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Full disk encryption is a layer of security and indeed could end up being your last one.

When you consider how trivial it is for your ISP to see you are using Tor and the fact if you're arrested your computer can be seized it becomes a matter of common sense to make sure that no further evidence ends up in the hands of LEO.

Truecrypt is by no means the only FDE program - the alternate install of Ubuntu for instance allows you to encrypt your entire OS. Liberte linux is also encrypted by its very nature and can be fitted onto a USB stick.

I have some experience with digital forensics. Although the Tor browser bundle is designed to resist data recovery in this way a detailed analysis of your hard drive may reveal clues as to your browsing activity - indeed if you're worried about seeming suspicious its very presence on your machine seems more compelling to me than an encrypted HDD, particularly if you have any book marks to SR or these forums saved in the browser!

In addition if your PGP keys are stored on the machine, your private key would be compromised. Admittedly the key itself is encrypted but asymmetric encryption is a lot easier to break than symmetric encryption.

For anyone worried about being compelled to hand over their password, Plausible Deniability allows you to have two passwords - analysis of a TC partition in itself will not reveal a hidden volume.

V.

Often they spoke of increased sensitivity to colors and to people's gestures and postures. One said the environment was colored by dots of colors, "discrete dots like in the the funny paper strips." Another said that even when he was not on LSD, he was on the verge of experiencing perceptual distortion. He could look at objects or at people and see what ordinary individuals saw. However, if he relaxed his attention or control he could see a face, for example, melting or turning into plastic or oil.

Most spontaneously described a frightening LSD experience. The "built trip" usually began in the context of anger. Under such conditions familiar scenes changed into frightening, weird perceptions. To one individual, angry with an obnoxious friend, victorian buildings became ugly, dirty. and crumbling. Simultaneously she felt someone was going to attack and hurt her.

Another reported that he had ingested the drug in his room while he was angry with his mother. Initially the "trip" had been beautiful, and then it exploded. He became very frightened. He thought he could hear monsters coming up the stairs. He was convinced that they were coming through the door, would surround him and eat him. One subject saw monsters coming at him. One felt she was in he midst of enemy airplanes.

Two of the subjects' attitudes or beliefs stood out because of their intensity and because of their unusual nature, at least in our society. The chronic users themselves attributed their attitudes to their frequent intense LSD experiences. This assertion was supported by our observations in the follow-up interviews --the length of hair, degree of personal grooming, and intensity of belief was directly related to the number of LSD ingestions reported during the intervening six-month period.

All of the subjects were very passive individuals, the men particularly so. All. in one form or another, stressed that anger was very bad and that they were peaceful. Several carefully avoided "stepping on insects." because it showed disrespect for life to do so. This attitude seemed to permeate every aspect of their lives. They did not play competitive games. Each individual was supposed to do his own "thing" and to gain his own inner satisfaction. There was a deemphasis of any form of competition, a denial of any possible pecking order, and a purposeful negation of the possession of materials.

Over half held naive, almost omnipotent beliefs(21 ). One believed that thoughts can set fires miles away. Others believed that one can read another's mind and that inanimate objects such as trees, tables, or books, for example, react to their emotional surroundings. Statements like the following were made frequently: "A cigarette will not go out if people are arguing." "A desk will react any kind of violence in the room."

Many were interested in astrology and cosmology and felt they had the power to be mediums. Such ideas were held as fundamental tenets of their view of the world. For example, one subject who espoused at every opportunity, beliefs in mysticism and cosmology lived on a research ward for six weeks. During one approximately half-hour period of extreme emotional stress occasioned by a quarrel between the subject and a nurse, the subject changed her intellectual statements about cosmology. She said her nurse and attending physician were, in fact, creatures from another planet. No amount of information altered her belief. After the stress was relieved, she returned to making her former intellectual comments regarding the probability of life on other planets and of communication between worlds.

Discussion
We found these chronic LSD users to be surprisingly similar in their backgrounds and to hold in common a number of unusual beliefs. They reported increased sensitivity to stimuli and we found that on a visual evoked response measure they differed from a control group in their sensitivity to and in their organization of stimuli. Some of the EEG findings and some of the behavior seen in the interviews were suggestive of minimal brain damage but the evidence for this remains scattered and inconclusive, particularly in the absence of data from neurological examinations and conventional psychological testing.

We found several abnormal EEG recordings in which the findings were compatible with either drug effects and/or CNS dysfunction, Some of the subjects' behaviors and appearance were suggestive of CNS dysfunction. In one subject who continued to use the drug heavily, there was a deterioration in his performance pattern on the cognitive tests suggestive of organic damage. On the other hand one of our subjects maintained an A average in junior college while ingesting LSD on most weekends.

Also, we found no relationship between the clinical readings of EEG change in two sets of records, summer '67 and spring '68, and reported drug ingestion during the intervening six-month period. Computer analyses of these latter records are not yet completed. Our findings are inconclusive regarding the question whether LSD ingestion produces known forms of CNS damage.

