MEANINGFUL OPSEC; OR, NOW, YOU DON’T HAVE A PERSONAL FBI AGENT
I’ve been considering operational security and security culture a lot since the Turtle Island Liberation Front (TILF) case broke. For such a small group, about seven people, two were feds (well, one was a paid informant, the other was an FBI agent).
I am reminded of the joke myth of a CPUSA meeting that a federal infiltrator attends in order to arrest the attendees. Then all the other members are also feds. Cue the laugh track.
Despite the colossal fuck-up of being infiltrated, TILF had a plan that seemed based in strong Opsec. From The United States District Court For The Central District Of California: “The plan described multiple operational security measures the co-conspirators should take to conceal their identities, such as the use of a burner phone that would be disposed of after the bombings by ‘submerging it in a concrete brick after destroying the sim and then disposing of the brick in a body of water.’” and: the use of ‘BlacBloc’ overtop of a layer of ‘grey/casual bloc’ on top of normal street clothes, and noted to keep hair very tightly concealed and to wear gloves for the purpose of avoidance of leaving behind DNA” further: “participants should leave their personal devices at home and to make sure the devices were set up to stream a long movie during the time of the attacks, so as to craft an alibi.” Even a pebble in the show to alter their walking and material acquisition advice to avoid suspicion, were discussed.
A question I am stuck on is how can you have thought through these particular aspects of prep work and on the ground Opsec and allow yourself to be infiltrated by two Feds? As a friend said, “Because their security was missing the trees for the forest.”
From CrimethInc’s “What is Security Culture?” The difference between protocol and culture is that culture becomes unconscious, instinctive, and thus effortless; once the safest possible behavior has become habitual for everyone in the circles in which you travel, you can spend less time and energy emphasizing the need for it, or suffering the consequences of not having it, or worrying about how much danger you’re in, as you’ll know you’re already doing everything you can to be careful. It seems, from what is available, TILF had strong protocols for their “Operation Midnight Sun,” but not a real culture to develop secure, safe relationships to avoid infiltration. They posted calls for direct action and revolution on social media, one that was easily connected to a member of TILF (and thus, the radical section that sought to do the attack). They let relatively new people into the plan: the informant and later the FBI agent. The difference in attitudes about security by the same people is striking.
By having a strong focus (and in the case of TILF, reasonable ones in regards to the plan) on only some parts of Security Culture and not a whole picture, you leave gaps in the culture. For most people, this is “well, the feds are watching” and thus their security culture centers that primary concern, as opposed to it being part of a wider network of concerns. And let us be real: most of us do not have the feds particularly watching our actions or groupings, outside of the concerns of a general surveillance state. This all comes at the expense of, say, local cops, right-wing agitators, or the common person who may overhear or see something they shouldn’t.
So, while TILF did have personal FBI agents inside their network, it was because of a failure of their security culture leading up to that point. Had it been a stronger culture, maybe “Operation Midnight Sun” would have been another CNN news segment we’d forget by the next day.
Questions
- What security concerns do you find are most overlooked in anarchist circles? What about overdone?
- How are security concerns changing in light of the development of companies like Flock Safety, Oracle and Palantir?
- What are ways security culture and protocols change between anarchist groupings, particularly those separated by geography? (Say, in different cities or countries)
Comments
activists continue falling for these police plots simply because
CalvinSmith Sun, 01/25/2026 - 13:31
all political activism is driven by a fear-based type of logic.
Rather than trying to repair something that clearly doesn't work out in the end for people who care about the forests and the trees, we can recognize the similarity between what police agencies and con artists do. For example: con artists often use a strategy which appeals to urgency, and it works because people have a lot of things they worry about, much of it not being necessary as it seems. This is why we all keep getting those fake invoice emails; i've never fallen for that particular scam, but if for one second you believe that you may owe someone money that you don't, then you can be engineered into falling for it. I would rather just be honest about what little powers I have: if it seems like something authentic, i may very well believe it actually is, and if i'm afraid of something, then I might be even more gullible.
