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Lab blueprint · personal threat modeling

Divorce Data Security Plan
Keep strategy and ledgers under your control

A practical blueprint for organizing custody notes, asset ledgers, and litigation prep without dumping them into shared family cloud folders or casual consumer AI. Not legal advice, a data handling pattern.

Safety bar (absolute)

  • Talk to counsel before relying on any AI output in a filing or negotiation.
  • Local vault is the source of truth. Chat windows are temporary helpers.
  • Shared devices and shared cloud accounts are often a bigger risk than the model itself.
  • Humans decide. Models can flag inconsistencies; they do not “win” cases.

Why this shows up for business people

Personal legal disputes can spill into corporate risk: shared laptops, work email, discovery of personal cloud backups, or pasting business financials into a public chat “just to organize them.” Securing personal materials is not dramt is basic containment so private life does not become an accidental data spill.

During a divorce, diaries, asset spreadsheets, custody logs, and counsel notes become high value material. Shared family iCloud/OneDrive, a logged in home computer, and consumer AI chat are common leak pathot because the tools are evil, but because convenience outruns judgment under stress.

The threat model (short)

Common weak points

  • Shared or synced cloud folders
  • Consumer chat prompts and history
  • Shared home devices and SMS 2FA
  • Opposing discovery of accounts you forgot existed

Default protections

  • Local encrypted vault (not family sync)
  • Password hygiene + app based 2FA
  • AI only at the tier you can justify
  • Physical offline backup you control

Run as secure as you can afford

Fully offline AI is ideal for this material. It is also the tier many people cannot run yet. Build the vault either way; choose AI help based on hardware and risk tolerance.

TIER 1 · BASE · DO THIS REGARDLESS

Local vault (no AI)

Obsidian or plain markdown on an encrypted drive (FileVault / BitLocker). Folders like 01_Timeline, 02_Financials, 03_Legal. Do not put this vault inside a shared family iCloud/OneDrive/Dropbox path. Cross link dates and assets with [[wiki links]]. This is most of the value.

TIER 2 · HOME / BUDGET · HIGHER RISK · USE SPARINGLY

Careful hosted AI when offline is not possible

If you have no local GPU and still need help summarizing or comparing documents, prefer tools with clearer enterprise/developer data controls over casual free chat, and assume anything you paste can leave your device, be logged, or become discoverable depending on jurisdiction and terms.

  • Redact names, account numbers, and SSNs when the task does not need them.
  • Paste the smallest excerpt that answers the question.
  • Temperature 0 for comparison work; require “quote the source line.”
  • Copy verified notes back into the vault; delete chat history when you can.
  • Ask counsel before putting privileged strategy into any third party tool.
TIER 3 · STRONGEST AI TIER · HARDWARE REQUIRED

Offline local LLM

LM Studio, Ollama, or similar with open weight models (e.g. Llama 3 / Mistral class) on a machine you control. After download, daily inference can stay offline. For highly sensitive work, disconnect the network while the material is open if your setup allows. This is the right default when the hardware is available, not a moral failing when it is not.

1. Vault setup

  • Encrypted volume; personal machine only; startup password on the vault if your tool supports it.
  • Structure by timeline, money, and legal work product, not one giant “Notes” dump.
  • Backup to a physical encrypted SSD you control, not a surprise family sync.

2. Useful AI questions (after human judgment)

Example prompts that stay in “organize and flag” mode:

  • “List chronological conflicts between these calendar notes and this declaration. Quote both sides. If unclear, say unclear.”
  • “Summarize cash movements in this export by month. Do not invent missing months.”

3. Account and device hygiene

  • Rotate email, bank, and Apple/Google passwords; prefer app based 2FA over SMS when you can.
  • Review devices signed into cloud accounts; remove shared family devices you no longer control.
  • Assume opposing counsel may ask what tools you used, keep your process boring and defensible.

What this is not

Not a promise that offline use makes material “undiscoverable.” Courts and counsel have their own rules. This guide is about reducing accidental leaks and keeping your notes organized under streso you and your attorney work from a clear file, not a chaos of chats.