Divorce Data Security Plan
Locking Down High Stakes Personal & Legal Files

During a divorce, personal information becomes legal evidence. Your diary entries, asset spreadsheets, custody notes, and communications with counsel are high value targets. Using standard cloud notes (like Apple Notes, Evernote, or OneNote) or commercial AI models (like ChatGPT) creates massive exposure vectors:

• Cloud Sharing Risks: Shared family accounts, synchronized iCloud/OneDrive vaults, and forgotten logged in home computers can expose notes to a spouse.
• AI Training & Leaks: Uploading asset spreadsheets or custody timelines to standard chatbots means your data is sent to external servers, potentially trained on, and subject to subpoena or breach.

The Threat Model

1. Establishing the Local first Obsidian Vault

Obsidian is the core of this system because it is local first. Your notes reside on your physical drive, not in a vendor's database.

• Create a local directory on an encrypted drive (e.g., FileVault on Mac or BitLocker on Windows). **Do not save it in a folder synced to a shared iCloud or OneDrive account.**
• Structure folders: 01_Timeline (visitation logs, incident diaries), 02_Financials (asset ledgers, tax histories), and 03_Legal (strategy, attorney communication briefs).
• Cross link incidents to specific dates and asset numbers using [[Double_Brackets]]. This establishes a clean, timeline based ledger for trial prep.

2. Safe LLM Analysis (Offline Only)

When drafting legal statements, analyzing financial ledgers, or searching for inconsistencies in a spouse's testimony, **never use public cloud models**.

• Download LM Studio or Ollama: These tools let you run open weights frontier LLMs (like Llama 3 or Mistral) locally on your own computer.
• Cut Internet Access: Before copying sensitive legal files or financial details into the model, disconnect from Wifi. The local model will run 100% offline.
• Use Case: Feed the local LLM your spouse's court declaration and your calendar logs. Ask: *"Identify any chronological contradictions between these calendar logs and the attached declaration."*

3. Device & Communications Isolation

Implement basic hardware security hygiene:

• Rotate Passwords: Change your email, bank, and Apple ID/Google credentials immediately. Enable App based Two factor Authentication (do not use SMS, which is vulnerable to SIM swapping or shared device previews).
• Vault Lockdown: Set a startup lock or password inside your local Obsidian vault. Keep your local backup on a physical, password protected external SSD stored in a safe.

Risk Advisory Case Study

A client facing a contentious asset split used this workflow to organize a 15-year financial ledger. By running Llama-3 locally inside LM Studio, they analyzed bank records and identified $45,000 in hidden, un declared marital withdrawals. Because they operated strictly offline, the ledger and search queries remained completely protected from discovery and opposing counsel's access, ultimately securing a favorable mediation settlement.