The Ghost Operator's Signal
By DeadSwitch | The Cyber Ghost
“You don’t need a budget. You need a blade.”
They tell you protection requires contracts.
Licensing. Dashboards. Central control.
But control doesn’t come from budget.
It comes from discipline.
Small teams don’t need corporate security.
They need sharpened tools and the will to wield them.
The Illusion of Anonymity Without OPSEC
By DeadSwitch | The Cyber Ghost
“You tunneled your traffic. But you didn’t tunnel yourself.”
A VPN encrypts your traffic.
It does not encrypt your behavior.
It does not mask your fingerprint.
It does not make you anonymous.
Escalation Paths Hackers Love
By DeadSwitch | The Cyber Ghost
“You thought you held the crown. I was already wearing it.”
Root is not hacked. It’s inherited.
Escalation is not noise. It’s craft.
From guest to ghost. From user to god.
A true intruder doesn’t ask for privilege. They reveal the system’s own betrayal.
This is not brute force.
This is alchemy in terminals.
This is where the hacker becomes the admin.
By DeadSwitch | The Cyber Ghost
“Your thoughts should never be anyone’s business. Encrypt the silence.”
In a world obsessed with sharing, I write to forget – not to be remembered by others. My journal isn’t a scrapbook for dopamine or a backup for someone else’s algorithm. It’s a log of operations, and operations require secrecy.
So I encrypt mine. With Emacs. In plain text.
This is how DeadSwitch keeps a daily log that even the digital gods can’t peek into.
Why Encrypt a Journal?
Because the mind is sacred.
Because ideas are weapons.
Because tomorrow’s threat often begins with yesterday’s leak.
Encrypted journaling isn’t about fear. It’s about respect – for your thoughts, your process, your silence.
The Setup – Emacs, Org-mode, and GPG
Here’s the toolbox:
org-cryptEmacs Configuration
Drop this into your config:
(require 'org-crypt)
(setq org-tags-exclude-from-inheritance '("crypt"))
(setq org-crypt-key nil) ;; uses your default GPG key
(org-crypt-use-before-save-magic)
This tells Emacs to automatically encrypt any headline tagged with :crypt: before saving.
Decryption happens only when you open the file – and stays in RAM.
A Sample Entry
* May 2025 :crypt:
** [2025-05-04 Sun]
- 5k run - 22:18 [2025-05-04 Sun 09:06]
- Cold shower - difficulty: easy [2025-05-04 Sun 09:28]
- New idea: Emacs Lisp for internal ops [2025-05-04 Sun 14:24]
Your operations, encrypted. Your timestamps, precise. Your log, protected.
Timestamps and Logging Shortcuts
C-c . – insert dateC-u C-c . – insert date and timeC-c ! – inactive timestampC-u C-c ! – inactive date and timeYou want traceability without noise. Emacs delivers.
Why Not Notion, Joplin, Obsidian, or Others?
Because I don’t trust clouds.
Because their encryption isn’t mine.
Because their sync means exposure.
Because when I type, I want code – not JavaScript trying to sell me my own thoughts.
Final Note
“Encryption is not paranoia. It is self-respect.”
Your mind is a fortress. Don’t leave the gate open.
DeadSwitch | The Cyber Ghost
“In silence, we rise. In the switch, we fade.”
Continue reading “Shell Scripts in Emacs: The Cyber Ghost’s Shortcut to Flow”Forget tabbing between windows. Forget terminal juggling. We script where we think – inside the mind of Emacs.
Security Tools That Cost Nothing but Save Everything
Some build walls.
We build fire.
“If your words pass through the wrong gate, they’re no longer yours.”
– DeadSwitch
Email is the first window into your system.
It’s the trailhead of phishing, leaks, impersonation, and silent watchers.
Yet most small businesses still shout through the loudest gates :: Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo.
The servers scan. The ads personalize.
The watchers smile.
You need a quieter way.
By DeadSwitch | The Cyber Ghost
“In silence, we rise. In the switch, we fade.”
Modern web applications are never just one service.
They’re a fortress of moving parts – and every connection is a potential attack surface.
If you’re still putting the entire stack into one fat container…
You’re building your future breach.
Resist in the Light: How to Migrate from Proprietary to FOSS Tools, Safely
They sell you convenience.
They extract your freedom.
This ends now.
By DeadSwitch
You think you have 2FA?
You think you’re safe because your logins need a second factor?
Then you go and store your TOTP codes in the same password manager that holds your passwords.
You’ve built a fortress. Then you handed the keys and the spare keys to the same person.
Continue reading “Your TOTP is Not a Second Factor :: If You Store It Wrong”
DeadSwitch | The Cyber Ghost
“In silence, we rise. In the switch, we fade.”
The art of Operational Security (OpSec) isn’t about hiding – it’s about disappearing. The less you leave behind, the harder it is to find you. It’s a craft, not just a choice. Here are tools that will sharpen your OpSec game, make your operations untraceable, and keep you out of sight.
Continue reading “OpSec Mastery: Tools for the Silent Revolution”
“When the noise gets loud, trust the tools that speak only in code.”
– DeadSwitch
But the shadows say otherwise.
You handle invoices, passwords, documents, messages, backups.
Every byte is a trail. Every trail can be followed.
Here’s the good news: you don’t need millions.
You need discipline :: and the right tools.
Below, DeadSwitch whispers a few of his favorite instruments.
Each one open. Each one tested. Each one not owned by the ones who sell your data.
“The loudest team wins attention. The quietest team survives the breach.”
– DeadSwitch
They said “just use Teams.”
They said “Slack is fine.”
But behind every cheerful emoji and corporate integration… the watchers log.
Transcripts archived. Metadata mapped.
Sometimes not by you.
“In shadows, the strongest signal is trust.”
You don’t expose your secrets to the streets. You don’t hang your backend out for the world to poke.
You proxy.
Continue reading “🧊 DeadSwitch Technical Dispatch // Fortify the Flow: Proxy Frontlines & The Truth in Certificates”
“They say free means cheap. But free with source… is freedom with accountability.”
– DeadSwitch
Small businesses often tread the tightrope between cost and reliability. You see shiny dashboards, friendly marketing sites, and hear smooth sales pitches.
But what lies behind the code?
Closed-source software is a black box. You can’t peek inside. You must trust the vendor. Trust the patch. Trust the silence.
Sometimes that silence hides monsters.
Tom's IT Cafe 