Burner Phones

Nextel Cell Phone

While a staple of modern thriller and spy movies, burn phones are a “work around” to the SIGINT threats that cell phones pose against advanced and professional capable threats.

The concept is simple. Use burn phones between members that can not be tied to those people if analysis is performed.

The execution is hardly simple.

Most burn phones are “pay as you go” meaning there is a phone card, or the phone gets “topped up” on usage minutes so no checking or credit card account has to be used. Many pay as you go phones need a one time credit card payment to activate the account or top up, so a pre-paid Visa gift card or something similar is the tool of choice.

Because prepaid phones and gift cards are often sold at stores that record surveillance footage, so care must be taken when acquiring them. Also, if one phone becomes flagged other phones from that same store, or gift cards from the same store will also be watched, so best practice is to get a prepaid gift card from one store, Wait several weeks, then get a phone from another store.

Remember proximity analysis! If your “normal” cell phone was in close proximity to where either the burn phone, or the gift card were bought, it will be scrutinized more. Likewise, if a burn phone was ever in close proximity to your home, work, or any place you frequent, you will receive more scrutiny.

Remember link analysis! If you use the burn phone to call home, or friends or co-workers, or team mates, they will all be looked at more closely. A burn phone should only be used to call other burn phones, or call decoy numbers that can not be associated with you.

Remember pattern analysis! Your “normal” phone needs an alibi, or to be in its normal pattern. While inconvenient, start leaving your “normal” phone at home one day a week, or on weekends, etc, this creates patterns, that once established, are less likely to raise red flags.

I’m not dead yet!




Stay tuned!


Satellites and SIGINT

From the blog: https://satelliteobservation.wordpress.com/

Full article here:


Signal intelligence 101: SIGINT targets


Historical Context




Read the rest of the article at it’s source:

Mobilization Indicators for the Homegrown Violent Extremist



An Excerpt:

The indicators of violent extremist mobilization described herein are intended to
violent extremist activities including potential travel overseas to join a Foreign Terrorist
meaning how clearly we judge the behavior demonstrates an individual’s trajectory towards

New communications book for the library

The “Multinational Capability Development Campaign” is a follow-on to the Multinational Experiment (MNE) series initiated by United States Joint Forces Command in 2001. It is designed to develop and introduce new capabilities to enhance the coalition force’s operational effectiveness in joint, interagency, multinational, and coalition operations. While it maintains the foundational blocks that made the MNE series successful, MCDC incorporates significant changes in scope, mission, and governance that improve responsiveness, agility, and relevance. 

Their handbook :”Military Strategic Communications in Coalition Operations” gives insight into strategic communications at the Joint Taskforce level.    While the material is a bit bureaucratic for the small team, the information in it is useful for understanding communications organizations at the high level.

From the handbook:

This handbook is intended for use by commanders and their staff at the operational Joint Task Force
(JTF) level, but could be used at any level as a reference. The purpose of the publication is to describe
the fundamental operational aspects of Strategic Communication (StratCom) in the military, and
propose guidance for the implementation of StratCom in support of a deployed JTF.
The primary audience of this handbook comprises the JTF Command Group and HQ Special Staff; the
members of the StratCom staff element(s); the Intelligence staff; the Operations staff; the Plans staff;
the Information Operations (Info Ops) staff and Public Affairs Officers (PAOs) at all levels.
Additional audiences include: personnel involved in the UN Integrated Missions Planning Process or
similar processes at the inter-governmental or strategic-political level; decision-makers, planners and
analysts at the military-strategic level; the operational-level Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) staff;
staff members involved in liaison and Joint Military Commission (JMC) activities; and related staff and
commanders at the Component Command (CC) level.
Chapter 7 – Military Strategic Communication in a Nutshell – is intended to provide a concise first
overview of the subject for anyone not (yet) familiar with or not directly involved in the execution of
StratCom tasks.2
It should also be read by the StratCom staff to derive incentives for discussions with,
and education and training of non-StratCom personnel, as required.

Updated version of DRYAD generator



I forgot to seed the random generator


My DRYAD bug


The Seed is the key

Link HERE!