You can talk about protocols and best practices all you want, but if keep repeating certain assumptions to the point that anyone can anticipate them, then obedience to these practices are the weaknesses, and not the strengths.
"all political activism is…
anonymous (not verified) Mon, 01/26/2026 - 04:05
In reply to activists continue falling for these police plots simply because by CalvinSmith
"all political activism is driven by a fear-based type of logic."
Quite the opposite... activism can be considered as very reckless or at least brave. Like anti-gang activists in Mexico who kept being butchered, or that White Rose activist movement in Nazi Germany, or, yeah, the Black activism we had in the US, that got dangerous again under the current regime.
Regardless of what you think of its tactics, real activism involves saying "fuck it" to the potential consequences of taking a stance openly. I don't agree with such above-ground actions, but sometimes they might be what some people see as their last resort.
i think you make a solid point about "fuck it" logic, but i
CalvinSmith Mon, 01/26/2026 - 10:28
In reply to "all political activism is… by anonymous (not verified)
still do not think you are factoring in fear, as it relates to activism, very carefully. The reason people start talking about engaging in sabotage, or anything the state would consider "violent and illegal", is because they fear a version of the future where these companies are un-oppossed and pocketing the returns of their activities. Also, do not talk to me as if i have no experience in these things; i'll speak with some openness because i'm talking about conversations had a long time ago, but me and friends did discuss taking things into the realm of sabotage in relation to local environmental destruction by a company. It never happened because we got sick of discussing everything in terms of paranoia and possible state surveillance. Also, police infiltration never became an issue just because we all perfectly knew that we were not informants...but in real life situations, that does change once a single person gets caught in the state's net.
This is why despite my oppositions to eco-extremism, the subject matter itself is still fairly interesting. If the logic is "fuck the future", then the issue is not going at it to an extreme degree. Of course an online discussion discussing this would be ultra-silly, because behind that safe little anon label, people are embracing the exact of opposite of what you are bringing up in your post...
someone might pursue any…
anonymous (not verified) Mon, 01/26/2026 - 12:24
In reply to i think you make a solid point about "fuck it" logic, but i by CalvinSmith
someone might pursue any form of attack simply as a cathartic emotional expression, or bc of a relative utility calculation, or for personal/interpersonal reasons. it does not need to be justified as an attempt to prevent an imagined poor future, not at all. we're in the poor future. i don't know what's in everyone else's heads but i'm pretty sure most sappers have long left behind hope and are acting out of jouissance
We're talking about more than punching a wall
CalvinSmith Tue, 01/27/2026 - 11:03
In reply to someone might pursue any… by anonymous (not verified)
here, or giving "a fascist" a karate chop.
The insistence on repeating ideology, ad infinitum, is part of what makes left/anarchist counterculture so stagnant and susceptible to police manipulation in the first place. You're just repeating Baeden terminology. Baedan isn't really that great of a book, it yammers on about "the totality", and the writers even point out several issues with Edelman's Reproductive Futurism. Fuck the totality, and your collectively shared "poor future".
Likely, if anyone commits some act of sabotage and gets away with it, they are acting out of a mind towards both the present and the future. You need the latter to even comment on evading police capture, but you can continue with repeating something you read from a book all you like. I'm glad you're so thoroughly cozy and satisfied with internet domination. The computer industry is also something you can sabotage, since you seem so thrilled with jouissance, but no, you're doing opposite: you're feeding it.
whoa, calvin, did lumpy come…
anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/27/2026 - 13:18
In reply to We're talking about more than punching a wall by CalvinSmith
whoa, calvin, did lumpy come back from the grave to impersonate you? idk how you drew all these conclusions from what i said. we're clearly dialoguing and the mingling of our theories is immanent. AND, i'm pretty sure anyone's worldview could match pretty tightly to some essay or another. ya don't see people criticizing ancoms for following dean spade word for word.