Comparison of the computer analysis of the EEGs of the LSD group, a normal group, and a Navy group disclosed that the LSD group had increased abundance of energy in all four bands as measured by the frequency analyzer. This finding is probably related to the increased amplitudes present in the records of the LSD users and is probably also related to our observation that these subjects seemed more able to relax and ignore the external environment in the test setting than ordinary laboratory subjects. This explanation would fit with Kamiya's( 14) observation that when individuals alter their state of consciousness the amplitudes of their EEG waves change. It would also account for the finding that more fast activity, usually associated with anxiety, was present as measured by the period analyzer in the records of the Navy group. It would seem that we have an electroencephalographic description of a relaxed LSD user and anxious, "up tight" straight patient.

Alternative explanations are possible for these findings. One is that the findings are totally independent of the subjects' chronic use of LSD. This explanation, stated simply, is that they had to be different or unusual in order to repeatedly ingest a powerful unknown substance. It can also be argued that the findings observed in chronic LSD users are merely those present in schizophrenics who have incidentally ingested LSD, since the nature of the beliefs in chronic LSD users and schizophrenics is similar. We have, however, observed important distinctions between the two. The chronic users, unlike schizophrenics, are involved with people and skilled interpersonal- iv. in addition, their values on the two-tone auditory evoked response measure are similar to those of normals rather than schizophrenics. The clinic-,it picture of unusual beliefs, relatively intact interpersonal relationships, and cognitive abilities suggests that these subjects are more similar to individuals usually termed eccentric than to individuals diagnosed as schizophrenic. A third possible explanation of their beliefs is that they reflect the social stress of our time (1).

Speculations

The profound nonaggressive attitudes and magic-mystical beliefs seen among LSD users have been described by others( 2, 11, 20, 22). Our observations suggest that these beliefs may arise as learned consequences of frequent, intense LSD experiences in susceptible individuals. Before ingesting LSD our subjects were passive individuals, angry with their parents and with their own inabilities. Their personality characteristics were similar to the passive, introverted college students studied by McGlothlin( 18). After frequent ingestions they were passive and internally oriented, perhaps more so, and similar in many respects to Ditman's(7) group 1.

Sensory input or sensory modulation is affected in the acute LSD state( 16). The individual experiences an increased awareness of colors, sounds, textures, etc. The stimuli seem brighter, louder, or fluffier. Occasionally, sensory crossing occurs. Sounds, for example, may affect visual images. The jangling of a telephone can turn a quiet, restful patterned image of pink and grey into a visual field of jarring green. Transpositions across various conceptual levels occur more readily. Thoughts may be seen as pictures; feeling or emotions may appear in the visual or cognitive system as artistic or poetic creations.

Emotional coldness may be experienced as images of icebergs or may appear in the thinking processes as metaphors. LSD also alters some of the basic reality-organizing and testing systems of the mind. The sense of time is altered and the individual's awareness of himself as a separate entity from the world around him is affected. At times he can no longer discriminate internal mental events from external events.

Given this altered state of mind, what one experiences depends on one's personality structure and on the type of emotional pressure present. If the emotion is love, one's images would reflect this emotion. The images and sensations might consist of tender scenes from childhood or religious themes. The diffuseness of one's self-boundaries accentuates the experience and one would perceive oneself, as the acid-head would say, as an inseparable part of a universe of love, a "bag of love."

If the emotion is anger or hate, the result would be images and sensations of anger or hate magnified into nightmarish proportions and experienced in an altered state of consciousness in which one is part of a world of blackness populated by horrible, primitive, cannibalistic creatures. One's anger would be turned into images of demons who attack and destroy their creator. As in a dream there would be no clear definition of self from the surroundings -no beginning, no end. The resulting nightmare of one's anger is a "bum trip."

We suggest that these intense cognitive and affectual experiences act as powerful reinforcers, gradually shaping an individual's thinking, beliefs, and behavior. Experiences with affects such as hate and anger are strongly punished. Belief in magic or in one's own omnipotence is increased by the frequent subjective experience of controlling the external world with one's thoughts. A Freedman( described, it, such individuals are "confronted with the coexistence of two compelling and contradictory orders of reality - with the interface of belief and the orderly rules of evidence."

Both observations, the extreme passivity or avoidance and denial of aggressive impulses and the increased omnipotence or belief in magical thinking, can be ascribed as arising from an alteration in the ego's critical facilities, in its ability to test reality. These alterations are perhaps reflected in the perceptual changes. Phenomenologically, the components of both superego and id seem to hive been reified or concretized as a result of the intense experiences. The abstract "thou shalt not" of the superego is transformed into attacking monsters or swords. The infantile wishes of the id are transformed into magical powers capable of performing miracles, or moving mountains, or of enveloping everything into one world of love and warmth. Consequently, the resultant personality structures are more child-like, in a descriptive but not a pejorative sense.

