Without the ability to keep secrets, individuals lose the capacity to distinguish themselves from others, to maintain independent lives, to be complete and autonomous persons. This does not mean that a person actually has to keep secrets to be autonomous, just that she must possess the ability to do so. The ability to keep secrets implies the ability to disclose secrets selectively, and so the capacity for selective disclosure at one’s own discretion is important to individual autonomy as well.
Secrecy is a form of power. The ability to protect a secret, to preserve one’s privacy, is a form of power. The ability to penetrate secrets, to learn them, to use them, is also a form of power. Secrecy empowers, secrecy protects, secrecy hurts. The ability to learn a person’s secrets without his or her knowledge — to pierce a person’s privacy in secret — is a greater power still.
We want to help you exercise your unalienable right to secrecy, or in other words, to have you and your property left alone.
Starting to vanish can seem like a massively complicated project. Please do not be intimidated but just take it one step at a time. Sure, you may feel overwhelmed and be wondering, “Where in the world do I start?”
This article will give you practical and actionable tips with as much value as possible to solve the particular issue or circumstance. Sometimes the tips are basic. Sometimes the tips are complex. But never will your time or attention be taken for granted with fluffy time wasting suggestions.
Sometimes this includes analysis of a law or court case, actual or potential uses of some technology or just current trends or events.
But at the end of the day we want to help you protect your privacy, decrease your risk of being an identity theft victim and doing so completely legally so you do not break any laws.
Five Things You Can Do
1. Here is a Free Privacy Guide that contains five easy ways to increase your privacy and is a quick introduction to actionable items you can do for free right now.
2. Get acquainted with Bitcoin. I have loved, written about and recommended Bitcoin for a long time and see it as a powerful tool when applying it to controlling privacy ever since. Bitcoin will become one of your most powerful tools because it makes so much possible. And protecting your Bitcoin, or Steem for that matter!, involves understanding how to use asymmetric cryptography to secure and protect private keys.
3. Read a few of these popular posts. If a lot of other people have found them useful then maybe you will too.
- How To Survive In Captivity - The principles of survival that special forces soldiers use apply to every day citizens as well. Learn how to survive captivity.
- What Liberty Dollar Should Have Learned From The Godfather - The first of three articles examining the Liberty Dollar case and looking at what Bernard von Nothaus should and should not have done.
- Why Bitcoin Acceptance Should Be A Litmus Test of Liberty Proponents - Merchants accepting bitcoins protect their customers from identity theft and political persecution when purchasing liberty orientated products and services.
- Stratfor Failed To Protect Their Customers By Not Accepting Bitcoin - Stratfor’s website was hacked posing a risk of identity theft for their subscribers. Stratfor could have prevented this by accepting BitCoins.
- Anonymous Web Surfing To Protect Your Internet Privacy - How you can take control of your Internet privacy.
- Ten Privacy Tips For Protecting Your Identity And Avoiding Identity Theft - Control your privacy by using these ten privacy tips for protecting your identity and avoiding identity theft.
- Remove Personal Information From The Internet - There are ways to remove personal information from the internet, like your address and phone number, from most of the websites that publish that kind of information.
- Avoid Surveillance Cameras - Video camera surveillance is everywhere. There are some weaknesses to video surveillance systems which are exploited to avoid video camera surveillance and facial recognition.
- Avoid Private Investigators - There are many reasons why an investigator might be conducting surveillance on you. Find out how to avoid private investigator surveillance.
- Keep Your Home Address To Yourself - Property ownership is a matter of public record. Here are three ways to keep your property ownership out of public records.
- Keep Your Assets Hidden In Plain Sight - Keep your name out of public records and keep your assets hidden in plain sight.
- Three Ways To Hide Valuables At Home - Three ways to hide valuables at home shows you how to protect your stuff right under your nose without relying on anybody else to help you.
- Tim Ferris Is California's Bitch - When He Does Not Have To Be - CA passed a law taxing out-of-state retailers with CA affiliates. Amazon terminated affiliate’s including Tim Ferris who lost a five figure monthly income.
- Do You Need To Profitably Sue A TSA Agent? - Profitably suing a TSA agent individually may be the only way to stop them from touching your genitals. Learn how to keep your privates private.
