Intel Update - Dec. 21 - Misaligned Judgement Calls

Hello again everyone welcome back to the underground this is the inel update for December 15th through the 21st 2024 so let's get right to it starting with the Northeast region as one might expect we are still sort of working our way through the uh drone crisis or saga in New Jersey and the tri state area with some developments taking place over the past week so with regards to the alleged drone sightings themselves there really has not been a whole lot of new information we still really don't have hardly any good uh photographs of whatever these objects are uh. Even though we're going on 3 weeks now for some reason the tens of millions of people that live in this area and the thousands of professional photographers still have not gotten uh really any good image of of any of these uh alleged drones so you know that's kind of a data point that we really can't ignore uh a lot of people have claimed to have gotten good clean and clear photographs of of you know some sort of object in the sky. But you you can't really do anything with it so a lot of people thousands of people have messaged me saying hey here's a clear photo you idiot. And then they send me a photograph and it's and it's like a dot in the sky like or like a light in the sky you can't even tell if it's a star or not so you know that's the kind of thing that I've kind of been working through the past week and again we've really just reached kind of information saturation right uh it's really hard to discern what is real from what is fake or what is misidentification again it despite you know me talking at Great length about this last week very few people have have come forward with any sort of good criteria to work from as in a salt report you know size activity location time uh very few people have come out with a good clean uh evidence of any kind now a lot of people have messaged me with very heartfelt and genuine uh sightings of some kind of drone in the sky uh and you know a lot of these a lot of people have emailed me or or messaged me with very very good reports uh you know unfortunately most people basically no one has been able to get a good photograph of what they have seen um so that's again a data point that we just really can't ignore. But a lot of people have emailed me saying that you know they have seen something uh so unfortunately we have to remember that there is a difference between observation and identification and there's a difference between identification and recognition so you know we have to realize that if we see something in the sky we can't really say anything more than we saw something in the sky right uh we have to have additional context where was this at where was it headed did you see any weapons on board would did it look like um any other type of aircraft that maybe we can glean some sort of capabilities from do you see how more information is is going to help us uh get out of this realm of well something's happening. But we don't know what but for now that's kind of where we're at we know something's going on we know that there are at least some consumer grade drones or even maybe militarized drones uh flying around in this area. But beyond that we can't say very much right uh we just do not have that much information so uh let's not talk about the drones themselves very much. But let's talk about the uh governmental response to it like I wrote In The Wire yesterday uh several tfrs or temporary flight restrictions otherwise known as no fly zones have been in placed throughout New Jersey Jersey uh Long Island and really just the whole kind of tri-state area uh more and more are popping up uh by the minute so by the time this briefing comes out I'm sure there will be a few dozen more. But there hasn't really been that much explanation behind uh the reasoning or rationale for imp placing these uh tfrs throughout the region. However I suspect uh personally that the governor's office probably said well we were seeing a lot of drones and we have to do something but we don't really know what to do so we're going to do the only thing that that we know how to do which is put a ban around something so uh my guess is that they said well we're very much at risk for electrical substation attacks with drones because the FBI has told us probably in a lot of closed door meetings that this is a major threat uh because the FBI is kind of involved in those plans themselves so they uh understand that the the larger concerns of drone attacks on electrical substations are a huge threat uh it's a huge risk right now and it has been for many many years it's not a new threat it's been around for a long time so my guess is someone in the governor's office probably saw this report or saw a series of things that made them think well this is something that we can do we can put up a no fly zone around electrical substations and call it a day that's my personal speculation on uh what these tfrs are meant to do unfortunately uh you can very clearly see anyone who has spent a a very short period of time in the world of counterterrorism can see that that this is probably a very very bad idea mostly because well like I wrote In The Wire it seems as if no one has asked the question hey wait a minute why don't we already have no fly zones around critical infrastructure why why do we not already have this uh in place throughout the country well historically going back dozens of years uh the the general sentiment is no fly zones don't really work uh especially for low-level quadcopters that don't really the the amount of capability you would get by doing such isn't really worth the squeeze so uh for the most part putting a small uh no fly zone around something that's very very important identifies that point as being a very very important place that's why we haven't had tfrs around critical infrastructure for the past few decades because everyone knew that it would it would be better for a a very very important and critical like electrical switching station or a substation or something to just be there and nonchalantly just you know