While it is pseudo random, it is still not good enough







The next version of the DRYAD generator


P.S.   The big numbers:

The number of possible combinations on a single DRYAD line:
aka 403.29 Septillion

The number of possible combinations for a full DRYAD sheet:
I can not count that high.   

aka 31.54 Million

Estimated age of the universe:
13.82 Billion years old
Number of Seconds in the universe so far:
About 484,000,000,000,000,000
aka 484 Quadrillion

New HF Direction finding methods from Isreal

The new ELK 7065 from IAI:

From the link:


More info HERE!


And last but not least, a Youtube video:


The Role of Intelligence in Small Tactical Teams


What is Intelligence





Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield


Sam Culper has an Amazon ebook (more like a pamphlet) on Amazon, called “intelligence preparation of the battlefield”, as well as his book “SHTF Intelligence” and website https://readfomag.com/ that goes into much more depth.



Intelligence Database





Operational Planning










Putting it all together

Example 1: Neighborhood Protection Team




What is an indicator that a threat is imminent?















Example 2: Intel in political action





Example 3: Guerrilla / Insurgency


Understanding the human terrain is essential!





Additionally this company supports intelligence sections at brigade and battalion level.


For more links check the S2 section here:

Citizenmilitem.com S2 library


OPSEC and RF Security

Modern radios are made to be used by people with little training or experience. Usually if two radios are set to the same frequency, two people can start using them effectively in very little time. Radios are used in warehouses, department stores, hotels, film sets, and a myriad of other locations. The information in this blog may seem to be overkill, but these procedures are intended to work in a high threat environment where bad radio procedures put lives at risks. Here, we will look at some of the security implications that come about from radio use.


Operational Security, (OPSEC) is the process of keeping information that could be used against you from your adversaries. There are several broad categories of information that we will focus on. We want to deny our enemies information that can reveal the following information:

1) Capabilities. By knowing what your group is capable of, an enemy can act so as to negate your strengths, or deny you employing your capabilities to their fullest effect. If an enemy knows you are capable of shooting down helicopters, they will limit their use of helicopters in your area of operations to deny your group those kills.

2) Limitations. By knowing what your group is not capable of, an opponent can exploit those limits for their own gain. If your opponent knows you can not shoot down helicopters, they may use more helicopters to move about, so as to avoid ground based IED’s, and ambushes.

3) Identification. Personal and functional identification can both help an adversary against you. a)Functional identification is identifying the purpose of a group or unit. Observing a bunch of men in uniform is some information, but being able to determine if they are a logistics company, vs a medical treatment team, vs special forces unit all dictate different reactions.
b) Personal identification is identifying individual people within a group. Knowing that the commander of a unit is Captain John Doe, of 1234 main street, Anytown, would allow an adversary to possibly pressure or otherwise compromise Captain Doe’s family, and thus gain an advantage.

4) Location. Knowing where a unit is allows an opposition force (OPFOR) to maneuver to intercept, block, avoid, attack, or follow that group. If OPFOR knows you are based on north ridge of Candy Mountain they can plan an appropriate attack.

5) Intentions. Knowing what a group plans to do allows for the enemy to take actions to reduce the effectiveness of those actions. If your enemy knows you plan to attack an outpost tomorrow at dawn, they can move in reinforcements, or set a trap, or move to intercept before you arrive, ect…

6) Activities. Knowing what you are doing at the current time allows your adversary to adjust their plans accordingly. If your adversary knows you are currently setting up a camp, then they can probably assume you are not about to attack them, and operations they carry out at that time are safer to execute.

7) Effects of enemy action. Knowing what effect their own actions have had on your group will allow an enemy to adjust their planning and operations to better effect. If an enemy knows that their last attack was very effective, then they will continue to carry out the same kind of attacks, where as if an attack had little or no effect, they may change their methods.

Information from any of the above categories may also give the enemy information in other categories. Knowing your intent to go to a certain position at some time in the future, reveals a future location. Identifying a units function hints at some capabilities and limitations. That is why it is crucial for OPSEC to protect this information.

