I reviewed the Hill People Gear Kit Bag on ITS Tactical.
Read the review and then go give your money to Hill People Gear.
Resilient Communications with Continuous Wave Radio
Codegroup is a program written by John Walker that encodes and decodes any file into groups of five letters. For example, take an image, run it through codegroup, and this is what you get:
$ cat avatar.jpg | codegroup | head -n 4
ZZZZZ YPPNI PPOAA ABAEK EGEJE GAAAB ABAAA AABAA ABAAA APPPO
AADLE DFCEF EBFEE PFCDK YCAGH GECNG KHAGF GHCAH GDBCO DACAC
IHFHD GJGOG HCAEJ EKEHC AEKFA EFEHC AHGDG YDCCJ CMCAH BHFGB
GMGJH EHJCA DNCAD JDAAK PPNLA AEDAA ADACA CADAC ACADA DADAD
The resulting code groups lend themselves to being transmitted via low-tech, resilient means, such as continuous wave radio. The ability to do this with any file is a simple but amazingly powerful concept.
I discovered codegroup around the same time that I was learning Morse code. I decided to take advantage of codegroup and put what I was learning into practice. This led to the development of morse.py.
With codegroup, I end up with a series of ASCII characters. I wanted to be able to feed those characters into a program which would convert them to Morse. The program should display the dits and dahs, but more importantly: it should beep them out.
morse.py is a simple script which does just that. It accepts ASCII input and encodes it to International Morse Code. The Morse is printed to the screen, in case you want to key it out yourself. Johnathan Nightingale’s beep.c is used to play the beeps with the terminal bell. The length of dits, dahs, and the pauses in between are configurable, but the defaults conform to International Morse. The input can be a file, but if no file is specified the script simply reads from standard input, which allows it to be piped together with codegroup.
$ morse.py --help
usage: morse.py [-h] [-b BEEP] [-s SPEED] [-f FILE] [-q]
Convert an ASCII file to International Morse Code and play it with system
beeps.
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-b BEEP, --beep BEEP The location of the program that plays the beeps. This
script is intended to be used with Johnathan
Nightingale's beep: http://www.johnath.com/beep/
-s SPEED, --speed SPEED
Reduce the pauses between message characters by the
given amount.
-f FILE, --file FILE The location of the ASCII file to convert.
-q, --quiet Do not print the dots and dashes.
What is the application? Suppose your government has shut down your internet access. You want to send a map to an acquaintance. With these tools, you can encode the map with codegroup, pass the result to morse.py, hold your radio up to your speakers and key the mic. That’s it. Censorship bypassed.
$ cat map.pdf | codegroup | morse.py -b ~/src/beep/beep
On the receiving end, the Morse needs to be translated back to ASCII characters, which can then be decoded with codegroup. It’s a slow process, but resilient. To speed things up, the file being transmitted can be compressed before being passed to codegroup. (And if privacy is a concern, the file can also be encrypted, but that would be illegal unless you are doing so to protect life or property.)
Currently reading Spook Country by William Gibson.
Gibson was one of the most influential authors of my childhood. I had not kept up with him in this millennium, but have begun to rectify that by reading Pattern Recognition a while ago and now Spook Country.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
Terence Eden points out that censorship becomes more difficult as flash memory devices become smaller and gain greater capacity. Case in point: Director Jafar Panahi smuggled This Is Not a Film out of Iran on a flash-drive hidden in a cake. For me, the practicality of the sneakernet became revitalized after I began using git-annex earlier this year.
The Field Message Pad
My first experience with a field message pad was in 2005. I carried a Field Message Pad Cover by Canadian Peacekeeper – now CP Gear – filled with the Canadian military standard issue pad. I was introduced to the concept by one of the early episodes of Patrolling with Sean Kennedy. The idea of having a cover for one’s notepad, which not only protected the pad but also contained pens and the other tools necessary for a dead tree data dump, simply made sense. The system was a pleasure to use, but after filling my last Canadian pad in 2006, I left it in favour of more conventional notepads. The refill pads, being available only from Canada, were difficult to acquire, and all the cool kids were using Moleskines and similar products. I forgot about the old field message pad until this year.
I keep a box that holds all of my filled notepads. Last March I was digging through the box, looking for a particular note (sadly, you can’t grep dead trees), when I came across the Canadian pad and cover. I was reminded of the pleasure the system previously provided me, and the practicality of it. No more digging around for a pen – if you have your notepad, you have your pen. Need to toss your pad into the dirt to free both hands? No problem, it’s protected by the cover. I decided that I would like to revisit the system, but perhaps with a more commonly available pad, and a more mature eye brought to the market’s current offerings.
One of Sean Kennedy’s original requirements for the notepad was that the paper was gridded. I agree with that. Graph paper can be incredibly useful in certain circumstances, and the rest of the time holds no disadvantage for me. The original Canadian pads were gridded, but only on one side of the paper. That made the back of each page less useful, and seemed wasteful to me.
The size of the Canadian pad was acceptable, but a little larger than my ideal. Particularly when the cover was added, it made for just a little bit too much bulk and was sized slightly too large for some cargo pockets. I’d used plenty of the pocket-sized Moleskine notepads. Their size is also acceptable, but if I’m being picky: they’re just a tad too small. Ideally, I would like something sized in between the two.