I do kinda have a problem with reproductive futurity, in that it (almost as a synonym to biopower) seems to express WHY generation after generation of disenfranchised people have been unable to utterly detach from the societies of their upbringing. But at the same time, i recognize that people (esp with kids) are never going to leave behind that bias en masse. biopower will continue to dictate while supply chains remain tenable.
but i absolutely also subscribe to deleuze's ontology of state that eg the state is emergent from humanity but while it never "starts" nor ends, it has many small outsides and irregularities that transect it entirely and that it can never definitively shut them. so if i can't get away from futurity, and no revolution could ever abolish property, law, and symbolic mediation, i can at least pursue my jouissance in the neglected cracks, and i can even make a gesture to the vagrants and miscreants of the future by working on my forest gardening and wildtending. i get an honest revulsion at the thought of doing something that would materially support the liberals' children of the future, so i try to filter my strategy toward things/places only misfits looking for subsistence would encounter.
idk if you want to call that acting out of fear (activism) or like, useless academized jouissance, but that's where i am, going along with futurity but only if i can have my subversive spin and ego trip. this is the hand i was dealt, and i am an animal, so it is what it is
interesting, while I'm not paritcularly rattled,
CalvinSmith Wed, 01/28/2026 - 12:26
In reply to whoa, calvin, did lumpy come… by anonymous (not verified)
calling someone on here "lumpy" has to be one of the more egregious/offensive insults in anarchist news history.
I never wanted to apply the caulk to your anti-state cracks, those are mostly the only joys that we really have...no need to use the french labeling...but you see, the difference between me and an ideologists is I realize this is all in fact words and theory. Undoubtedly, the pigs do have their own joys and destructive pleasures, undercover "success" being one of them. I'll leave it to the radical activists and the police to blame the people who get caught in police nets...we all make mistakes.
As to the rest of your screed, I don't have much to say: clearly you see your activism as a eugenics program against liberals, as you care whether or not they reproduce...which is the basis for all eugenics. That probably puts you more in the Info War or Turning Point camp rather than affirming some insurgent crowd of monkey-wrenchers and sappers.
You can't stop The Liberals from having kids and pursuing american consumer lifestyles, and you don't even need to worry about that: population overcrowding, sexual violence, familial violence, and generalized dissatisfaction with life inevitably drives people away from having kids. Your minuscule efforts to harm them are laughable, and once again shows that fear about "tomorrow" is a factor in activism. Americans are losing hope in The Family, and i have no issues with it, despite that the reasoning behind it isn't necessarily anti-state. I still have my trusty right hand.
"so i try to filter my strategy toward things/places only misfits looking for subsistence would encounter."
Yes, i greatly sympathize with that desire, and if you can satisfy that desire, then i suggest you protect the knowledge of how you found it and don't give perls to swine. As a Distinctively Dionysian issue once said, don't tell the dullards about it. However, Misfits only exist to the extent that Normal People also exist, and that realization has been depressing for me, but there's no moving beyond it once you see it that way...i just try to do my best to take interest in animals, and communicate with humans in a way as closely consistent with my vague sets of values...in the past, i saw "The Misfits" as being the illegal drug users, and i passionately wanted to be part of that crowd. The, it was "The Anarchists", and I guess I still haven't left, unfortunately digital anarchism is surveillance anarchism....
calvin, my favorite thing is…
anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/28/2026 - 13:21
In reply to interesting, while I'm not paritcularly rattled, by CalvinSmith
calvin, my favorite thing is that even misfits don't always get along with misfits, and it brings me joy to think that all* strivings will eventually fail as life at all scales constantly negates and reinitiates itself like the spontaneous generation of subatomic particles in the fabric of space. considering how much will happen after we're gone that we can never know, we really have nothing to lose but attachment. no need to wring hands about being implicated into online media etc
*all here is used in a probabilistic sense, not a teleological one, but even probability approaches teleology after enough chances
my ears are burning! still…
lumpy (not verified) Sat, 01/31/2026 - 09:40
In reply to calvin, my favorite thing is… by anonymous (not verified)
my ears are burning! still got real estate in your little minds, too bad about the property values!