we can't hide it you can't hide anything right so trying to hide it will draw more attention to it U that is one of the big aspects of of the counterterrorism world is that there are always malign actors watching right there are always bad guys trying to find out uh how to cause Mayhem and tfrs being around uh very very important sites is a huge uh red flag a huge neon sign saying you know this is an important site so that's why this hasn't been done in the past and it would seem whoever is calling the shots in New York and New Jersey hasn't been told this longstanding Doctrine or they are making a very flawed judgment call it could be that like I wrote uh the good idea fairy showed up some senior leader or or you know military official or counter terorism official said hey well we don't we can't really do anything more than put a TFR around some you know important sites to make sure that we don't have drones flying over them and no one asked to follow-up question of well will a TFR actually stop drones from flying over these locations because right now the answer is no you have to remember the large uh counterterrorism intelligencia so to speak is still operating under a 2014 2015 mentality of drones right like your DJI Phantom 1es or Phantom 2s right they're still operating under the the assumption that a a TFR or a a you know no fly zone will prevent a drone from taking off much like what we have in Washington DC right you can you can take any DJI drone and plop it on the National Mall and guess what it's not going to take off because it's a noly Zone and it's programmed into that uh drone it's a very long story. But it's programmed into the Drone to not you know take off in these regions right so that's how this works uh for a lot of the consumer grade drones unfortunately uh the Ukrainian War happened and now the biggest threat is not coming from a DJI drone of somebody who wants to get a closer picture of the White House that's that's not the threat anymore that's the threat for like lowgrade you know people who are just like doing pranks or something like that right now people can make their own drones and they can uh make uh their own platforms without all of this proprietary software that obeys the tfrs so what does this mean at the end of the day well it means a few things for one uh it identifies all of the critical sites for people who want to cause problems so that's a huge that's a huge concern now again a malign actor a a you know a terrorist or somebody like that who is who is trying to cause Mayhem this is not going to help them that much a professional or you know slightly more organized Insurgent group or group of malign actors they're they're not going to be helped by this the these uh FS being identified via these tfrs that's not going to help them much because you can just go on Google Maps and find any electrical substation right and there's your target um the thing is. Though is that what is this going to do this is going to identify all of these sites for all of the idiots out there who otherwise would not have been a national security threat so now instead of having two or three you know Jihadi terrorists to kind of worry about now you've got two or three Jihadi terrorists to worry about and thousands of low-grade idiots uh who other otherwise wouldn't even be able to think oh well this might be a critical site so congratulations you have now just identified all of this and now you have increased the number of people the federal government has increased the number of people who are now in the Threat Vector box sort of thing so instead of tracking two or three bad guys per District now you're talking about thousands so that's what this has done this is why this is a a concern I am sure someone at the top of of the totem poll said uh it's a negligible concern put a no fly zone around these electrical substations so that we can rule out um innocent Behavior I don't know about anybody else. But there's not that many people there not that many innocent actors flying drones around electrical substations like it's. First of all illegal anyway you can't fly near uh power lines. Anyway so there's a certain distance there anyway so they're already breaking the rules if they're hovering over an electrical substation but also the fact that well how how many innocent people are really doing that you know electrical subst are the least photogenic things there are so my guess is even without the tfrs if somebody is hovering a quadcopter over an electrical substation that's a huge red flag that's a huge uh hostile act right so again all this has done has been a knee-jerk reaction that is not actually resulting in anything good occurring it it's it's just identifying the sites for bad guys. But it's also not actually helping things at all and why is this well again it seems like the counterterrorism agencies have forgotten this concept of Defense in depth meaning a layered defense you don't ever want to make something illegal unless you can back that up because once a person realizes that they can break a rule and nothing bad happens to them all of the other rules that you have out there are are diminished right so if you have a TFR around an electrical substation and an Insurgent group attacks that same substation what do you think is going to happen to all the other tfrs it is is going to prove that nothing can stop this sort of behavior if you make something illegal. And then you can't follow up on stopping that behavior that's a huge problem now tfrs by themselves having no fly zones around critical sites there's a critical reason for that uh because it it is one of the very first parts of the chain in say in engagement right if you're going to shoot something down at some point you know uh or bring it down with some kind of electronic countermeasure the very first thing you're going to want to do is make sure without you know without a shadow of a doubt that that person or whatever that that object is that drone is in the wrong okay so if someone flies into a no-fly zone and they continue flying into a no-fly zone that means