-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 CHAPTER TWO Tom got the laser pointer from Amazon. He’d seen a video online from that guy from the Lincoln Project that you could break the Flock cameras with just a simple 532nm wavelength green laser (but of course absolutely shouldn’t), and he’d never bought something faster. He could even do it on his walk to the bookstore. Tom had offered Provisions and Prose as a meeting place for the Signal group to discuss next steps now that Maritza had made bail. So he stuffed the laser pointer in his pocket, and strolled through his neighborhood, just like he always did, making small talk with neighbors, just like he always did, as he made his way to Main Street, just like he always did. There were three cameras on his route to work, a brisk fifteen minute walk. So just like that he could down three cameras. Bingo Bango Bongo. When he got to the first camera he looked around. It was positioned on a tall black pole mounted over a traffic light in front of the elementary school. But since school was out for summer, the neighborhood was pretty empty. Down the street, an older guy was mowing his lawn with earbuds in. Closer by, he could see that at least one person was home— shifting shadows behind a curtain— and he could assume that at some point someone else would likely walk by. So. Now was as good a shot as any. He pulled out the laser, and pointed it at the camera lens. There was no fizz pop of the camera breaking. No tell-tale smoke emanating from it. So, he held it there for a moment longer. His hand shook wildly as he held it. It seemed like maybe one out of every ten thousand milliseconds the laser was actually trained on the lens, and the rest of the time it bounced around. Did that matter? Tom had no idea. Finally, after about a full minute, Tom put the laser away. He felt a little silly. He walked along his normal route, noticing for the first time how many of the houses had surveillance cameras. Was he on someone’s Ring just now, destroying the Flock camera with his laser? Should he be lasering all the Ring cameras, too? It felt different to destroy someone’s personal property than it did to break a private company’s unwarranted surveillance, but the distinction felt fuzzy at best. The second Flock camera was positioned on a traffic light, right off the highway exit. To get a good shot at it, Tom had to stand in a weird, liminal not quite sidewalk, not quite onramp spot and point. The only good news was the camera was lower this time, so he had an easier shot at it. His hand still shook like crazy, but he couldn’t really fix that. The laser itself was green, like he was a Jedi, a thought that pleased him a little more than he’d care to admit. Because the camera was at his height, he could see directly into the lens as he lasered it. It was like he was staring directly into the laser itself, the green was so intense. “Ugh,” he hissed. Tiny black spots popped across his vision and he blinked through the weirdness. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but it felt weird, wrong. He pocketed the laser. His burgeoning life as a vigilante was off to a rather unimpressive start. The third was right on Main. He stood across the street from it and pointed his little laser at it, assiduously smiling and acting normal and comfortable with everyone who walked by. And for the first twenty seconds or so, Tom felt like a criminal mastermind. And then— “What are you doing?” It was Gary. The fascist. Tom pocketed the laser. “Nothing.” “You were pointing a little green dot at that camera,” Gary said. His voice was petulant, like Tom was his big brother and Gary was going to tell Mommy on him. “Ok, Gary,” Tom said in his best ‘ok boomer’ voice. Gary glared at him. Tom smiled back. “I’ll see you at the Fourth parade.” Gary scoffed. “You know I don’t participate in that. They never clean the street up after and it’s—” “BYE GARY.” - -- Since Thursdays were usually Tom’s day off— no new releases, slower sales day— Susan was behind the counter at Provisions and Prose. Susan was Tom’s only employee, other than Wade. She worked fifteen hours a week. She was between sixty-five and one billion years old. Her hobbies included standing very still, reading celebrity chef’s memoirs, and eating Grape Nuts. He knew about the Grape Nuts because she talked about it. A lot. “Hey Susan.” Tom dropped his backpack behind the counter. From the look of the till not much had happened that day. Everything was tidy, and only a couple books were stacked there for re-shelving. “I can take over.” “Ok.” She gathered her thin cardigan around her shoulders. “So cold,” she murmured to no one. Then she shuffled toward the back to grab her purse. Tom pushed the fixtures around so that he could put out some chairs, just