Jon Camfield

Thinking about tomorrow’s threats against human rights and the open Internet. Frustrated Optimist, open source nerd, gardener, salsa dancer, cook, husband, dad, embarrassed Texan. Opinions here are my own. he/they

I’ve been thinking a lot about a “digital go bag” concept, now that “go-bags” are in the public narrative. What would it look like? What use cases would it focus on? Real life go-bags are generally focused on getting you able to get to a safe place, with usually about 3 days worth of emergency supplies and gear, alongside some essentials like money, documentation, and medical/first aid needs. For a digital go-bag, I am focused on two situations:

  1. Navigating the digital impacts of an emergency that impacts communication networks and your ability to access online accounts and services.
  2. Being less reliant on any one service, be that social media, email, or a cloud storage provider/online backups, in case it goes offline, you lose access, or for whatever reason, you need to server your relationship with it.

I’ve settled on three guiding principles: Community, Content, and Connectivity.

Community

Who do you know, where? Which friends are only on what social media platforms? If you lost access to one or more of these platforms, how would you get back in touch? There are no silver bullets here, but mapping out your community and having multiple paths to maintain contact gives you a ton of resilience and flexibility. This also gives you a chance to nudge your community to think about their own platform reliance, and perhaps set up shop outside of the centralized systems.

And this might seem basic – but get to know some real-world neighbors. If power and/or communications networks go out, having some friends just a few doors down can be incredibly reassuring to not have to face things alone, and for sharing information and resources with.

First Steps

  • Rebuild your own Address Book Refresh contact list – your email, phone, and physical address contact info of key people. Backing up your email content as noted in Content is a big help here!
  • Diversify Messaging Connect with your network on additional messenger services - Signal is a great option here.
  • Email The DYI process below can also cover this; but I want to separately call out using non-webmail email programs (think Outlook) which can download your email fully locally in a more usable / searchable way than the DYI tools. Thunderbird is a free and open-source email app which can interface with most online email systems and give you a real-time backup of those, particularly capturing all of the email addresses that never formally make it into an address book. It lets you check multiple accounts at once, keep the records and emails from old accounts even once you close them online, and more.
  • Decentralize your social media Set up shop on the fediverse! It’s a collection of much smaller social networks which all connect together, so you can find one with moderation rules you like, but still have access to the entire network.
  • Download your information DYI tools (discussed below in Content) are useful here to have a personal archive of your account. Unless the backup format has changed, you can even create a searchable website of your twitter data

Next Important Step: Practice

  • Practice - Try reducing your usage of and reliance on various tools without losing a sense of being part of your communities. How can you shift your practices to a more diverse collection of tools which are more under your control? Try going for a day or a week without opening up an app you normally frequent. What news and which people or communities do you feel out of touch with, and how can you rebuild that connection with different practices and tools?
  • Information Landscaping With that practice, what media and news did you feel was missing? Part of community is also your media ecosystem - are there news sources you usually see in your social media networks which you can subscribe to (email newsletters, apps, RSS feeds) outside of there, to stay informed?
  • Clean Up After Yourself - As you adjust your online presence, consider closing, locking, or changing posts to private on any sites you leave, to reduce your overall footprint and visibility, particularly if you’re no longer engaged there. Cyd is an amazing tool that can help archive and also clean up your accounts. I’d also suggest working through the “crucial” items in the Big Ass Data Broker Opt-Out List to remove your personal data from brokerage sites often used by doxxers.

Content

We have ceded so much of our modern life to cloud providers, that we’ve almost lost a sense of dealing with backups and “local” content. What critical contact information or history is only in your email? What critical documentation (scans of your passport, digital copies of your birth certificate, house information/lease/titles) do you have saved only on google drive / dropbox / whatever? If you had to grab your laptop and go, or if the Internet just stopped working, what would you have local, reliable access to? If bank networks went down, what proof of investment would you have in our paperless e-banking era?

Like a go bag, the focus is on immediate need, but with some of the risks of permanent loss of access to digital assets, it’s worth also considering if there are things like family photos which only exist in an online photo backup like Apple or Google photos.