that they have either modified their equipment to do so or uh they're they're operating in some sort of intent right so we're showing we're showing a deliberate action to go against the regulations so again it is a tool in the toolbox. But like I said you can't just put a rule in place and then have no way to back it up so you know this is not something that's going to work out in the favor of the American people with regards to counterterrorism I'm afraid so yeah not super great uh I wish I had better news for everyone. But um it seems like this is not a very wise move and this is not necessarily me speaking just my own opinion this this uh for those who maybe have not spent a career in the counterterrorism world doing something like this in the way that they have done it very specifically is not uh in line with most counterterrorism Doctrine so we're we're not following the rule book here we're not going by the doctrine that's been established and we're not going by any sort of anything that makes any common sense in the world of counterterrorism I think that it would be very hard pressed to find anyone who would say this is a good idea in the way that they have done it because what you want to do what the manuals say is put a TFR around something. But also have things like ground observers uh intelligence collection networks uh drone counter measures you need all of these things to work in harmony right again defense in depth you can't just ban something. And then have no way to back it up uh because when you do that you've just identified all of these critical sites and you've gotten nothing in return now again if you're thinking a little bit more sneakily uh you might say well why don't they put some tfrs around things that aren't important to kind of Muddy the water well uh that would be a great idea. But if you look up all of these uh tfrs on the handy dandy map that the uh FAA provides it doesn't appear to be so I mean they've they haven't put up a TFR you know like a grand shell game right they haven't put up any tfrs or anything that's not important uh so again I I hesitate to even talk about this kind of thing because it's such a ridiculously bad idea. But again the feds have done it themselves so I mean me talking about it is not really going to cause any more consternation I guess than what the feds have already done I mean this is now in the International Space anybody with an internet connection can look this stuff up so so you know it's not that that great of a situation. But I guess we'll have to see how it works out hopefully hopefully uh things will work out but uh it just doesn't seem to be a very very good idea and um I guess we'll just have to wait and see how things work out speaking of Jour incursions are briefly wanted to to mention that the Northeast region is not the only place where drones have been observed uh again right Patterson Air Force Base has had several drone incursions uh at their Airfield uh which resulted in a uh a notam being issued to close the Airfield or Clos the airspace for for a period of time uh last week again once that briefing went out they've had uh several more instances of drones being detected uh so they they've witnessed that sort of thing now again uh this is kind of how we have to separate things from what's going on in New Jersey from what's going on around the rest of the country like I pointed out last week uh drone incursions at military bases have been escalating quite sharply over the past couple of years as uh drones have become more more commonly uh observed throughout the United States so again we've had things like Vandenberg space Force Base uh report incursions of literally Chinese Nationals uh collecting Intelligence on the base using a drone recovering the Drone. And then trying to get on plan and go back to China so we've had that sort of thing we're seeing similar things in Ohio of of Unknown Origin at least unknown in the public space so again this is kind of a big deal uh with regards to uh drone incursions at military bases that is very much certain that is absolutely happening uh is this related to what's going on in New Jersey uh it's hard to say uh again because we're dealing in the open source world we don't really have you know access to a lot of of the reports of these drone incursions at other military bases so I think for the most part what has happened in New Jersey is a case of genuine drones being spotted resulting in a case large you know thousands of cases of misidentification which is kind of spiral the situation out of control and now we a lot of malign actors are taking advantage of the fry so for the Chinese spies in you know Ohio or Columbus or Cincinnati or wherever you know they say hey look the people are freaking out New Jersey let's go take advantage of this chaos to uh go fly over the military base again so you know that that would be a a solid move from a Chinese spy here in the United States it seems like that would be fairly common for them to do so you know again it's one of those things where wishing will make it so again like I said last week uh you can definitely uh create a uh National Security concern just based on a case of you know mistaken identity moving outside of the United States I'll come back to the drones in just a moment. But I wanted to briefly touch on the terror attack that occurred in Germany uh last night uh in addition to some of the events going on in Germany so uh Germany's going through kind of a transition time uh because a couple weeks ago their government collapsed uh they had a a vote of no confidence and Chancellor Schultz's government um has has basically uh collapsed on him so they're going to be having a uh snap election in February and we'll see who comes out on top uh right now the the AF FD political party is kind of surging and that is kind of played into what what happened last night at murg uh the terror attack that occurred at a Christmas Market there so again um details are hard to come by right now uh for a couple of different reasons for one uh the event just occurred so not a whole lot of information