Large Fierce Mammal

The most fulfilling moments in my so far 37 year career as a security consultant have involved engineering nasty surprises for miscreants, mostly human but occasionally from other tribes, who thought they were smarter than everyone else but weren’t. Oh, sure, along the way we’ve saved a few lives, but that was just collateral un-damage from the real objective — having fun at the expense of every maliciously self-indulgent shithead who comes into our sights, and getting paid for it.

Every year, and in some cases every month, puts even more sophisticated toys and games at our disposal, not least of which is a constantly broadening array of surveillance platforms and analytical tools offering target identification and behavioural pattern analysis that it would be an insult to refer to using such passé references as “eagle eye” and “fine toothed comb”. Add to that the mind of a truly black hearted analyst, and it doesn’t get more fun than that.

This is all well and good as long as you’re operating under near perfect first world conditions, but it must never be forgotten that over-reliance on 21st century technology and its supporting infrastructure is comparable to enjoying the affections of the woman or man of your dreams while ignoring the knowledge that she or he is only mostly faithful to you, and so one day may be gone forever.  The average mind is self-deluding in the enjoyment of having something wonderful, so that even faced with periodic temporary examples of how life would be without it, these are viewed as brief inconveniences instead of lessons, so thought dwells instead on anticipation of the wonderful thing’s return as though this too shall inevitably pass. A sense of entitlement and false permanence is thus engendered, and latent disaster guaranteed.

The real life lesson here is to enjoy and exploit every advantage these advanced technologies can provide, but to do it with purpose. To make life easier while you earn a living, and position yourself so that when the day comes it all stops working, you’re far ahead of the throng with a well entrenched, down and dirty, Plan  B.

Here’s an intellectual exercise for you. Next time the power and/or communications grid goes down, instead of letting your mind run straight to trying to find out how long the outage will last, take it down a different track: Is this it? Then light some candles and enjoy a spirited discussion over what you’re going to do if it is. If you need some comfort to fortify you against averting your eyes from the very thought, look at the bright side; if this isn’t actually “it”, you may not even be alive when that day comes, or its onset may just kill you outright, so why worry?

In the spirit of that sentiment, let’s turn our attention to the word that is the title of today’s article — Pervertibles.

Pervertibles are seemingly innocent and unconnected bits and bobs that are easily available and best of all CHEAP or even FREE, that when brought together intelligently can become a serious force multiplier for making life easier and safer for an individual or group with shared goals. Though made for a specific purpose, when bent to the will of a right minded person, they offer themselves as elements in devising simple, effective, and reliable solutions to problems that need to be solved, but for which a traditional off the shelf solution is lacking.

Back in October of 2012 I spoke of the word “garniture“, and how its meaning both can and should be incorporated into every day life. Go and read (or re-read) it here before moving on.

This isn’t about making Rube Goldberg proud, or cobbling up something out of “Home Alone” with so many moving parts that every step to your desired outcome introduces its own percentage to the probability of failure. It’s about addressing real problems in the spirit of a return to the not so long ago days when if something important was broken, lost, or wore out, you either fixed it, found a workaround, or did without until that dippy hopeful day the wherewithal might present for it to be replaced, for we live in nothing if not in hope. Just ask any soldier who’s ever deployed to a shithole.

If you practice this mindset, and regularly consider what means and methods may be devised to do as much of what needs doing (up to everything), with as little as possible (down to nothing), you’ll understand how we in the LFM camp got the way we are. Speaking for myself, before I walk through a hardware store, auto salvage yard, or well stocked building supply centre, I have to soak my hat with cold water first so my brain doesn’t overheat.

I’ll close with a shining example of a security problem solved brilliantly through the use of pervertibles, devised by Ed Calderon and presented on his Ed’s Manifesto facebook page. Drawn from Ed’s days working drug enforcement on the northern border of Mexico, the picture is followed by its author’s description.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/edsmanifesto/photos/a.669831249800547.1073741829.669654546484884/1611534598963536/?type=3&theater

Here is something straight out of the Manifesto. This is a perimeter alarm device and marker I came up with when I was active in the operations groups down south.

You basically take the concept of the glow stick mouse trap visual perimeter alarm device but you cut out a hole in the Chemlight so when it activates it sprays the intruder with the glowing chemicals. So now not only do you have a sound and luminous designation of where a breach happens, but you have a glowing opponent moving around in the dark making things a bit easier for yourself.

There are a few add on considerations that I share in some classes. But I’m just putting this one out there before someone else makes the claim that this is their original concept. ~ Stay dangerous. © Ed

By the nature of all this, most pervertibles end up doing a job they were never meant for, but in this application, the mouse trap is an example of the apple not falling far from the tree, if you get my drift.

Until next time.