like he did for the rare author events he hosted. As he was unfolding chairs, people from City Hall started coming in, and a few lent him a hand so it went more quickly. Imagine, Tom thought. Having a real staff. Then he laughed to himself. He loved this bookstore, but it wasn’t exactly a gangbusters business. And anyway, it was nice that it was small. Dad had paid off the store ages ago. It meant Wade always had a job when he was up for it, and Tom had just enough income to make their lives comfortable. It was a good arrangement. It wasn’t a lot, but it was a lot to lose. - -- When Maritza came in, people cheered, Tom included. She smiled, but he could tell the attention made her a little uncomfortable. She managed to wave everyone off, and it wasn’t long before she was able to call the meeting into order. She was much more comfortable in the role of practical leadership than she was accepting applause, a posture Tom both respected and found deeply endearing. He wished more politicians were like her. “For reasons that are probably obvious I can’t get into what happened at City Council last week at least as it pertains to my arrest,” Maritza said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t talk next steps.” There was a rumble of agreement. The woman who’d walked in with Maritza, the middle-aged woman Tom belatedly recognized as the one who’d invited him to the Signal chat, started passing out some FAQs about Flock cams that people could distribute. There was some back and forth about op-eds, letters to the mayor, and calls to council members who seemed on the fence about cancelling the contract. But no one seemed terribly hopeful about any of it. The contract had been renewed. A younger guy, who Tom realized, was better looking than him raised his hand. He had the kind of lean fitness that came from lots of bodyweight workouts and strict dietary discipline and blessed genetics. He must be Maritza’s boyfriend, Tom thought. Probably got everything that he wanted. “I think it’s time for us to consider taking some of the cameras down ourselves,” the guy offered. He was wearing, Tom realized, all black. When he’d entered the shop he’d been wearing a face mask. Smart. “Like with one of those lasers?” Tom asked. “I saw online that—” “No.” The guy stopped him short. “That’s bullshit. Doesn’t work. Human hands shake too much, and you’d need to fire the laser exactly at the lens, like bullseye, for like five whole minutes to get it to work. Not to mention the fact that doing that without the correct protective eyewear could get your eyes damaged permanently.” Tom rubbed his eye, shaken as the guy went on. “That’s just some shit people are saying online. Like the copper wiring thing. There’s no way you could hawk that to a scrapper, they’d know it was illegal and they’d boot you out. Maybe you get a couple bucks off someone who doesn’t recognize it. Also, say you do it say you set up a tripod and set the laser up on it, and you actually do the near impossible thing of getting that camera offline, no one would be able to tell, so other people who are also doing this might—” “Ok. Thank you, Fox. I’m gonna stop you there for now.” Maritza smiled warmly, but she looked taxed, worried. “Wanting to destroy the cameras is a reaction I completely understand. This is a really charged thing, our rights are being stolen. I get that. It’s also an undertaking with a lot of risk—” The guy, Fox, apparently, opened his mouth to argue, but Maritza held up a finger to forestall him. “A lot of risk that can’t start in activism spaces like this one,” she said, meaningfully. “And we’re here today to discuss next steps for our group.” There was some more murmuring at this. Fox snapped his mouth shut but he looked annoyed. He didn’t speak again, though. Tom rolled the laser around in his pocket, feeling stupid. Maritza led them all in thinking of affinity groups that could be brought in on this fight— from the libertarian board gamers who met at the dive bar further down Main on Wednesday nights, to the immigrant’s rights groups that already existed around Lawndale, and from the state. Tom offered up the Antifascist bookclub that met at his store when they could get their acts together, and Maritza had rewarded him with a broad smile that nearly knocked him over. As the discussion continued, Tom sidled up next to Fox. “So,” he whispered. “The laser thing doesn’t work. Are there. Other ways?” Fox smiled. “Yeah man. You can saw ‘em down. Stomp them out. You can shoot them down. Guy in California just got arrested for knocking them down with his truck. I saw another guy online using spray foam. Lithium grease. Lotta ways.” He looked Tom up and down. “But you gotta be able to run.” Tom could’ve done with the last. He wasn’t out of shape. He walked a few miles