A re-post for those that missed it...

Brisco strained against his leather collar, seemingly eager to leave the immediate area. Eva's 70 year old fingers snapped back on the disgruntled terrier's leash, but she could certainly understand his unease. Even though the neighborhood “safety checkpoints” had been a part of their daily life for the better part of the year, she never could resolve herself to see them as anything other than a 21st century re-envisioning of cold war east Germany. The pat downs, the scanning and downloading of her cell phone, the x-ray and search of her belongings just to get from one part of town to the other. Of course it was all necessary because of all the “terrorist activity” in the area; or so she was told.

Once inside her apartment, she began what had become a twice a week operation...removing Brisco's ornate leather collar...pulling back the stitching....retrieving the microSD card hidden between the leather laminate and beneath one of the several steel sequins that decorated his collar. She noted the small red sticker attached to the tiny device, indicating that it was a time sensitive message and needed to be passed as soon as possible. She plugged her “special” thumb-drive into her old laptop and turned it on. The system recognized the bootable operating system on the thumb drive and the hardened OS came to life. She entered her passwords and inserted the microSD card. She opened the Truecrypt volume that resided on the micro and observed one file entitled “r6K?q@71”, this meant nothing to her, not that it should have.....while she and several other groups had the monthly passphrase to open the disk itself, the file inside could only be opened by the intended recipient. She typed up her short courier report, which was basically her version of a succinct SALUTE report for the last few days, encrypted it with her PGP key and inserted it into the Truecrypt volume of the micro. She returned the micro to it's furry courier and pulled the thumb-drive from the laptop, causing the computer to scrub it's memory before shutting down.

Eva gathered her things, and with Brisco in tow, headed towards the door, pausing for a moment to look at a picture on the wall. She needed courage right now and looking at the white haired man in the picture that she had shared her life with..... until agents of the regime took him away forever ….refueled her cause and steadied her nerves. Brisco broke her from her thoughts with a muffled woof,  as if reminding her of the time sensitive nature of their mission.
As she and her cohort headed to their dog park rendezvous, she let a half smile show.....lives depended on her, she mattered! – perhaps now more than ever...

This serves as an example for the ongoing COMSEC series. More to follow.......

** Note: Truecrypt is now Veracrypt **