- Taking Raw Food Recipes Underground - Raw food recipes require unprocessed food in its natural state. Legislatures and police agencies are making unprocessed food harder to find.
- Modern Hawala - Flying money. Learn about this ancient system for moving money around the world in the blink of an eye. Extremely useful in conjunction with Bitcoin.
4. Consider watching some videos at How To Vanish TV. These are often included in articles we write as examples or solutions but you may feel like going through the playlist anyway.
5. The more people who apply privacy hygiene the safer and more private we all are because you could protect your privacy only to have one of your friends inadvertently breach it. Even Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg, complained about a family photo being posted to Facebook and the shared with the public.
Excellent tips.
Here are some resources for people who are new to this stuff:
Use this chart to choose the best VPN for your needs. It is very detailed. Basically you want one located outside of the "5 Eyes" countries and that does not keep logs. Chart here: https://thatoneprivacysite.net/vpn-comparison-chart/
Use these sites to switch out your commonly used software for ones which respect your privacy:
https://prism-break.org/en/
https://www.privacytools.io/
Use ConfigFox to lock down your Firefox browser: http://configfox.sourceforge.net/
If you're using Chrome make sure you have addons like Adblock, Ghostery, and Https Everywhere. And if you're using a VPN make sure to have WebRTC Leak Prevent.
Use https://whoer.net/ to check your public IP and the information your browser makes available to the sites you visit.
A few small changes to your usage habits can make a huge difference to your online safety. Good luck!
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The most money I have is the amount I keep a secret
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+1 thank you for links !
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this is pretty bad. whats next, the "paperchase" method for creating a new identity?
IDK if that howtovanish site is yours, but all the info on it seems extremely dated and most of it is effectively useless now.
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Wow, great article and tips in here! Thank you very very much. You sure get my upvote. Namaste :)
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One thing I don't keep private is how much I value my privacy. If the contradiction in that sentence strikes you as an oxymoron, good, it shows you're thinking.
And this is but one minor example of the tension between the public nature of a blockchain and the pseudo anonymity that disconnects the immutable public ledger from real world identity.
As a public ledger, blockchain technology is a powerful publishing tool for anything, including steemit posts, votes of an election, court decisions, deeds to land and payment history, all of which provide accountability and a highly secure WORM (Write Once, Read Many) database.
Being involved with BitShares for several years I have often commented on the juxtaposition and dichotomy between public blockchain information and the need for privacy. When John Underwood's Identabit was first introduced I raised concerns of how it might affect BitShares. I was involved with Onceuponatime and the early formation of the BitShares stealth feature (now being spearheaded by kencode ofBitShares Munich) because I saw the need to protect what assets are owned from just anybody.
So for me personally the concept of a public blockchain ledger and privacy/ personal control are quite contradictory. It is the application of the tool that determines whether it will be used for good or evil, not the tool itself.
Anyone that claims they are not concerned about privacy today have not learned the valuable lessons history has to teach us. Who would want their monthly bank statements published in the local newspaper? The greater the balance in your account the more you'll probably want to hide it from the public.
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Interesting, I have a VPN for my iPhone and iPad, using a "RED" Tor browser also; agreed, you can never be too careful!!
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How do you use a VPN for your IPhone and IPad. Sorry all new to this stuff also can you use a VPN for streaming devices. In the article he said avoid video surveillance cameras that's like avoiding air nowadays.
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I remember an anonymous video a couple of years ago that gave instructions on how to install infrared led lights underneath the brim of a ball cap. Even though no one can see the light the cameras pick it up and makes your face look like a glowing orb so you are unrecognizable
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VPNs are a great privacy tool! I like Private Internet Access because they accept bitcoins and work with devices like iPhones, iPads and Android; kind of defeats the purpose to pay with a credit card linked to your name!
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I use a free VPN, it's an app that's freely available.
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I use https://www.startpage.com/ for private browsing.
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Other good options are:
https://search.disconnect.me/
https://www.unbubble.eu/
and of course https://duckduckgo.com/ !
I recommend making duckduckgo your default search engine in your browser. Get away from Google. :)
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Thank you +1
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Great suggestion and that is what I use primarily for search.