Imagine the following radio exchange between an infantry platoon, B1, and their command, B6:

B6: “Team 1, Team 1, this is command, do you copy? Over.

B1: “Command, this is Team 1, go ahead. Over.

B6: “Hey Bob, we took a licking from OPFOR yesterday out by Candy Mountain. They destroyed our HF radio, so we do not have any long range commo at the moment. Well, anyway, we are going to attack their outpost on the north side of Happy Valley tomorrow morning. Rendezvous at Grid 1213141589 at 0500. We will place the mortars just east of that location, and attack at 0600. Over.

B1: “Roger, We copy all that, Frank. We will head out tonight, and layup about an hour south of the rendezvous, until 0400, and then head in. see ya there, and stay safe. Over

B6: “Roger that Bob. Team 1, this is command. Over and out

The above exchange is full of OPSEC violations. Personal ID of Frank, and Bob; functional ID. of command and team; capabilities of having mortars, limitations of command not having a HF radio; locations of the rendezvous, layup, and mortar positions, intent of their plan and the effect of the previous attack. It is a goldmine of information for the OPFOR. Based on this information, the OPFOR can ambush Team 1 in route to their layup, or rendezvous, or sabotage the mortar position, or attack the rendezvous before Team 1 links up, or reinforce their outpost, or vacate it and lay traps, ect…

We can mitigate these OPSEC violations by following the standard operating procedures (SOP’s) found in Volume 1 of the Signals Handbook.    By only transmitting what is necessary, and by following the proper format, The above exchange becomes the following:

B6: “Bravo 1, Bravo 1, This is Bravo 6, Over.

B1: “Bravo 6, This is Bravo 1, go ahead, Over

B6: “Rally at Grid 121314589, at 0500. Over.

B1: “Wilco, Out.

We can see with this new exchange, we have eliminated a lot of the OPSEC compromises. There is still a location, and some intent, but it is a lot less actionable than the first exchange. Any additional information about the attack, or mortar positions can be exchanged by B1 and B6 in person at the rendezvous.

By following good SOP’s we can reduce, but not entirely eliminate OPSEC compromises. We can further reduce our OPSEC compromises by employing good COMSEC.


Communications Security (COMSEC) is the process of protecting the content of our communications. There are a number of approaches that can be used to implement COMSEC, from technological to procedural. Technological methods include encrypted radios, frequency hopping radios, steganography (hiding communications within other messages), and certain bands or modes of radio communication. Procedural methods include using codewords, codebooks, and manual encryption.
Good COMSEC lets us achieve better OPSEC.

Looking at the exchange above, we see that the OPSEC compromises still there are the grid location, and time to be there. Since “Bravo 1” and “Bravo 6” are following army convention then it also hints that B6 is command, compromising functional identification, so just by adding code names and DRYAD based encryption (As discussed in Volume 1 ) we can remove the rest of the OPSEC compromises:

B6: “Whirlwind, Whirlwind, This is Thunderhead. Over.

B1: “Thunderhead, this is Whirlwind. Go ahead. Over.

B6: “Rally at grid I set Charlie, November, Quebec, Yankee, Alpha, Foxtrot, Juliett, X-Ray, Bravo, Hotel, at time, I set: Lima, India, November, Foxtrot, Victor. Over.

B1: “Wilco. Out.

Now our transmission only tells them that we will be going somewhere, sometime. By using the DRYAD encryption we are denying them information about location and time. If we deem that even that little bit of information is too much of a compromise of OPSEC, we can either encrypt the whole message via a one time pad, or use the a codebook and the DRYAD sheet to also encrypt the “rally” and “time” parts of the message.


Another part of the OPSEC plan should include transmission security (TRANSEC.) Because an opponent may be using signals intelligence, (SIGINT) we need to take measures to minimize the radio signals they can detect. The longer a radio is transmitting, the greater chance the opponent’s SIGINT element will detect it, and possibly radio locate, or radio direction find the transmitting radio.