every day, and when he was feeling cheeky he’d go into his crappy garage gym and lift the same weights his dad used to. But like sure, he got it, he wasn’t Captain America. “Are you doing...” Tom started. “Of course not,” Fox said, though his voice dripped with disdain. “I would never participate in illegal activities.” He gave Tom an ‘are you fucking stupid’ look and sidled away from him. Just a minute later, Tom saw him slip out the front door, mask back on, into the night. Distantly, Tom was aware that the meeting was proceeding. And for as much as he respected Maritza, he couldn’t help but feel frustrated. All their next steps were going to take ages. It’d probably be months before a meaningful coalition could be formed. And in the meantime, everyone in Lawndale was less safe. Fox was right. And clearly there was a lot more information out there about this than Tom realized. But if he searched it out at home, he’d be leaving a digital footprint. At the public library though... He let his mind spin as the meeting wrapped up. He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t even notice when Maritza walked over to him, startling him from his reverie with a tap on his shoulder. “I want to thank you so much for letting us use your space, Tim.” “Yeah, of course!” Tom smiled like it was school picture day. Idiot. “You’re welcome any time. That’s like. One of the whole reasons to have an indie bookstore in the neighborhood. For community meetings. Also it’s Tom.” “Oh!” she flushed a very pretty pink. “Oh my god I’m so sorry. Tom.” He liked the shape her mouth made when she said it. “Thank you. Any books you’d recommend? I feel like I should buy something while I’m here. You know. Support my local indie standing in the face of the technocratic fascist surveillance state?” Tom nearly exploded with pleasure. “Tell me what you like to read!” he said, finally, firmly in his element. “And I can take it from there.” Tom listened as Maritza rattled off books she’d liked— mostly fiction, mostly by women authors, and all books Tom had heard of, some of which he’d enjoyed. She had good taste. Of course she had good taste. Eventually, she purchased a copy of Yesteryear, which she’d been meaning to read, but that Tom knew he could recommend with some confidence. It moved fast, was whip smart, and also had some really biting commentary on the resurgence of right wing propaganda being disseminated on social media. There was no way she wasn’t going to like it. And, in a moment of unfathomable smoothness on his own part, he managed to both comp the book and make his parting line to her “Come back and tell me what you think.” She grinned, tucked it in her purse. “I will,” she said. And it sounded like she meant it. - -- Tom had heard it said that 4am is the time everyone thinks of when they think of the ‘middle of the night.’ So he left his house at 3am, just to be spicy. Wade was dead asleep. Tom had checked. Wade didn’t tend to wake up in the middle of the night, but one of the things that made Tom most leery about all of this was the idea that Wade would wake up, need him, and be alone. But Tom— who had something of an insomnia problem anyway— hadn’t seen Wade up and about in the middle of the night basically ever. It’d be terrible luck if he started now, but not something, Tom figured, he ought to count on happening. He also knew he needed a disguise. Wade had an old Batman cape he’d worn for Halloween years ago. It was surprisingly heavy weight considering it was a Halloween costume, and it hung all the way to Tom’s ankles. But the idea of stepping out of his home and literally any of his neighbors seeing him dressed all in black, masked up, wearing a Batman cape was enough to make Tom realize he needed to leave in one outfit, and then change into another out of view of both his home and random security cameras. It was all much more complicated than he’d originally imagined when he’d gone to a small air rifle business— one that didn’t demand ID and that accepted cash— and purchased his first pistol. He’d spent some time as a kid and teen with his dad at the firing range. It’d been a while, but he figured he knew the basics. How hard could it be? Sneak out at night. Shoot down a few cameras. Go home. Rinse and repeat. But tonight as he stepped out of his house, his backpack filled to bursting with the cape, a black women’s stocking to pull over his face, his disassembled air pistol, and the stupid green laser (just in case!) Tom felt shaky. Not in his conviction. He knew what he was doing was right. But in his surety that he was going about this in the right way. Light reconnaissance during the day had given him a sense of which of his neighbors had cameras on their houses, and Tom took care to walk outside what he imagined was probably the