These are tangible risks which we have seen play out politically, with Microsoft revoking the International Criminal Court proescutor’s access to email and documents after a USG missive, and a longer tail of stories of parents losing Google access - often permanently - based on photos of their kids.

On top of personal content, are there go-to guides or information you rely on the Internet to help you with? Maps, how-tos, repair manuals, or so on. What of that can you save to reduce your reliance on the Internet working?

First steps

  • Map your data This trainer’s curricula on data backups, built for trainers working with human rights defenders worldwide, provides an activity you can use to walk yourself, your family, your organization, or community through mapping out your most critical data, and where it is.
  • Don’t Forget your Passwords - Password Managers tend to store locally and then use the Internet for secure backups, but also including an archive of your passwords (make sure it is stored encrypted / password protected!) is great for your peace of mind.
  • Review your data dependencies - What content that’s normally online/available at your fingertips which - if lost - would be a problem? An important consideration here is actual real-world map data if you need to navigate and cannot access Google/Apple Maps. Guru Maps is free and has comprehensive, OpenStreetMap downloads.
  • DYI tools - “Download Your Information” - offer the most comprehensive way to extract and backup your data from platforms. Most other methods are intentionally hobbled to discourage users from leaving one cloud platform and moving to another (Google Photos limits download quality, Apple iCloud forces you to manually select photos, and only allows 1000 at a time). The DYI process forces much larger downloads, so you will need a lot of time even on a good Internet connection, and usually 10s of GBs of free space! This is a big project - write notes as you go so it’s easier the second time through. I honestly only manage to update my offline photo backups every year or so, and having well-worn and annotated notes to go through is a lifesaver.
  • Even more archiving tools - Did you know it’s easy to download the entire English version of Wikipedia? Make local, archival copies of videos? The Internet Archive also has tons of media available for downloading, including older versions of websites.

Next Important Step: Backups

OK now you’ve freed your data - the hard part is making sure it’s backed up and safe. Laptops die, hard drives flake - this is unfortunately a “forever” process, but it doesn’t have to be super hard once you get a flow set up.

The key here is getting this critical information you’ve identified copied to at least one, ideally two other locations, and have a process to keep that decently up to date. The details will depend heavily on your tech level, what things and how much you’re backing up, and so on. All-in on Apple? a Time Machine drive on your local network might be enough. Diverse tools, lots more storage? A “NAS” can work with a lot of different backup tools on your computers. I personally love SyncThing, which just keeps a set of folders synced across multiple computers - if one of those is a NAS, that can also be itself backed up as once central location.

Once you get everything you just identified and acquired backed up to one location - make another backup of that! I like storing a secondary backup in my bank’s safe deposit box. Obviously that’s always out of date, but in a catastrophic event (house burnt down/burglarized/etc.), my backups have… well, at least some better chance of surviving.

A Note on Security This data will have a ton of your sensitive information in it if you’ve gotten everything you might need - so be very careful what you do with it. I would not use an online service to back this up without first encrypting large chunks of it. You should also consider encrypting the backup drive itself. This makes it more difficult to work with or get data off of – especially during a stressful moment – but also means that others can’t just plug it in and access everything.

Connectivity

This is a hard one, but important, as many crisis paths lead to loss of reliable connectivity. Is the power out for an extended time, was there a large cloud outage? Cyberattack? Government censorship, up to partial or complete shutdown of the Internet? Shutdowns are regular occurrences worldwide, and they are incredibly challenging to deal with if you’re not prepared. All of the above parts of your “go bag” presume and require a stable Internet connection. The preparation for a loss of connectivity … requires connectivity, and you will be much less able to take these steps once any of this has happened.

Partial, often politically-driven, Internet shutdowns are a hard fact in many places around the world. These often target specific services (social media, messaging, news sites) - but luckily for everyone, there are tons of useful tools to deal with that. VPNs often will help, but it’s a good idea to have a few more powerful “censorship circumvention” tools also available, which are custom-built to ensure you have reliable access to information.

It is easy to tip over into a bottomless pit here, so it’s important to constrain your efforts to first some easy wins, and evaluate your situation from there. My take here is (1) have a plan on where to go and meet up with your family, friends, organization, or community in case of a communications blackout, (2) get yourself a few important tools to navigate partial Internet shutdowns, and (3) spend time thinking about what in your life breaks immediately if these things aren’t working - e.g. ATMs might not work, gas stations might not allow pumping or be cash only, and of course normal communication about where to meet, or changing plans might be very limited.

