Rules for Living in Interesting Times

There is a Chinese curse which says 'May you live in interesting times.’ Today, we certainly live in interesting times; times of danger and uncertainty. These are our rules for living in such times.

1 ~ Do Not Get Caught!

         Admit Nothing
2 ~    Deny Everything
         Demand Proof

3 ~ Know the 10 Rules of OPSEC.

• Keep Your Mouth Shut
• Trust No One
• Don't Contaminate Your Identities
• Be Un-interesting (Stay Under the Radar)
• Be Proactively Paranoid, Now
• Know Your Limitations
• Minimize Information – Don’t Reveal Operational Details
• Keep Your Personal Life Separate from Your Professional Life.
• Employ Anti-Profiling & Anti-Forensic Techniques
• Protect Your Assets

4 ~ Think internationally.  Borders are just lines on a map.

We all have our own nationalities, cultures, and countries of origin. Keep faith and allegiance with your own, but don’t overlook what is offered by other nations, cultures, and societies. Adopt that which is useful.


5 ~ Employ counter-surveillance techniques during your daily travel. If you find that you are being followed, cause the hunters to become the hunted. Do the unexpected. Do not settle into a routine that invites easy attack or allows anticipation of your aims and activities.


6 ~ Remember the ‘Moscow Rules’.

• Assume nothing.
• Always listen to your gut; it is your operational antennae.
• Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
• Don’t look back; you are never completely alone.
• Go with the flow, blend in.
• Vary your pattern and stay within your cover.
• Make sure they can't anticipate your destination.
• Lull them into a sense of complacency.
• Don’t harass the opposition.
• Pick the time and place for action.
• Any operation can be aborted; if it feels wrong, then it is wrong.
• Use misdirection, illusion, and deception.
• Keep your options open.
• Always have an escape plan.

    If You Think It's The FSB - It Probably Is!
    Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации (ФСБ)


7. Don’t Necessarily Trust the Government or Law Enforcement.

Writing in Rubin v. United States 524 U.S. 1301 (1998) United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer stated: “The complexity of modern federal criminal law, codified in several thousand sections of the United States Code and the virtually infinite variety of factual circumstances that might trigger an investigation into a possible violation of the law, make it difficult for anyone to know, in advance, just when a particular set of statements might later appear (to a prosecutor) to be relevant to some such investigation.”

8 ~ Secure Your Cyber-Life

The majority of people in developed countries spend at least some time interacting with the Internet, and hostile Governments are abusing that necessity in secret to extend their powers beyond what is necessary and appropriate. Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded... it has reached the point where you don’t have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life.

9 ~ Have a workable and regularly tested communications plan.

According to the ARRL Operating Manual, 10th Edition: “In a nuclear attack scenario, wireless communications resources would be limited, and the only systems that might be usable include limited satellite communications (SATCOM), limited TV/radio broadcasting, Family Radio Service (FRS), General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS), Citizens Band (CB), Multi-Use Radio Service (MURS), HF Automatic Link Establishment (HF-ALE), and Amateur Radio.”


10 ~ Molon Labe - “Never forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anybody has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn’t let him do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians.”  – Aaron Zelman and Neil Smith, “Hope”, 2001.


11 ~ Never be unarmed! Be skilled with your weapons, for you never know when you may have need of them.

In the Hávámal, Odin specifically instructs men never to go about unarmed, as a man will never know when he will meet danger, and have need of a weapon... So consider the following - if you can, be armed always. Yes...I know. But consider the implications. Of those who died facing an armed attack, how many would have willingly disobeyed unconscionable laws in order to stay alive?


12 ~ There is a tremendous difference between shooting methods that work well when you're simply trying to put holes in the target and those that work well when the target is trying to put holes in you. Failing to understand this difference is a mistake that will get you killed if you ever have to use your handgun in a real armed confrontation.


13 ~ Cache Basic Supplies.

A survival cache is a well-hidden stockpile of survival supplies. It’s a collection of extra supplies you want to keep hidden and in reserve just in case. By spreading your supplies in unique hidden locations, if one site becomes compromised, you don’t lose everything.