From: merriman@metronet.com (David K. Merriman)
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 94 16:31:30 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Electronic Revolution and Guerilla Warfare?
Message-ID: <199409302330.AA12249@metronet.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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>	Under these conditions, all that can be done is sustain heavy
>casualties while waging guerrilla warfare.  Hope that truth, justice &
>the american way will prevail, but don't expect to live to see it
>happen.  If the government really is monitoring everything, using van
>eck etc, fighting is very difficult.  The US army has learned to bring
>massive force on a relatively precise point.  The US army is not good
>at dealing with small bands of highly mobile snipers, guerrillas, etc.
>Witness Bosnia, where we won't even venture, v. Iraq.  The Iraqis had
>a large tank force, were fighting in the open, and got their butts
>kicked.
>
>	The Bosnians make good use of cover, use small, 'easily'
>transportable weapons (topping out at 120mm mortars, which are barely
>carryable by one person in good shape.  80 is better).  Most of the
>Northeast would be good terrain, as would the Rockies.  The midwest,
>which is where the facists in Gov't are probably from, is too flat &
>open for unconventional warfare.
>


You're right about the mountainous areas being fairly easy to guerrilla
from; ditto the *major* urban areas due to their population densities.
We've got borders that couldn't be effectively closed - and held that way -
without an expenditure that would surely break any government over the long
run.  Relatively minor urban areas (say, under half-million population)
would be fairly easily monitored and controlled.

>| What problems would those willing to fight such government oppression be
>| likely to face?  How to deal with those problems?  How to organize and
>| exchange personnel/information?  How to not get caught?  How to avoid
>| detection? What means/methods of, um, dissonance against such a government
>| would be more/less effective? Under what various permutations of
>| electronic/physical bushwhacking would the process be successful or not?
>| Duration?  Other than the obvious crypto/cyber/military disciplines, what
>| other professions or specialized knowledge would be useful under what
>| conditions? What blatantly obvious thing(s) have I left out?
>
>	Exchange of information would have to be limited; read up on
>direction finding hardware.  You would want small groups working to
>disrupt & demoralize those who are being oppressive.
>
>	You would want to use HFREF guns, EMPT bombs, cable cutting,
>jamming, and lots of other EW that most people know very little about.
>Check out Winn Schwartau's Information Warfare for a primer.
>

Communications would be a pure bitch without some kind of web-of-trust
similar to PGP's. Ditto personnel or other underground transfers.  The first
few years of the movement would see incredible caualties, either by way of
death or captures, until the participants learned that it was "for-real".

Acts of violence and sabotage would be sparse at first, because that kind of
knowledge isn't particularly needed or wanted these days. In a large
country, and as large as such a government would have to be, simple physical
sabotage and destruction wouldn't cut it. There would *have* to be people
working on the command/control/communications side, logistics, etc, as well:
getting some phreak to go in an turn the local Baby Bell substation's
circuit into a pretzel, for example; or hacking an order for supplies so as
to leave out something important, but not *critical*, so as to
irritate/demoralize.

As many miles of train track as we have in this country, and considering how
much of our food and raw materials still travel by rail, it wouldn't be
terribly difficult to randomly de-spike some of the rail and wait for a
train to catch it wrong - particularly on a curve.

Killing of low- and mid-level government officials (the upper level ones
would have some degree of security/protection) would become a new "sport" -
one has to wonder how many folks would be willing to be tax collectors if
the survival rate for them was, say, 6 months. If the military got dragged
in to helping the government (almost a necessity) it wouldn't take long
before Billy Bob from Lubbock caught on that the same kind of harm he was
causing Mrs. O'leary in Chicago was probably happening to *his* momma by
someone from Seattle.

>	The main skill you have left out is oration/propaganda.  Its
>the Patrick Henrys and Sam Adams who made the revolution happen.
>Without them, Washington wouldn't have had volunteers for his army.
>Note that this is a tough area to work in today.  There are so many
>people trying skillfully to manipulate opinion that its tough to come
>across well.
>

As noted, propaganda/PR would become *very* important - I doubt such a
government could maintain any kind of pretense that things weren't going
wrong for them. Key though, would have to be honesty on the part of the
revolutionists - they wouldn't be likely to win friends and influence
enemies if they lied as badly, and often, as such a government would have to.

Other skills/occupations that I've thought of that would help would be
things like engineers (who would know better how to take down a bridge than
a civil engineer?), burglar alarm folks (obvious reasons), and so on - in
short, the kinds of folks that have to deal with abstract concepts in a
creative way.  Most valuable of all would be the folks that had as much
diverse theoretical knowledge as possible, with practical experience to
temper it.  Someone with military experience and knowledge of computer
systems, crypto, electricity/electronics, mechanical/civil engineering,
chemistry (at least, "practical" kind, like home-brew ordnance), military
tactics and strategy, logistics, communications, planning and organization,
medicine (say, knowing how much Jimson weed juice to add to a 5-gallon
coffee urn to make a guard force bonkers), and of course, a healthy dose of
suspicion/paranoia. Someone with all these attributes, plus a taste for
action/adventure/war/crime stories and a good memory for their details,
would likely be worth his/her weight in C-4.

Dave Merriman
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