lump. we will never forget…
anonymous (not verified) Sun, 02/01/2026 - 08:46
In reply to my ears are burning! still… by lumpy (not verified)
lump. we will never forget you, as we try and try and fail to find illegalist friends in the apartments and workplaces of the eternal ever after
CalvinTheScrivener "They're…
lumpy (not verified) Sat, 01/31/2026 - 09:59
In reply to i think you make a solid point about "fuck it" logic, but i by CalvinSmith
CalvinTheScrivener
"They're all scared! I know this because I've done some shit! I'll speak with some openness: one time me and some friends talked about doing some sabotage shit but then we didn't ...NOT because we were scared! THAT'S HOW I KNOW EVERYONE IS SCARED!"
...i haven't bothered with this place in awhile but here you still are, self-owning so hard that it forces me to reexamine the limits of my own imagination while i picture people being embarrassing on the internet.
stay real calvin! this place is the therapist you deserve.
oh is this mean? am i not contributing enough to these thought provoking discussions? lol
"safe relationships" cue…
anonymous (not verified) Sun, 01/25/2026 - 14:33
"safe relationships" cue laugh track
1. What security concerns do you find are most overlooked in anarchist circles? What about overdone?
Overlooked: You're not doing anything subversive, and yet you're being held under a microscope.
Overdone: Internet and computer shit.
2. How are security concerns changing in light of the development of companies like Flock Safety, Oracle and Palantir?
They already know who you are, now, soon, they're going to get you. Get ready.
3. What are ways security culture and protocols change between anarchist groupings, particularly those separated by geography? (Say, in different cities or countries)
There is not culture, nor protocols, just a lot of talk about the topic. Anarchists as a whole are not a cohesive group, but a keyword used to target individuals. What would an "already targeted" culture be, instead of one that assumes prevention and harm-reduction habits?
The basic psychological…
Lefou (not verified) Tue, 01/27/2026 - 14:21
The basic psychological explanation of activism leans towards it being the avenging reaction by the activist in response to an inner seething ressentiment. This state of anxiety is compartmentalized as "social struggle" to legitimize its worthiness, which to a degree it deserves being often altruist and well-meaning, however negative consequences can arise. If solely vocal not much harm is done, but when violent destruction of things is done, which feels exhilarating and releases dopamine into the activists brain, it can become addictive, and unfortunately innocent people going about their sheepish normal self-centred lives, can be hurt.
>innocent BEEP the rest was…
anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/27/2026 - 18:30
In reply to The basic psychological… by Lefou (not verified)
>innocent
BEEP
the rest was good but then you had to do that. let's just leave it at humanity is a self resolving transient emergent phenomenon
"Innocent" in the sense of…
Lefou (not verified) Tue, 01/27/2026 - 21:37
In reply to >innocent BEEP the rest was… by anonymous (not verified)
"Innocent" in the sense of being ignorant sentimental brainwashed oxygen thieves. Does that help ?
Also, I prefer the term -- autonomous -- rather than the very vague fancy-pants longwinded expression "self resolving transient emergent phenomenon", which could be used to describe a meteorological storm cell.
"oxygen thieves"
anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/28/2026 - 00:55
In reply to "Innocent" in the sense of… by Lefou (not verified)
No u
Innocent meaning not…
Lefou (not verified) Wed, 01/28/2026 - 14:03
In reply to "oxygen thieves" by anonymous (not verified)
Innocent meaning not complicit in the creation of the consequences being protested. But my sarcasm using 'oxygen thieves' flew over your Ur head, sums up the shallowness of praxis when it harms "innocents (oxygen thieves)"lol, lighten up.
there were two anons, i like…
anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/28/2026 - 16:30
In reply to Innocent meaning not… by Lefou (not verified)
there were two anons, i like what you had to say
gosh why does it take 4 hours for the comments to update
Oh thanks, I crave positive…
Lefou (not verified) Wed, 01/28/2026 - 23:56
In reply to there were two anons, i like… by anonymous (not verified)
Oh thanks, I crave positive discussion with others.