cameras’ range. He snuck down to Blue Jay Park, where he figured there would be less light at night, and also no witnesses, to change. Tom, who had no children of his own, felt like a trespasser immediately. And not the fun kind. The creepy kind. The sicko meme. Pulling the stocking over his face was weird for myriad reasons— it stuck on his eyelashes and smooshed his nose— and had the added bonus of making it nearly impossible to see. Yes, his face was obscured. But so was his vision. He could barely see the strings on the Batman cape to tie them around his neck. Then he had to pull it off to assemble the pistol anyway, so he felt even more stupid. But not as stupid as he felt when he turned around, and realized that for all of this curséd sequence, he was likely in view of a camera he hadn’t noticed, pointed in toward the park. Not a Flock camera, just an older camera that had probably been posted more than a decade ago. Tom wondered if it even worked, but knew he had to act as though it did. At least he’d been facing away from it the entire time. Still. Stupid. He almost called it all off right then and there. There was no crime in walking into a park and putting on a cape. If he just went home none would be the wiser, and he’d have taken no risk. No broken cameras, no reason to check the footage. But he’d gotten himself so pumped up for this. So, despite his better judgement, Tom pulled the stocking back over his face, and snuck off camera and moved toward his first target. Now and then a car drove by, but they were easy enough to evade by ducking out of sight. Drivers, he realized, were not particularly observant. They just wanted to get where they were getting. The Flock camera they’d set up on the traffic light in front of the elementary school. He was nearly there when two kids, probably high schoolers, blocked his path. He could hear them laughing amongst themselves, the languorous giggles of kids who’ve smoked the better half of a dime bag. Luckily, it was a dark night. They probably hadn’t seen him, and also wouldn’t see him if he held still. So, ducking next to a bush, he crouched down on the sidewalk, pulled his cape over himself, and hoped they were simply too stoned to notice him. Faintly, Tom could hear the teens approaching. And then to his horror he heard: “Does he think we can’t see him?” “Hey uh,” came the other voice. “Whatcha doin man?” The first kid laughed. “Don’t! He’s being so super sneaky!” They both howled with laughter at this. Tom waited for them to pass so that at least they would not see anything identifiable about him and he could, somehow, try to cling to some shred of dignity. As their laughter faded into the distance, Tom stood, and pulled the stocking off once more. He almost died of embarrassment all over again. The stocking had completely skewed his sense of lighting. Of course those fucking kids could see him. He was directly under a streetlight. What were they even doing out this late, where were their parents? Tom shook his head. His interior monologue was starting to sound like Gary. So far none of this was going how it was supposed to. The camera itself was mounted over a traffic light. If he approached it from behind, he’d be able to get directly underneath the camera without being seen by it, and then he could shoot it out from directly below. Seemed easy enough. When he finally got to the underside of the camera, Tom pulled the stocking over his face and approached. The pistol he bought was small, like a sidearm not a rifle. So he needed to get close. But even standing directly under it, Tom could hardly see what he was pointing at as he shot at the camera. Air pistols are quiet, but they’re not silent. And the noise it made was much louder than Tom was anticipating. There was the PLUNK of the air pistol firing, but also the THWING of each slug hitting its target. When he was out of ammo, he stopped firing. Was the camera destroyed? He couldn’t even tell. Slipping away as quickly as he could, Tom crouched behind a car, and lifted the stocking so he could get a better look, but he still couldn’t tell if he’d done anything meaningful to the camera. Fuck. This was going to take so much more research. - -- THE LENSBREAKER'S FIELD GUIDE by Tom Fairbanks PART 1 Anonymous and Undetected ======================== Breaking a surveillance camera is easy. You could, in broad daylight, walk up to a camera on foot, pick up a medium-sized rock, and hurl it at the camera. Repeat this process until it is visibly in pieces. Done. Yes, it’s true - you’ll have taken out a mass surveillance camera. But you’ll also be easily caught by the authorities if they try at all. So the challenge is not in the breaking, it’s in the breaking while leaving no possible way for yourself to be caught. The actual mechanics of