it's still kind of a developing story uh and this mostly most sharply affects the casualty count so right now officially two people were killed instantly uh during the attack possibly five fatalities have occurred so far. But considering that there are over 80 wounded uh unfortunately the authorities have very bluntly stated that um many dozens more may be expected so that's why they haven't been able to release a a um a casualty count just yet because there are so many people that are wounded uh that are are not expected to survive this attack so again casualty count will U will be revised at a later time once more coming back to the uh more political concerns I guess throughout the region one of the major details of the attack is related to the attacker a lot of information is very contradictory uh what seems to be quite certain is that the attacker is of Saudi origin uh he is a Saudi Refugee who was granted Asylum uh in Germany due to his alleged persecution in Saudi Arabia uh for his views I suppose uh it's hard to say again one of the very first in distinctive things to to kind of lean on is that this was an Islamic based attack you know more of a Jihad type event hard to say with this one it's not immediately clear I personally believe that it is. However there's a lot of a lot of contradictory information out there about how the attacker like renounced Islam or something something to that degree uh it's very hard to say this is a very unique individual he's an older man for one uh you usually don't see this type of thing and he's also a a local doctor so he's a medical professional so that kind of highlights that it probably didn't have anything to do with current events in the Middle East as you would maybe expect uh considering that he could have you know killed many patients uh over the past few years that he's been living in Germany and practicing so uh again it's one of those strange cases I I hope to have more information on it by by Monday. But uh largely I guess the key takeaway for now and and bringing these back to the United States as well is that uh this man had been reported uh several times uh over the past few years because of his very violent rhetoric on social media so he openly threatened uh to kill many people and uh the authorities did absolutely nothing about it because he was a refugee and and um well we know how that goes so uh bringing things back to the United States in the context of the drones uh crisis going on in the Northeast and the the potential Badness that could come from that due to the um in my opinion the incompetent approach to counterterrorism that has been undertaken throughout the Northeast region uh in in the context of what's going on in Germany I just briefly wanted to kind of touch on you know what can we do um with regards to these things so specifically for the Northeast region guys um one of the most important things that you can do is just be aware okay be be ready to observe things I think a lot of the problems that we're seeing in New Jersey and a lot of the the unfortunately the misidentification of of things is simply people looking up from their smartphones for the first time ever or in many many years so again when you've got governors of States you know taking pictures of the constellation Orion in the sky and they think it's drones you know that's that's a pretty big problem I think and it's more of a societal issue than a case of of anything else I mean maybe a case of mass hysteria I don't know. But uh just being aware of what the night sky looks like at night um this is very very important to do uh it's very important to understand what aircraft look like at night it's very important to understand what drones actually look like and just being aware of things again like I mentioned last week are you able do you understand that you can track aircraft online uh do you understand how adsb aircraft tracking Works do you understand the limitations of it all these things I covered last week seem to be um very very important skills uh that that not a lot of people uh have have kind of prioritized so you know it's okay. But you know before before we start uh reacting to things uh and punching this into our risk assessment we need to understand that we have a lot of learning to do sometimes so again leading into risk assessment and risk mitigation one of the more important things that's kind of obvious. But a lot of people seem to forget is that panicking does no good you know if you find yourself out in your yard in the middle of the night holding your smartphone to the sky and just freaking out you know um you really May might want to examine if that's if that's actually helping anything uh generally speaking knork reactions to to some you know large scale events are are not really that good of an idea either way just like in New York you know the knork reaction of well let's put tfrs around things that are important is that going to help anything is that really going to do anything um and is it going to have any sort of um public calming effect you know sometimes a lot of times in government government has to do things or government agencies have to do things that are probably not the best idea to do simply to calm the fears of the public right a lot of government inefficiency occurs from the citizenry not understanding that to do a certain thing would would do no good now is that the case in New Jersey and New York where they've put up these tfrs around substations I don't think so I think that was just a new- jork reaction the the bare minimum that they think they can get away with doing and and that's pretty much that. But you also have to remember you know asking your government to do something for you that is not going to help anything in the end you know that factors into your risk assessment for sure really at the end of the day risk assessment and being able to understand what the threats are and take measures to mitigate those threats that's probably the best way to look at things you know if you've got a drone hovering over your house or if you see something strange