If LSD causes the perceptual alterations observed in these subjects and if it also plays a major role in the production of their beliefs concerning aggression and magic, then it follows that the repeated administration of this drug in a medical setting could be a useful agent for some types of individuals. Lorenz(17), in his analysis of intraspecies aggression, argues that derivatives of man's aggressive instinct play a crucial role in the organization of man's social behavior. Aggression provides a motivating force for intimate relationships, a force that, as psychiatrists, we sometimes observe to interfere with social function. Lorenz points out, however, that with the elimination of aggression

. . .the tackling of a task or a problem, the self-respect without which everything that a man does from morning till evening, from the morning shave to the sublimest artistic or scientific creations, would lose all impetus; everything associated with ambition, ranking order, and countless other equally indispensable behavior patterns would probably also disappear from human life.

This sounds remarkably like behaviors the chronic LSD users described, if LSD can alter aggressive derivatives, it would follow that the drug could, depending on dosage, frequency, and type of individual, be used as a powerful therapeutic agent or as an agent to dissolve biological bonds necessary for human social organization.

Summary

We studied 21 subjects, each of whom had ingested LSD an average of 65 times. This group was found to be different from nondrug groups on several EEG measures. Using a computer analysis of their EEGs we found an increased abundance of delta, theta, alpha, and beta activity. Such findings could be related to the presence of the drug within their systems, to central nervous system dysfunction, personality factors, or to the subjects' attitudes during the EEG recording sessions. There was no increase in the expected number of clinically abnormal EEG records in these subjects. When the records were read using usual clinical criteria, several records were judged to be poorly organized and showed increased fast and slow activity of the type that may be related to the effects of drugs but is also frequently found in other individuals in this age group.

EEG evoked potential studies of electrical response to specific stimuli were also done. On a measure which has been found to be sensitive to intellectual disorganization in schizophrenia, the auditory two-tone evoked potential, this group showed no abnormality. They also appeared normal, although perhaps slow, on visual information processing tasks. However, on visual evoked potential procedures they gave evidence of being uniquely sensitive to low intensity stimulation and, in contrast to non-LSD- using groups, there was no relationship between their evoked responses to visual stimuli and their subjective response to the intensity of tactile stimuli. They seemed to modulate and organize sensory input in a different fashion.

In the interviews these LSD users were found to hold unusual beliefs about aggression and magic. Before taking the drug they had been middle- and upper-middle-class youths apparently holding conventional beliefs. Passive, frustrated, angry with their parents and their own life situations, they began to use the drug, often in a conscious attempt to alter their unpleasant emotions. It is not completely clear what role the LSD experience played in their subsequent behavior and beliefs.

We suggest that the repeated intense emotional experiences arising out of the use of LSD provided a special learning environment which may have given rise to their unusual beliefs. We also want to emphasize the personality factors and the social climate in which they lived as well as the taking of drugs. All were important, and untangling the complex effects of the predrug personality, the drug experience itself and the social milieu is a difficult and perhaps impossible task.

 

......K.H. Blacker and his colleagues, using a control group for comparison, studied 21 volunteer subjects who had used LSD 15 to 300 times (average 65 times), and found some of the features of the stereotypical acidhead: openness and relaxation, likeableness, passivity and introversion, occult and magical beliefs, hippie dress and hair styles. Four said they had memory blanks and sometimes found it difficult to organize thoughts and form sentences.
    On the electroencephelogram (EEG), which records brain waves, they did not have an unusually high rate of abnormalities; but they did show significantly more energy in all frequency bands than normal control subjects and psychiatric patients, and this suggested lower than usual levels of anxiety. On tests of intellectual capacity and auditory evoked response (both usually sensitive to the disorganization produced by schizophrenia) the LSD users were normal. But they were extraordinarily sensitive to visual stimuli of low intensity, which confirmed their opinion that they could observe gestures, postures, and shades of color better than most people. They also seemed to modulate and organize sensory stimuli in an unusual way, since there was no relationship between their evoked visual responses and their subjective tactile ones. The authors describe these subjects as eccentric or childlike but not schizophrenic or otherwise pathologically impaired. They emphasize that it was hard to separate the effects of the drug from those of personality and social climate.
    Psychedelic drug users have also been tested for organic brain damage. William McGlothlin and his colleagues (McGlothlin et al., 1969) compared 16 subjects who had taken LSD 20 times or more (the range was 20 to 1,100, the median was 75 times) with 16 controls; they examined the subjects clinically and also administered the Halstead-Reitan test battery. There were no clinical organic symptoms, and no scores on the neuropsychological tests that suggested brain damage; but on a test measuring capacity for nonverbal abstraction the LSD users scored lower. As in the case of Tucker's Rorschach results, the amount of LSD was not related to the score. Nevertheless, the authors conclude that continual heavy use may cause minor organic brain pathology: six of the LSD subjects, including the three heaviest users, were regarded as "moderately suspicious" in this respect. In another study, Morgan Wright and Terrence P. Hogan (1972) found no difference between subjects who had used LSD an average of 29 times and controls (matched for age, sex, education, and IO) on a variety of neuropsychological tests, including the ones used by McGlothlin. At most, these studies confirm the existence of an eccentric acidhead personality; they do not clearly imply mental illness or brain damage. ......

"DMT: The Spirit Molecule"