your strike matter much less than your ability to do so while disguising your true identity. How to arrive at a target anonymously and then return home remaining anonymous and undetected, this is the primary skill to master from this field guide. Stealth ======= The number one way to mask your identity is to not be seen in the first place. This is accomplished through stealth. What stealth means varies widely depending on who or what you’re trying to evade. Practicing stealth in the wilderness while hunting or as a soldier in enemy territory is very different from that in urban or suburban settings. In the case of lensbreaking, we’re very much in an urban/suburban setting. We strive to evade the notice of pedestrians on the street, motorists in passing vehicles, and residents in surrounding structures. Stealth is not the same thing as simply hiding behind something. Sometimes stealth involves hiding, but more often it just means being theoretically visible but blending into your surroundings such that you don’t seem out of place. When actually hiding during stealth, for instance by hunkering down behind a tree or a bush, the goal is rarely to be impossible to see. While being completely hidden breaks your subject’s lines of sight to you - it also breaks your line of sight to them. When hiding you don’t know when the coast is clear or if it’s time to abort hiding and start fleeing. Much better is to stand in the deep dark in a position someone is unlikely to look and watch as your subject passes without noticing you. This is accomplished through situational awareness, considering what your subject’s threshold of awareness is, and adapting your behavior to fall below that threshold. Situational Awareness - --------------------- Your number one advantage in stealth is that you’re looking for them but they don’t know to be looking for you. You notice everyone coming first in order to get first-mover advantage. Anytime you’re on a mission and you get surprised by a person or vehicle of which you were unaware, consider this a failure and try to learn from it. While traversing between locations, your awareness should be spent scanning your environment to be the first to notice others. Military reconnaissance teams have a practice called S.L.L.S. (pronounced "sills”). It stands for “stop”, “look”, “listen”, and “smell”. It’s a reminder to halt your forward momentum and force your senses to recalibrate before you commit to the next step. When you stop, you immediately eliminate your own noise, allowing your senses to tune into the environment rather than your movement. Then you look - scanning near and far for shapes, silhouettes, or glints of light that break the natural pattern of the night. A person walking at night is visible for two or three blocks if you pay attention to the long sight lines down streets. A car’s headlights are even more visible, casting light up to ten blocks, but also bouncing off of every street sign meaning you can use these reflections to know when a car’s headlights have appeared behind you. You listen for giveaways of incoming human presence: the faint clomp of distant footsteps, car radios, the increasing whooshing road noise of a car that’s getting closer. The corners of street blocks act as sound breaks, meaning that when a car turns a corner nearby there is often a step function increase in the amount of noise you hear. Note also that wearing a hood over your head impairs your hearing. When performing S.L.L.S. it’s a good idea to temporarily drop your hood for the sake of better listening. Finally, you smell - which in the military context is meant to give early warning of signs of human activity like fires, car fumes, etc. In urban environments these types of signals are less relevant, but smell is a good placeholder for stopping for a second to breathe and be present in the current moment. Take it as a cue to be mindful, and check in fully with what you’re feeling as well - it’s part of your current situation. By running this quick S.L.L.S. check, you convert your inherent advantage of being unseen into decisive action, ensuring you are the first to detect rather than the one detected. Make a practice of S.L.L.S. whenever you enter a new area of operations or transition into a new phase of your mission. Threshold of Awareness - ---------------------- It’s not possible for humans to take in and process the entirety of sensory input around us; it would overwhelm our senses. In order to cope, we filter what we pay attention to and notice stuff above a certain level of important. This is our threshold of awareness. When practicing stealth, our goal is to fall below this threshold of awareness in other people. Either by blending into the baseline environment if we are going to be easily visible, or by moving such