at night or if something's happening or you know God forbid an attack occurs via a drone on say an electrical substation as New York seems to think is is going to happen uh what are you going to do about it right um having the ability to to have a a prepared plan for that sort of thing is a huge morale boost uh I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt and it's very you know commonly understood that if say a drone attack were to occur say a small quadcopter was flown by some ins surgeon into a Target uh in the New York and New Jersey area uh it will probably have a very minimal effect in terms of you know Battlefield effects it's a very small device usually. But uh it can it can take out the power uh for a pretty good chunk of the United States and even something as small as a very tiny quadcopter can cause a lot of panic so having the ability to plan for these sorts of things beforehand uh really helps you avoid panicking uh when when the chips are down right so like I said here you know being being prepared even the tiniest little bit uh has definitely proven to be a huge morale boost during a crisis it helps you build your confidence it helps other people who who may be a little bit more fearful of of things to be a lot more prepared again it may be it may be a little bit scary to kind of start thinking about preparedness before the event it's sort of like you know uh you know Mortuary planning right you know planning for things like life insurance and burial and things like that that's kind of a morbid subject to talk about sometimes. But you know once you get through the UN the initial unpleasantness of talking about that sort of thing same thing with regards to preparing for major events like this once you get past that initial stage of unpleasantness you find that at the end of the day you feel a lot better and the people around you feel a lot better as well for having some sort of plan sort of like I mentioned earlier having the ability to understand the threat environment and understand whether or not a capability is matched to the right you know area is very very important as well so what I mean by that is that sometimes very rarely. But sometimes attacks are very very predictable a lot of times you can look at an area you can be in a place particularly around the holiday season right so you've got all of these indicators lining up you can look around um I don't know how many other people do this. But I would imagine that if you're watching this briefing at this point you're you're probably a little bit more observant than the average bear but you know basically raise your hand if you've been in a situation where you're in a public space and you look around and say wow this is a very very high-risk environment because this is a very very uh juicy Target right sometimes you can predict these sorts of things just by looking around um other times you you can't really uh. But a lot of times you can such as in magnor uh anyone who has seen the horrific horrific video of that attack can look at that and say good grief you could have seen this was a potential from you know a mile away right uh so again this is something to consider one thing that statistics have have indicated is that time and time again reading everything from the studies of insurgent attacks in the Middle East to the manifestos of some crazy uh Nut Job who decides to go uh conduct a terror attack here in the United States if you read what they wrote about the attack or if you read about the details of the attack say if they survived or something like that uh and and authorities are able to interview one thing that remains constant is that terrorists in general they always choose the softer Target if they have a Target and they are trying to attack it and they get there on the day of the attack and they see that it is there there are people there there is a counterterrorism effect there there is security at the Target there you know um fences up or something like that that they didn't plan for a lot of times they'll avoid that location uh we've seen this happen a lot with mass Shooters where they report uh that they they show up to their primary target Target and there's security there so they decide to go somewhere else again deterrence Works especially with regards to terroristic attacks. But here's the kicker with all of this the deterrence the the counterterrorism efforts must be matched to the threat this is something that apparently Europe has had a very hard time with understanding for instance in Germany there are very very few uh insurgents in Germany that have firearms okay so so the so the mass shooting threat is very much reduced in favor of what what what the primary uh attack Vector seems to be in Germany which is vehicle ramming if you were to ask me what is the number one uh terroristic threat in the entirety of Europe I would absolutely say vehicle ramming attacks uh insurgents know this this is why the these types of attacks keep coming uh keep coming about again mass stabbing attacks are very very common as well. But in terms of the numbers of victims that that can be uh achieved by a terrorist vehicle ramming is definitely the preferred method especially in some place like Germany where you have to understand the local culture of the Christmas Market right these are um for people in America they may not understand in in Germany most towns most cities have uh they they in Germany they love Christmas it's a whole monthly celebration it's a very big thing and it's very amazing to to take part in if you've ever been to Germany uh during Christmas time it's very very amazing to see unfortunately fortunately there's a lot of risks right so they have a very very big threat for vehicles ramming these uh Christmas markets these these very big uh events and markets that are set up with a lot of pedestrians it's a very very big risk right so Germany uh has done things like put up counterterrorism barricade vehicle barricades everywhere uh things like that. But unfortunately you also have to remember that you must match the counter tourism uh sort of