Wake up, blog!
I’m torn between the desire for operational security (OpSec) on one hand, and on the other hand, the commission from God to teach what I know.
I use a VPN on my computers. I discovered some time ago that my account on my ISP — the best one in town — was compromised. What tipped me off was that the ISP blocked some sites that my phone could reach when it wasn’t using WIFI. My cell service is through a different provider. The choice of sites blocked indicated who was behind it. Using a VPN means that the ISP can’t selectively block those URLs because it’s all encrypted between my computer and the VPN servers.
The picture is complicated. You need to understand that whoever is messing with me isn’t that serious about it. I perceive that I am under a rather low level of surveillance and harassment. On this blog I was previously harassed by comments from people who were clearly sock-puppets — agents of clandestine government services trying to herd people into saying things that would get them arrested, or at least revealing the wrong kind of information that justifies a court order for closer watching. Because I was able to name and shame the sock-puppets, that harassment ended.
Had they not backed off, I could have filed complaints with their service providers for abuse, which creates a big hassle for the sock-puppet operations. I’ve done that before on previous blogs. Even if they are masking their source through their own VPN, it still requires some kind of response from the VPN provider itself. That’s the current state of law and industry standards. Cellphone harassment via services specific to cellphones is one thing, but when someone engages the Internet itself, they are forced to leave tracks. The Internet won’t work without the source IP address in the packets. You could, in theory, masquerade your cellphone number, but you can’t hide your IP address, and that IP address belongs to somebody who is legally obliged to respond to certain complaints.
Keep in mind that different agencies have their own unique set of habits regarding this kind of stuff. If it’s the likes of NSA, CIA and their allies, your goose is cooked. But if it’s something like FBI or US Marshals, they tend to be ham-fisted in some areas. For real threats, the various agencies cooperate, but I believe I have gotten some low-level attention from the ham-fisted sort. They have screwed up from day one. Were it more serious, I wouldn’t know about it, or would likely already be gone (from the Net, at least).
If the feds wanted to simply cut me off from the Net altogether, it requires a very substantial rigmarole that still has lots of leaks. I’m not that kind of threat. The bureaucratic instinct is to watch and manipulate in situ, not cut you off. The former is far easier and more productive in their thinking. The latter is currently nearly impossible, and requires that you be officially identified very narrowly as some kind of threat that doesn’t quite justify jailing you.
If you are working alone, it’s a whole lot easier. Once you garner support, it really complicates federal persecution. Taking all my devices means I’ll just get them from someone else, and it could easily include devices that still appear to be in other people’s hands. There are functional tablets, for example, that don’t run malware and don’t report your location so clearly as Android devices or iPads do. I’ve been looking at them online, but so far they tend to be clunky or expensive. Still, I believe they are the future for me, somewhere out there in the “not just yet” land. (I’m waiting for improvements.)
Radix Fidem community and Kiln of the Soul ministries are not interested in the kind of activism that gets serious attention from the federal government. All we do is simply infowar. It is most certainly warfare, but not aimed at any concrete results. We are proposing a very non-mainstream faith in Christ, loudly denouncing sin as we understand it, and proposing kinds of answers, but not specific actions.
We purposely limit our reach. This is not your traditional evangelism that seeks to convert just anyone, under the assumption that every human is fair game. We believe firmly in Divine Election; we do not choose who will respond. Indeed, we intentionally avoid anything that smacks of manipulating people into faux responses. We aim for miracles that only God can perform.
For the non-elect, there is nothing anyone can do on our human level, and nothing anyone will do in Eternity. For the Elect, Satan’s whole business is information warfare. That’s his sole power with humans. Our flesh is his best ally, but we are teaching nailing the flesh to the Cross, subjecting it to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Devil certainly doesn’t like this, but he is not yet allowed to seize human government personally, and so must work through fallible and blind human nature among the non-elect. This puts distinct limitations on the hassles we face as believers.
I can’t guess how quickly things might degrade to the point Satan is allowed to seize control, but for now, there are way too many factors missing to imagine that day is very close. The threat right now is indirect. No human government is set up to make faith itself illegal. That would require dramatic changes, and my convictions say that’s not coming soon. The persecution we face is political, not directly aimed at faith. The faithful are being swept up in a general oppression of those who dare to dissent about anything at all.
So, the commission from Christ means we conduct information warfare on the Net for now, and engage individuals as the opportunity arises online or offline.