I like protest involving loud vocal venting, it's a panacea for stress/anxiety. If one holds that inside the emotional psych-cache, it mutates into ill-humor, and plants the seed for discontent( speaking of which, I picked up a cheap discount tent at a garage sale the other day). But I digress, yes, this discontent permeates the entire being, and an alien fascist-esque persona begins to dominate. For instance, this is observed at protests in people who through rocks at things which have nothing to do with the complaint, like at property of ordinary boring workers (O2 bandits) or at their possessions. Very annoying!
Discounttent! resentiment…
anonymous (not verified) Thu, 01/29/2026 - 15:23
In reply to Oh thanks, I crave positive… by Lefou (not verified)
Discounttent!
resentiment certainly exists. but hmm, random stuff happens. no problems regretting an accidental surprise, but i do hope that anyone who purchases or maintains property does so with full awareness that entropy always progresses onward. have you heard the thing about "leave your car doors unlocked if you like your windows" shit happens in this transient emergent phenomenon of a planet
Yes,,, Anyway, this will…
Lefou (not verified) Fri, 01/30/2026 - 00:04
In reply to Discounttent! resentiment… by anonymous (not verified)
Yes,,,
Anyway, this will sound naive and jaded but I think the best activist rally is where 1 million people, all armed, march on the corrupt warlords and authoritarians and fix it once and for all.
oh, i see, you're a…
anonymous (not verified) Fri, 01/30/2026 - 06:48
In reply to Yes,,, Anyway, this will… by Lefou (not verified)
oh, i see, you're a consequentialist :))))
Well that is the whole point…
Lefou (not verified) Sat, 01/31/2026 - 04:20
In reply to oh, i see, you're a… by anonymous (not verified)
Well that is the whole point, aren't most rebels consequentialists, even if they stay at home and become vegetarians as a protest against the meat/animal cruelty industry.
Throwing a rock at the window of a bank is better that at the window of an anonomous innocent person. It's not rocket science.
So are you saying that white…
anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/28/2026 - 15:03
In reply to The basic psychological… by Lefou (not verified)
So are you saying that white racist poor uneducated diehard Trump supporters are oxygen bandits?
Well umm,,,yes and no,,,but…
Lefou (not verified) Sat, 01/31/2026 - 16:08
In reply to So are you saying that white… by anonymous (not verified)
Well umm,,,yes and no,,,but as I've explained, most are innocent because of political naivety, not through any personal flaw in their character. I mean, we've all met them in our daily lives, conversations waiting in a que, the weather, the cost of living, locations of food bank stores. All races represented get along well but then occasionally you get the dumb white racist who you can pick a mile away, stands aloof from the others, starts a conversation with --You know what's wrong with this country, the immigrants--- You're thinking -Well at the start, Columbus, or the Mayflower, but you leave it, just nod and look away, wishing you were in a dark alley, saving oxygen,,,,,but I digress,,,,
Cool glad to see another…
anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/28/2026 - 16:23
Cool glad to see another potentially interesting topic go absolutely no where because everyone wants to wank their little brains dry. Reading that much philosophy was your mistake stop making everyone else suffer because of it.
Like, I wouldn't go to…
Lefou (not verified) Sun, 02/01/2026 - 08:44
In reply to Cool glad to see another… by anonymous (not verified)
Like, I wouldn't go to protests like those in 2013 in Ukraine. The neoNazi Steven Banderas admirers are provocateurs which orchestrate division no matter what you are activating for. Protests these days are a seething swamp of malcontents wallowing in tv media nationalist ressentiment they project on the television stations the oligarchs own. That's all, brain's dried up,,,
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