mitigation to the threat itself for instance the insurgents know that uh armed soldiers walking around you know checking the the you know purses of old ladies for Swiss Army knives right they know that that's not going to stop a vehicle a vehicle is a several ton hard metallic object that no amount of small arms in the world is going to stop so they know that. Even if they get shot and they die behind the wheel while conducting their attack they know that physics alone the inertia is going to carry that attack out which is why this is such a huge huge risk so if you have a situation where you're say in a public place right and you notice that there's an awful lot of armed cops around. But there are no vehicle barriers do you see where we're mismatching the threat uh you want to make sure that the threat is matched to the mitigation so if you show up to a place like a Christmas Market or something and you look around and there's a lot of armed police okay cool that's fantastic good we've got a good you know uh counter tourism effect there. But that's not the biggest risk the B biggest risk at this particular venue is vehicle ramming and there's no mitigation for that how effective is your counterterrorism effort right so again this is a little bit hard to explain I suppose. But really what you can do as the average citizen out there is whenever you're at an event a public place or something like that you can think two different things you can ask yourself two different questions one is How would terrorists attack this place you know if you're standing someplace it' be at a Christmas Market Farmers Market some some public venue going to a concert someplace whatever you can ask yourself just in your head how would a terrorist attack this place and two are the counterterrorism efforts aligned with this threat or are they misaligned if you think okay how would a terrorist attack this place well vehicle ramming that's how they would attack this place and the second question is well are there mitigations for that attack right it's a very simple idea uh. But unfortunately a lot of times these things kind of get misaligned and we find ourselves living and working within a a very high-risk environment right so so again coming back to the the sort of drone idea in New Jersey New York area right uh let's talk about what we've learned so far so again when it comes to the drones and the potential drone threats that have now kind of materialized whether or not they were there in the first place who knows. But this is now uh most certainly a concern or at least the federal government thinks so otherwise they wouldn't put tfrs around things so uh when it comes to what the Drone threats are are you able to observe are you able to observe the the Drone or or the object in the sky and can you sort of rule out it being a commercial aircraft based on flight tracking apps and uh can you understand that you know a lot of times aircraft don't even show up on flight tracking applications uh are you able to understand the risks when it comes to drones being in your area so if you live in an area and you live next to or you have an apartment building next to an electrical substation you know does that mean that your risk is increased well yeah it probably does so what can you do to mitigate that uh can you be a little bit more prepared for that sort sort of thing uh if something uh were to occur and more broadly are we seeing something are we seeing counterterrorism efforts and and security efforts uh being undertaken in the right way right if the government says that drones are a threat and they're saying that drones are a threat based on these tfrs if they are saying the drones are a threat are they taking any measures effective measures to counter that threat if not how does that change your own risk assessment right again we all know the the the whole phrase or it's been kind of popularized over the past few years of you know no one is coming to save you right well we say that kind of as a little bit more of a pessimistic view a lot of times. But but generally speaking more more specifically even you can say is the response that is going to occur actually going to achieve the desired effect meaning if the government's trying to prevent a drone attack on an electrical substation can they do that and when they respond to that is it going to help anything at all essentially is anyone coming to help and if not what can you do about it uh from your end right so how does that affect your preparedness right to to kind of take up for those deficiencies that we may see so again all of this comes down to what I have here at the bottom personal Readiness right with regards to specifically those of you living in New York New Jersey Long Island whatever uh and if the threat or if the concern is a drone attack on an electrical substation again this is not my logic this is the faa's logic and this is the state of New York so they are saying and they are concerned with drone attacks on electrical substations this is not again my my theory this is theirs so if that is the threat how can you mitigate what possibly would happen if an attack were to occur right so say their counter tourism efforts fail say those tfrs fail uh say an attacker is able to attack an electrical substation and the government can't stop that well what's going to happen like work through it work through it in your own mind what is going to happen. First of all the power's going to go out so do you have uh backup electrical needs do you have some sort of U backup batter battery system or or some kind of generator system I'm not sure how the regulations work in the uh tri-state area with regards to that sort of thing. But I can tell you that it's probably not a good idea to run a gasoline generator in an apartment building so do you have some kind of portable power station or backup in that regard same thing with regards to Medical if an Insurgent is going to attack an electrical substation with you know drones that have explosives on them then chances are there are probably going to be some injuries you know uh