My third requirements was the the notepad was top-bound. I prefer that over a side-bound pad, as I find them to be easier to access quickly. The binding should be spiral, as that allows the pad to lay open.
It’s a fairly simple criteria, but I was surprised at how difficult it was to accommodate.
The only pad I could find that met the requirements was from Rite in the Rain. Specifically, the 146 (or 946 or 946T for tacticool colors). It is gridded on both sides, is spiral bound on the top, and measures in at 4” x 6” – just slightly larger than a Moleskin, and a bit smaller than the Canadian pad. Rite in the Rain makes an excellent product. I always carry one of their pads when in wilderness environments, but I prefer not to carry them around town. Their waxy paper is unpleasant to write on. If I do not need to worry about the paper getting soaking wet, I prefer to carry a normal notepad. It makes the act of writing more pleasant, which encourages me to write more often.
The nice thing about Rite in the Rain pads, though, is that covers are readily available for them. Tactical Tailor makes a line of covers that Rite in the Rain sells. Maxpedition produces their own. The Tactical Tailor / Rite in the Rain cover for the 146 notepad is the C946. Maxpedition offers a similar cover. They looked great and encouraged me to revisit the notepad search, this time armed with a specific size: 4” x 6”.
Having the dimensions to narrow the search made all the difference. I quickly came upon the Rhodia 13500. It is gridded, 4” x 6”, and top-bound. The exact same as the Rite in the Rain 146, but with normal paper.
These findings allowed me to put together my new field message pad system: a Rite in the Rain pad, Rhodia pad, and a cover. I chose the Tactical Tailor cover simply because it is made about 60 miles from me, where Maxpedition claims that their covers are “imported”. With that cover and two identically sized pads, I could swap in whichever pad was more appropriate for my environment. Around town I carry the Rhodia pad. When I’m heading to the mountains I install the Rite in the Rain pad. Inside the cover I carry a pen (I’m partial to a Parker Jotter with a gel cartridge), a No. 2 pencil, a Sharpie, and a ruler. When I swap the Rhodia pad for the Rite in the Rain, I sometimes also swap the Parker pen for a Fisher Space pen, but in general I don’t like the way the ink comes out of the pressurized cartridges (and I already carry the pencil, which is field-serviceable and is able to write in inclement conditions just as well as the space pen).
I’ve been using this system since April. It is both versatile and functional, and has proved itself perfect for my needs. It is large enough to write on without feeling cramped, and small enough to place in the cargo or ass-cheek pocket of my pants when running around the woods in the middle of the night setting up dead-drops. The cover, Rite in the Rain pad, ruler, Sharpie and pencil are all made in the US. The Parker pen and Rhodia pad are made in France.
Photo comparisons between this and the Canadian system are available on Flickr.
Simon provides anonymous debit cards.
Their prepaid Visa and American Express gift cards can be purchased with cash at any Simon mall. No identification is required. To use the card with online merchants, you will likely need to register the card with an address so that it can pass AVS checks. This can be done through Tor with fake information.
Dreaming of a Tactical Messenger Bag
I wish someone would make a tactical messenger bag.
Plenty of companies make what they claim to be a tactical messenger bag: 5.11, Spec-Ops, ITS, TAD, and Maxpedition to name a few. None of these fit the bill. Those bags are all what I would refer to as a side bag or a man-purse. I don’t use that term in a derogatory sense – they’re fine bags, but they’re not messenger bags.
For me, the defining characteristic of a messenger bag is that it designed to be worn on the back, not hanging down on one’s side. Timbuk2, Chrome, Seagull, and R.E.Load are examples of companies that make messenger bags. I want one of those bags, but with the excellent, so-called “tactical” features that the aforementioned companies bring to the market: appropriate use of PALS webbing1, ability to support concealed carry, a quick-access medical compartment2. (Oh, and velcro for my tacticool patches, of course.)
Try riding a bike with a tactical man-purse, and then try riding a bike with a messenger bag. It’s easy to see why anyone with “messenger” in their job title carries an actual messenger bag. The practicality of such a bag isn’t limited to just the bicycle market: try running, or performing any physical activity (particularly a violent one, as might be required by someone with “tactical” in their job title) with a bag flapping on your side. It doesn’t work. Some companies have tried to address this by adding a stabilizing strap to help lock the bag in place. That’s a fine addition, but it is no replacement for a bag that is properly designed in the first place.
I can’t recognize any advantages that the man-purse offers over the messenger bag. The messenger bag, on the other hand, offers distinct advantages over the man-purse.
Notes
- ↵ Don't try to reinvent the admin compartment. Everyone and their mother makes an admin panel. Just give me some PALS and allow me to mount to the admin panel of my choice to the bag.
- ↵ We'll agree that an armed citizen is more likely to need a blow-out kit than someone unarmed. Now just think how much more likely an armed biker is to need something of that sort!
Alastair Humphreys plans to walk the Empty Quarter.
Wilfred Thesiger is one my heroes. Arabian Sands is one of the great travel books (and one of the few to survive the repeated purges of my bookshelf). Now Alastair Humphreys and Leon McCarron are planning their own walk through the Empty Quarter. I’m excited to see what comes of it.