anything we may get  a small commission that helps support the

Sign up for our email list and you will receive exclusive content that adds to the articles we post here and Get the most out of our posts by subscribing to our telegram

Testing Faraday Bags

Always remember Trust but Verify! You should never blindly trust anyone or any piece of equipment. Always vet, test and verify anything before you put your trust in it and even then depending on the situation you may not want to trust it completely, but hey I have trust issues (I think they are warranted) so take that with a grain of salt.

Today we are specifically talking about faraday bags. Faraday bags are made from a special fabric that blocks, or limits the ability of wireless signals to pass through it. In most case people use these to completely block signals from going to the device to either protect from tracking, hacking, or in the case of law enforcement to stop suspects from remotely wiping seized devices.

Now a lot of faraday bags on the market are not actually designed to completely block these signals but only to limit them and that is because these bags specifically are designed to lessen the signals in order to offer a layer of protection against the health issues related to wireless signals but still allow the devices to function so that you can still use them.

This means that if you are looking for a faraday bag for privacy or security reason you should look for ones specifically designed for this task as well as test them before relying on them.

There are two general ways to test a faraday bag, We will start with the quick and dirty.

The quick and dirty method requires a second device and really only works with communications devices such as phones You will need another, what ever you are planning to put in the bag, If thats a radio then you need a second radio if thats a phone then you need a second phone. You will place the one you plan to use the bag for in the bag and then attempt to contact it with the second one.

In the case of a phone if your using blue tooth devices their connections should disconnect which can tell you if the blu tooth is blocked as well.

As you can probably imagine this method is limiting as it doesn’t test GPS and may not necessarily test wifi connections depending on how your phone is set up at the time as well as is limiting when you are wanting to test devices that you may work in this manner.

If you enjoyed this post take a look at our TRUSTED RESOURCES page. If you decide to use any of the links and purchase anything we may get a small commission that helps support the

Sign up for our email list and you will receive exclusive content that adds to the articles we post here.

Get the most out of our posts by subscribing to our telegram or Matrix/element rooms ​

 

Atmospheric Shifts

“Atmospheric Shifts are like ripples in a pond caused by the splashing of a stone, atmospheric shifts are the emotional and situational reactions to a development in a situation” ~ Patrick Horne/Jason Riley

An atmospheric shift is the environment around you reacting to a change within it. This can be a new person entering the area, something said, or something done. We see things like this on a daily basis. For instance, a group of office employees are chatting in the break room when their hardass boss walks in. They go from talking to silent, and sitting to heading back to their desk. This would be an atmospheric shift caused by the boss entering the room.

Another example would be those scenes in the movies we have all seen where the gang or group of soldiers rolls into a neighborhood and every one starts scurrying away as the shop owners start closing up and locking shutters.

Now the change in atmosphere is only the indicator, what changed the atmosphere is what you need to become aware of as it is what likely going to pose the threat. Did a group of gang members just walk into the food court that sent most people to the exits or did your friends suddenly stop laughing when you’re doing your imitation of your boss? or maybe its something as small as you see someone running but they don’t look like they should be, maybe they are wearing a dress instead of exercise cloths, then you see another person running. Look around, are they running from someone else, are they running towards a taxi, or is Godzilla a couple blocks down you get the point

If you enjoyed this post take a look at our TRUSTED RESOURCES page. If you decide to use any of the links and purchase anything we may get a small commission that helps support the

Sign up for our email list and you will receive exclusive content that adds to the articles we post here.

Get the most out of our posts by subscribing to our telegram or Matrix/element rooms ​

 

Stop Getting Deliveries at Your Home

For the security conscious, or if you are a targeted Individual(LEO,Govt., SOF, Celebrity, etc. a habit that you should break is having things delivered directly to your home(especially in your own name). For one this links your physical address to your name.  This information is then easily accessible in people search databases who get this data from the shipping companies.

Now if you have ever had anything delivered to your home address its already out there but you can stem the damage by not taking further deliveries until you can remedy the situation later. Your name and address are still out there to find but if stuff is not coming to your house any more the possibility that someone legit would be just dropping by is much less allowing you to respond more quickly with out having to figure out if they should actually be there.

