Day Minus 50

In about a month and a half, my plan will be complete. Some of my team members have already performed their parts , been compensated, and dismissed. They are still being watched, of course. Everyone must behave still, for another 50 days. Anyone cracking at this point is unlikely to cause anyone but himself any mischief, but I do not need the extra work dealing with a problem child.

The majority of my team, if they cared to check, would find that any incriminating information points back to themselves . In fact, they have committed the crimes; I m simply guilty of conspiracy . They know they can t go to the police. Except for the people people , none of the team members are aware of each other. My people people don t want to have anything to do with an investigation. They re also not clever enough to know anything useful.

I have a small number of details that remain in my plan that must be attended to. There are a few key people whom I must direct. There are some final pieces of information I must collect. By the time 0-day rolls around, the plan will carry itself forward while I am not there to direct it personally . A grand total of two of my team members must still be cooperative on day plus 1, and only for 24 hours following that. I will have only to take final receipt of the funds before establishing a new secure base and severing the remaining ties.

Unfortunately, I am vulnerable for two days while traveling and until I can establish a new base of operations. I won t be planning my final destination until 0-day. I will have a number of travel methods available to me and will pick a method and destination that day. I have done enough research on a number of South American countries to determine which ones are viable for an initial base, but have kept that to a minimum. I have no desire to telegraph my destination, especially since I will be vulnerable to being picked off during that time.

I have a small amount of information that I must be able to retrieve after I arrive . This includes some information on certain bank accounts, identities and locations. This information will be the last extracted from the cage. From there, the information will be placed on a few of the hosted servers in encrypted form. Encrypted garbage will be place on about a dozen others. The hosting services are prepaid for a year. After I collect the information from South America, the copies will be replaced with more encrypted garbage. If all goes well, the garbage will replace the real data on the backup tapes before anyone thinks to investigate.

I will be spending the 10 days prior memorizing and practicing a 96-character passphrase. I won t be carrying any form of the data on my person while traveling.

When it is time to leave, I will destroy all the hard drives in the compound. Day minus 1 will begin with a perimeter sweep of my property to make sure no one is around to intercept me. Following that, the furnace will be brought to full temperature. All of the hard drives in the basement will be carried to the furnace, cracked open with a sledgehammer as quickly as possible, and the platters fed into the crucible. For the cage PC, I will also destroy the encrypting controller and any USB keys in my possession.

The house will be left as-is. Eventually, the prepayments on the various services for the utilities and communications will expire and be turned off. Some may go to collections, and this might cause an investigation. The alternative is to cancel everything, which would make it immediately clear to anyone watching that I won t be back. After I m gone, making any contact with anything having to do with my previous life is not an option, so they can t be gradually turned off later.

The thermite and alarm will be melted down. The cage and all the rest of the equipment will simply be left behind.

When I leave, it will be with just the clothes on my back and a wallet. The truck will stay behind. If someone doesn t observe me leaving the property, they might not realize I m gone for a couple of days if they are watching the house.

I ll have $400 in my wallet, which will be sufficient to catch a bus to a number of cities with airports. In each of those cities, I will be able to collect a set of identification that will match an e-ticket for a flight out of that airport to a city in South America. There will also be a small amount of additional cash if needed. I will swap ID there and dispose of my old cards. In that city, I will purchase a small suitcase and a set of clothing to fill it.

My face is not completely unknown in some circles and is likely to set of alarms if my picture is run. No one is likely to recognize me in person, though. I now have long hair and a grey beard and moustache. I m about 40 pounds lighter. Nothing will be suspicious about me at customs , though. There will be nothing out of order that could cause me to be detained.

When I get south of the border, I will have access to a cache of local currency that will allow me to rent living quarters and purchase a computer. The immediate task will be to retrieve a small file, obtain a copy of PGP, make some account transfers, and establish a permanent base.