They Also may miss the substation and hit you so again having uh medical Readiness uh is very very important having the knowledge and the skills and the equipment on hand is going to be very very very important I don't like it any more than anybody else uh having to sort of EDC a full ifac every day you know that I leave my house or even just when I'm you walking around my yard honestly you know I I don't like that I I really don't like having to to be this prepared. But unfortunately that is a risk mitigation effort that is very important I personally think so you know um having some sort of of medical uh equipment on you at all times and the knowledge and the knowledge to use it is critical in 2024 in the United States of America again something along the same lines is fire uh fire for me at least personally is a very very big concern because fire can spread very very quickly and if we're starting to inject Terror attacks at some point you know into American society you know the potential for fire can be very very very serious especially if you live in a high-rise building that you know maybe the the victim of a drone attack or something like that it is utterly amazing how many people in the United States do not have functioning smoke detectors and uh the number of people who do not have uh at least several uh fire fire extinguishers in their own homes um this is a very huge thing to prepare for and not a lot of people put that much uh effort or or investment into it these things don't cost that much money. But especially uh if you live in say a townhouse or uh some sort of other shared dwelling with somebody else maybe an apartment building a duplex or something like that or. Even if you live in a freestanding like subdivision or something like that but your houses are so close together they might as well be an apartment building uh that's kind of the trend throughout a huge portion of America putting you know freestanding houses. But they're all very close together so you may be very uh uh prepared when it comes to Fire and things like that but your your neighbor might not be right so again it's unfortunate to have to kind of prepare for other people. But that's been the culture of uh fire prevention for the past few hundred years right that's how this has worked so again when it comes to preparing for other people having you know fire extinguishers uh fire plans and things like that for others is uh a worthy investment. Even though that mentality may not cover over come over to other forms of preparedness with with regards to fire I personally think it is I would very much rather buy you know my nextdoor neighbor a fire extinguisher and just give it to them for free uh than for my own house to burn down because they uh they they were not prepared now again situations are going to vary on that or I'm not saying that everybody should go out and do that. But I'm saying to just kind of think about it you may be prepared but your neighbors might not be and again if the federal government is trying to tell us that drones with explosives may be flying into electric substations now this this may start to become a little bit more higher priority in terms of preparedness right same thing with regards to Communications again when electricity goes down guess what also goes down a lot of times cellular networks go down your ham radio repeaters go down um other critical infrastructure goes down electricity is needed for most of society to function on a day-to-day basis so when electricity goes out when the power goes out chances are Communications will be very very hard to come by now again when it comes to our modern world we have a lot of ways to mitigate this again starlink for instance can be run off of a portable power station for many many hours it doesn't pull that much power and that's satellite based you know non uh terrestrial based Communications networks that's that's very good right that's that's awesome to see same thing with regards to radio right I've talked about this at Great length in other content before radios you just can't beat uh having a a a small lowcost radio especially if you need to communicate with other people in your local area where the power goes out so again having the plan in place is more important than the specific gear you choose the plan is always going to be more important right so again having a lost contact plan if you find yourself you know uh without power and you can't contact you know your loved ones or whatever uh at you know say if they're at work or if they're at school or something like that having the ability or having the plan in place to know what they are going to do and what you are going to do in the event that the power goes out and it stays out for some time that's very very important and it doesn't necessarily have to equate to buying more stuff really just having the plan in place for if the power goes out and if the cell phone towers go down for a little bit that's very very important so that's pretty much what I wanted to talk about today I hope that this has been somewhat helpful uh for many of you out there who have been kind of concerned about these sorts of drone things and now that you know electrical substations are on the menu uh and we're starting to see tfrs Pop up um you know it's not exactly a good sign. But rather than kind of dwell on that and kind of get get dragged down with that sort of thing uh having the ability to take that information. And then do something about it a little bit more proactive to be honest the average American citizen out there can't really do that much with regards to counterterrorism right unfortunately that's just the way that it is the average American citizen can absolutely punch above their weight in terms of assessing risk. Though and the American citizen out there doesn't have the bloat and slow re re action time that say a federal agency might so again once the federal government has has done what they're going to do the American people which are somewhat separated from that well we can we can you know hold up our end of the bargain too right