The simple fact that a radio transmission is being received at all, may give a rough idea of the location of the transmitter, and radiolocation can pinpoint it, compromising the location. This is a breach of OPSEC. Even if everything is encrypted, link analysis (keeping track of who talks to who) can allow an analyst to get some general functional identification of units, such as defining what element is the command and control element. This breach of OPSEC would allow a small enemy force to determine which unit to attack yields the biggest reward.

There are a number of methods that help improve TRANSEC. The most important method is to only transmit when absolutely necessary for the mission, or the security of other friendly or allied units.

When transmissions must be made, keeping them short helps TRANSEC, as well as changing frequencies at regular intervals. Use the lowest transmit power needed to make the communication. Use directional antennas. Use unusual bands or modes.

D) Threat SIGINT Capabilities

The United States armed forces employ high levels of TRANSEC and COMSEC technology, and procedures when operating in a hostile environment. Those technologies and procedures are supported by thousands of personnel at every echelon of the force. Unfortunately, a small team does not have the resources to execute every COMSEC and TRANSEC measure. For the purpose of this handbook, we will divide threat forces SIGINT capability into 5 categories.

1) None. When there is no adversary or opponent, there is no one to offer any SIGINT threat. We operate in this condition for some administration and camp duties. It is also appropriate for training that is not focused on communications. For example, range safety officers communicating with each other over a large rifle range.
We do not need to take any special precautions in a no SIGINT threat environment.

2) Low. We consider it a low SIGINT threat when we do not have a defined opponent, or our opponent is not likely to have any active SIGINT capability. A looting gang in the aftermath of a natural disaster would be an example of a low SIGINT threat. In this environment, our biggest danger is “inadvertant SIGINT” If some people in the threat group are using some commonly available radios such as FRS/GMRS or CB radios, and our group also uses those same types of radios, then there is a chance that we accidentally end up on the same channel as the threat group, and they may hear our transmissions.
Precautions to take in a low SIGINT threat environment include using radio SOP’s to keep transmissions short and to the point. Code words and code names generally provides enough COMSEC to foil any OPFOR listening to our transmissions. If available, use radios that are not as common as CB, and FRS/GMRS.

3) Medium. We define a medium SIGINT threat as a group that has nascent SIGINT capabilities. This may include professional criminal organizations, or other small tactical teams/groups. The equipment used would most likely be one or several handheld radio scanners. Most commercially available radio scanners these days can scan or search the VHF and UHF radio bands, and can listen to FM analog voice transmissions. Some of the newer (and more expensive) scanners can also decode the APCO/P25 digital voice transmissions that many public safety agencies are switching to. If the public safety agency is using encryption on their radios, however, the scanner cannot decode it. Medium SIGINT threat groups may also have persistance, and record radio intercepts, and perform intelligence analysis on radio activity. Basic link analysis may be employed.
Precautions that should be taken against medium SIGINT threats include using radios that do not use analog FM voice, or P25 digital. Using unusual frequencies, and of course keeping transmissions to a minimum will help with TRANSEC. If you are able to use non-P25 digital modes, then code words and code names should suffice for COMSEC. If you must use analog or P25, then you should employ full COMSEC measures including one time pads, and DRYAD/code book encryption.

4) Advanced. Advanced SIGINT threats are groups that contain as members: radio experts, avid scanner hobbyist, or communications professionals with access to professional level equipment. They will have more capabilities than can be offered by just having scanners. They may have surveillance receivers, spectrum analyzers, frequency counters, wideband receivers, or computer based “software defined radio” (SDR) receivers. An advanced SIGINT capability may be able to decode any non-encrypted digital communications, and may have radio direction finding and radiolocation systems. They will also perform intelligence analysis on all radio activity.
Precautions against advanced capabilities include all “medium” precautions, but only employing full COMSEC. Nothing should be sent un-encrypted.

5) High/professional. High SIGINT threat opponents include professional military, and large government law enforcement agencies. They will have well funded SIGINT capabilities with multiple professional staff. They will be able to call on experts around the world and devote tremendous resources to breaking your OPSEC. They may have computer hackers, and technologists that can derive OPSEC information from other electronic sources.
Precautions against professional SIGINT threats: do not use computers or radios. If you absolutely must, then keep use to a minimum, and be crafty. Expect being crafty to fail.