First Steps

  • Make a Meetup Plan, a backup plan, and a strategy - What is your go-to plan on meeting up if you cannot contact your family / friends? If you’re planning around a larger community or organization, what types of contingency plans do you build around other factors? Do you have a backup location if your first choice is not an option? If both are not an option, what simple logic will people follow to stay safe and eventually find each other? Does everyone have the knowledge and means to get there?
  • Get some Shutdown Circumvention tools - There are tons of options here, but for simple and reliable across a lot of use-cases, Tor, Tor for iOS), and Psiphon are good choices with tools and apps that work on almost every device. This link provides more guidance for shutdown communications with additional tool recommendations (and because it’s been a rough decade so far, translations in Dari, Pashto, Ukranian, Russian, and more)
  • Get meshy - maybe. Walkie-Talkie style radios, as well as “P2P” and mesh apps are also things that can be useful in this situation. Walkie-Talkies notably are unencrypted - anyone can “dial in” to the same frequency and listen in. P2P/mesh apps require a lot of people using the same tool, or you being relatively nearby who you’re talking to (and some have fixed that by allowing very long / slow delays as messages get couriered from one device to another until they find their destination - which may never actually happen!). If you’re working at a community or organizational level, consider mass-adopting a tool, but also have realistic expectations of range/speed/utility. There are longer-range tools like meshtastic - but again, these rely on multiple notes and hardware set up ahead of time. I want to love and recommend these tools, but they require a dense community of users and practice to get right.

A note on satellite communication - don’t count on it! It’s potentially a great solution for connectivity in hard to reach locations, but satellites depend on terrestrial Internet connectivity - and are governed by normal companies subject to cyberattacks, government pressure, and normal failures - just like the rest of the Internet. In case of some disasters, that new satellite SOS tool on some of the latest phones might indeed be a life-saver, but you shouldn’t put all your backup planning just on that, either. I’ve written at length on threat modeling for satellite communications if you want to get nerdy.

Next Important Step: Testing

After you’ve downloaded these tools, made a meetup plan, or even adopted some radio communications tools - test it all out! This doesn’t have to be anything more serious than deciding on a time to put your phones away and stop using any other connectivity device and execute the plan. Take a long lunch in the middle of your day and figure out how to meet up from wherever you are, and note where your plan falls apart and you need to revert back to normal communication. The first time you do this, something will go sideways and not work out, and that is exactly why we practice. Try again, and once you are all comfortable, try actually putting your phones in airplane mode for the test - do your offline nav tools from the Content seciton work?

Final Thoughts: Re-packing your other go-bag

Review your physical components of the digital go-bag. This probably includes a portable battery, at least one of each type of cable (and make sure to have a few which can plug in to the more ubiquitous USB-A plug), wall adapters, car adapters, protective/padded cases as needed, and some water-proofing options (zip-lock bags!).

It’s also important to know where everything physically is - maybe your backup drive is plugged in to keep it up to date, or your battery is charging – but make sure these and similar items are on a “grab and go” checklist for everything not already in your go bag.

Reconsider your preparation needs for digital outages. Do you have a physical address book for key contacts? Accessible, agreed-upon plans for meeting locations/strategies?

For communication gaps - especially widespread ones which may impact other services (banking, payment terminals at gas stations / groceries, etc.) - think through what your gaps are and if there are additional go-bag items to help there. Having cash on hand is a common recommendation for go-bags, and keeping your vehicle’s tank from getting too close to empty is another. Paper maps for the ultimate direction-finding backup may be a third. Are there other immediate dependencies (Medication? Public Transportation?) you have where a breakdown of communication networks could be a problem?

No amount of prep will ever feel - or be - perfect, and that cannot be your goal. Your goal is to be a step or two ahead of where you are now, and more confident about the challenged you could face. Good luck out there.

This post specifically is CC-BY-SA-NC for community improvement, inclusion in other guides, and/or the creation of a more comprehensive digital-go-bag guide.