and and be a little bit more proactive. Even though a lot of the responsibilities that we're having to prepare for nowadays are unfortunately something that the government should be doing right it's a government's job to protect their citizens and if if that's not happening well it's unfortunate that that's happening. But we have to pick up the slack right so being a little bit more proactive being a little bit more prepared thinking about things a little bit more deliberately these are the things that we can do uh in the meantime so wrapping things up today with ghostnet reports uh I've gotten quite a quite a bit of reports over the past week I think a lot of people are are taking some time off for the holidays and uh using that time uh to to hop on the radio and talk about things which is great propagation has been really good over the past couple of weeks so again we have a lot of reports talking about things like the US Merchant Marine Fleet which is fascinating information and of course we have someone here mentioning the the FAA tfrs throughout the region uh in the northeast of the United States so that's you know interesting information good good to see right again lots of good news reports um the the ghost net is kind of an interesting way to to get a lot of news reports you may not have seen and it's a way to share information and standardize and and normalize sharing information over the radio without going through the internet a lot of times right so that's it's got a very very unique use case in that regard um. But again like I try to remind everyone a lot of times right you will get out of the ghost net what you put into it um now again a lot of people can passively listen to this sort of radio network right and and get the news reports themselves. But again if this is not just a single point of failure right this is not just a place for me to write reports and then push them out via radio that's that's not what this is all about that does happen I do that quite a lot. But but really it's about a a decentralized way of sharing information so uh that that's kind of the the way that this works unfortunately there are some downsides like this week I got a a fairly long complaint regarding uh you know some of the practices that that happen on the ghost net which is one of the things that is kind of annoying is uh people doing SNR requests and kind of clogging up the network I I'll just say it that way clogging up the the radio net uh I have addressed this in the guide itself the the manual for how to use this network I've addressed it in video content I've addressed it in social media posts uh I can't address it right any more than I already have uh this is just something that happens right and and it's one of those things that happens when you have truly free speech right truly free speech uh or as close to it as you can get uh has downsides sometimes right and sometimes people shout louder than other people uh so that's one of the things that happens and again being able to work through these downsides work around the inconvenience kinds of things this is super important to be able to learn how to do now if you get annoyed at a user hitting a button on the radio how are you going to operate when the military is jamming you like for instance the Cuban military jamming you know the radio frequencies like they did a few weeks ago the Russians the ukrainians whoever the Chinese jamming or even the Americans testing some kind of new radar this happens all the time so if you get annoyed and you find that you know it's an it's what is it largely unusable if you find that to be a problem well what's the solution right can we work around this like learn how to operate around this sort of thing um and learn how to use the tools that we have in a you know contested environment right in a non-permissive environment sort of thing so again just kind of an important reminder out there for a lot of people I think that it's it's kind of an important thing to remember a lot of times so that's pretty much all I have for today again here are the sources again thank you all for tuning in this week I know that it's been kind of a hectic week and I know a lot of people are kind of um uh very much uh annoyed and kind of overwhelmed and just don't really care anymore about the whole drone situation in New Jersey. But uh that's why I wanted to take this week as as a chance to kind of start start using this this situation as a way to think about other threats that may come up right so again we live in very very interesting times and uh doesn't mean that we need to panic you know every minute of the day about the sort of thing. But also we don't want to you know keep our heads in the sand with regards to uh uh some of the more you know malign actors out there for sure there's uh plenty of people out there that that are uh uh not super not super great and they uh they they want to cause a lot of problems so recognizing that not dwelling on it so much. But recognizing it and taking steps to kind of work through it is very very important at least in my opinion so so again thank you all for watching uh brief admin announcement uh I'm going to take Christmas Day and the 26th off from uh producing wire reports uh I'll produce them up until Christmas Eve like usual and uh. But I want to take Christmas Day and the 26th off from from doing some wire reports for a bit uh and but I'll return on the 27th uh of course pending any emergency if there's any kind of Crisis or some some sort of disaster that occurs I will of course uh resume uh with a topical update on that as needed. But uh you guys know how it goes if you don't see a a wire report on the 25th through the 26th um I'll I'll be back on the 27th so I'll again push this out as a reminder in Monday's wire just for those people who haven't watched this far so so yeah thank you guys all for watching and I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas uh in advance and uh I guess we'll. See you next week so uh thank you guys all for watching again and we'll. See you next time and as always fight in the shade.