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Ditto, for some years now ! +1 for you !
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Now that is a helpful post... Cheers @tracemayer :))
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Thanks!
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Your term "privacy hygiene" really grabbed my attention, Thanks!
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Yep! You don't want to have a communicable privacy disease where you are leaking goop all over the place and getting it all over everyone. That is just nasty! Yuck!!
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Great post and links Trace. Keep up the great work. Cheers
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Good info Trace.
Now I am going to pull off a vanishing act!
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LOL, I love it! I actually held a sloth last week; how seredipidious!
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You know I have been in Panama for 5 years and have never held one.
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Wow, what a treasure of infos! Thanks!
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+1 Indeed ! ... Oh yea .. wanna be free ? "Get to walkin fabio !" lol had to say it !
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Excellent informative and practical post.
I also found that my training with these guys go a long way, both tops in their field:
Tracker School
Kevin Reeve's On Point Tatical
Thanks, for the info, Trace!
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Thanks for links
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It would be wise to learn how to create a new identity if/when that time comes to either "Get Out of Dodge" or go "Underground". https://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Identity-Disappear-Right-ebook/dp/B00BGXABP4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1471719829&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+create+a+new+identity
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Awesome sauce. I see its been a while since you last posted on the youtube channel?
I'm very tempted to start producing public content on this. I have a workshop at freedomhacker.tv/ safe precisely on how to hide your tracks as you surf the web and how to build a fort for your digital assets.
I got other projects live ofcourse, but I'm curious if we can collab.
I'm on fb and tw. If you check it out, pm me. @juansgalt.
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Good article. The more privacy we have the more power we keep for ourselves. Thank you for new ideas on retaining that privacy.
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Very good information. Reading this over!
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Excellent information! I read a book called "How to Be Invisible," by J.J. Luna about five years ago, and have been applying a lot of the principles he teaches in my everyday life since then. Among the most powerful and useful techniques I've learned from that book, and other, smaller publications by Luna, are the importance of having "ghost addresses" and using shell LLC companies in states where the owner's name isn't public record (like New Mexico) to register things like your car and your house. In the five years I've lived in my current house, I've managed to keep my actual physical address out of ANY public record that I've seen, and I never get mail or deliveries here. Only people who know me well get to come to my actual home (I call it the Bat Cave). These are good things in today's world.
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Awesome tips. Will take a while to go through them all. We've just had our Census here in Australia and for the first time they are linking names and data. Fortunately IBM who had the contract for running it online fucked up big time and the whole thing crashed. Lol. Anyway keep these great stories coming.
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Privacy is eroding as our world becomes more digital. If we do nothing, our privacy is at risk. It is everyone's responsibility to be careful and understand the consequences to our actions and apathy.
This is a great post with lots of recommendations and resources. The very first step, is the internalization that risks are going up. Privacy violations can impact your safety, finances, reputation, security, and ability to use various services. Everyone must step forward and own the protection of their privacy. Start with the simple decisions, like what to share online.
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Yes, is over what to think
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Nice advice. I feel that if I think too much about privacy issues, or being hacked etc etc, I just invite that into my life. Its a form being being fearful, of worrying. I can take the appropriate measures to ensure I am secured and then forget about it. I have no concern about my privacy online with anything. I have nothing to hide and nothing to lose, at least that is my perception. Sure a hack could lose me money on some platform, but I don't need to think about it. If I care too much it will of course happen, just to prove me right.
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I always thought you just needed a tiny rock hammer and a big ass poster to vanish
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Thank you for this work!! I have been thinking a lot lately about the similarities with bitcoin and pgp. Both have public key cryptography, both have signatures, both are just systems of sending cryptographicallly signed messages. Big difference is bitcoin intersects with a blockchain to assure assurance at a global level and of course securitize a database/ledger of record of not double spending the transactions or messages. And boom one becomes money because of this genius collection of technologies.
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You would think we all would want to search for privacy and secrecy. But the way people post their daily lives in social media through that right out the window. You wonder what people are thinking as they post through FB and Twr exposing their daily lives.
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thanks the tips @tracemayer
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another "Great" post, ty ! So, probable 1st step, Don't use real name on steemit or ANY social site...
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