that we won’t be easily visible in the first place. Drivers of cars are the easiest to evade because their threshold of awareness is pretty much confined to traffic indicators and what’s in the road directly in front of them. Their night vision is ruined by their headlights, and they have a lot of stuff to pay attention to as it is. People inside surrounding structures are also fairly easy to evade: we’re operating late at night so no one is likely to be staring out of their window keeping watch. And walls and windows have a strong amount of noise blocking. It’s really just loud noises that have the possibility of waking someone that will draw their attention. Other pedestrians are trickier. A group of people walking around or loitering together are likely to be making noise and be more focused on each other than their surroundings, but a solo pedestrian can pose problems. They are on the same level as you in terms of night vision and hearing and since they’re alone at night, will have their heads on a swivel scanning for threats. Adapting Your Behavior - ---------------------- To not be noticed by cars, see them coming first and move to be behind something that will mostly block your silhouette from being seen. Step behind hedges, walk partially up driveways, stand behind tall foliage. You’re not trying to hide all parts of your body in doing this, you’re just making it very likely to have the car pass without noticing you. As long as you’re keeping your awareness up you should have a lot of time before you’re in visibility range. Drivers aren’t scanning the dark sides of the road so it doesn’t take much to evade notice. You can usually sit or stand in a way where you look casual enough if you’re being observed from a different angle. Because of how easy it is to evade cars, and the fact that cars can sometimes be LEO, evasion is usually worth the effort. For people in structures, it’s mostly about being aware of when you’re making noise and realizing that stealth is broken. Don’t make loud noise until you’re ready to flee immediately after. For smaller noises, do pay attention to single rooms that jut out away from the main mass of a house. These are likely bedrooms so choosing to make noise directly outside those windows is not ideal. Tripping motion-triggered lights are for the most part not an issue when moving in public or close-to-public areas - these go off all the time so the owner develops a blindness to them. If you happen to be trespassing in less trafficked areas, then definitely be aware not to trip these lights. Private security cameras should be avoided - always try to walk past these from as far away as possible. More about these in future chapters. For pedestrians, the best bet is normally to opt for blending into your surroundings rather than attempting to hide. This is because they’re on fairly equal footing with you in terms of threshold of awareness. Solo pedestrians especially may notice if someone ahead suddenly veers off the sidewalk into some bushes. The last thing you want to do is increase the alertness of people around you by being seen acting suspicious. Better to act as if you belong. Be aloof towards their presence. Sitting down against a fence or pole, stopping to tie your shoe with your back towards them, fiddling with small items in your hands are all good mannerisms to adopt to avoid seeming suspicious. Only go for evasion if you’re confident you’re out of sight in the first place, they don’t seem to be seeing you, and you are confident they’ll pass without noticing. Dogs - ---- Special note here about dogs. First, to be clear: all dogs are good dogs. Period. But as it pertains to your stealthiness, they’re a major problem. They are S-tier detectors. Spend enough time moving quietly in still neighborhoods at night and you’re bound to set off a dog at some point. They’re extremely perceptive, often detecting you from across a street. What mainly triggers them is your lingering in a particular place. When a dog gets set off, there’s nothing to do but to pack up, move on, and adjust your plan accordingly. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQGzBAEBCgAdFiEEsNJn5ehoQ80nDQtSy6rfLCyoCDsFAmrNUEwACgkQy6rfLCyo CDuOogv/Uc93azsosYSNSpDamJd/7B/1nCaIfjtAntYmdAApMniSMLtEZyGhB5ao Rrh4JL5qXpOPkNc7U6bKtVoxYE70hc1fXxmHxn/xi1MQV9le3w2caNGsVpMLR3A7 VaL3MAhjys3sb9+rL3GCqRTBGcK6n7Sf39uOXNCLwtoMnPGpwkcVJiJ/8hgwJCsO RXNqhNAmlNCTaQ8phoDZuMrQZlPUCDZu94i35Eum3i0allDHobPPsWCNjOQgt+3V z3C8S9AtFe8BvT64OTreAgS9z1iIPStVjg7wZ8j8ONfjXLlWrdg/7gW8MsdmGW2i 69QCXiN8JhodN+UPg1P+XuEaoU+OXso6eB97bx8yL46NgP4lG9TWmKr9/iVD63dp 8lRsWOkuhABCAL2KgdG6ctinjLDX9gSNQZAckrZooue/77EFqNqRwQu0UFxwL9dB mNnbSlLhFrnia0JLuXOmehSa9RDT1xEY4nISCQj1D8G4mebCqRCbpQwhvlF8Npix 21bwmShz =FVOJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----