The biggest step you can take to further your home and personal security is to separate your name from your physical address, with that said this is much easier said than done and can take much more work than be covered here but the information is out there for those that want to pursue this. We will also cover this in more length in our telegram and Matrix rooms.

Back to the topic at hand, when you have things delivered to your home directly you open the door for people to have a justified reason to be on your property. This can be anything from Take out to UPS to appliance deliveries We mean everything, This means that when someone drops by unannounced, you have to then figure out if they belong there or not and if the situation is suspicious or the person poses a threat. Keep in mind that just because they are wearing a uniform of some kind does not mean they are legit.

If you enjoyed this post take a look at our TRUSTED RESOURCES page. If you decide to use any of the links and purchase anything we may get  a small commission that helps support the

Sign up for our email list and you will receive exclusive content that adds to the articles we post here.

Get the most out of our posts by subscribing to our telegram or Matrix/element rooms ​

PACE and Back up Comms

The PACE plan is the new hot topic these days and rightfully so. It applies to equipment or system that is strategically important to your operation or your survival.

.

Comms being high up on both those lists. Cells phones die, or loose service and lets face it electronics for the most part are pretty delicate. One back up in my personal Comms plan is a @beartoothradio. It does have short comings as it still requires a cell phone to work and any one you want to talk to has to have one but if you work out a plan with your party beforehand its a great secure short range form of voice and text communication. It also allows you to save maps for offline use in the event you need some navigation aide as well.

.

When you’re planning you should always be thinking about redundancy. Communications is no different. You want to have multiple options incase one is not working.

.

Option one for most people is their cell phone. In most urban areas this is going to be fine. In more rural areas or over seas this may not be enough. Other options include Ham radio, Satellite phone, cheaper burners, app/tools like gotenna or @beartoothradio, smoke signal…..I probably wouldn’t recommend that last one but what ever works for you.

.

One of your options should be off grid capable. This means no infrastructure required outside of what you or your groups controls. @beartoothradio @gotenna can fit into this category. Meshtastic might possibly be a better option but i have to look into it more and will be doing that here soon.

.

Personally I carry a cell phone, and then for people in my group when I’m traveling we have beartooth as backup. I was visiting a colleague in Alaska a couple years ago and beartooth came in handy quite often when we were out side of the city.

.

another option that I have used in the past is just carrying a spare cheap burner from a service provider that is different from my main cell phone. I carried it unactivated and with a minutes card so that it didn’t expire and if needed can activate it load the minutes and off we go.

If you enjoyed this post take a look at our TRUSTED RESOURCES page. If you decide to use any of the links and purchase anything we may get a small commission that helps support the site.

Sign up for our email list and you will receive exclusive content that adds to the articles we post here.

Trusted Resources

Welcome!

Hello all,

My name is David,

I started this site because the while the world has many beautiful places, beauty and Danger often go hand in hand. The world has many dangers both natural and man made and to think other wise is setting your self up for disaster. Often times the most desirable destinations have the most dangers. Now while dangers cannot and will never be completely eliminated, you can mitigate them to a certain degree. My plan is to use this site to teach you the skills and techniques to accomplish that mitigation where ever possible as well as connect you with other sites and resources to further that goal. This way you can travel to these beautiful places and stay fit, healthy, and as safe as possible while doing so.

I have acquired this knowledge over many years of traveling that stated as a young kid, as well time spent over an ever changing career that started out with EMT school and a volunteer fire department and has continued to change and evolve over the years.

The fire service, and specifically wild land fire, where I discovered my passion for fitness and nutrition and the key role it plays or should pay in everyones life. It is one of the Corner stones of being self reliant which plays a key role in mitigating risk. I also learned how important it is for the average person to be able to handle the basics of first aide especially when traveling.

In addition to posts on fitness and nutrition you’ll find posts on

  • Traveler Safety

  • General Travel Tips

  • Preparation

  • Privacy both at home and while traveling

  • Reviews on destinations, products, books and equipment.

  • As well as the occasional rant but I will try to keep that to a minimum.

I hope that you enjoy what you find here and that you learn something new in the process.

~ David