By the author of The Prepper’s Guide to Post-Disaster Communications and Zombie Choices.
If you haven’t discovered the work of Michael Bazzell yet, you’re truly missing out. Think of what he does as being a full-time Kevin Mitnick.
Mitnick, for those who don’t know, was once the most famous hacker in the entire world. He spent a little bit of time in prison because of it. It’s not the hacking that I am referring to here, though. I’m talking about Mitnick’s book The Art of Invisibility. It’s a great primer for anybody that is looking at making sure that they are as grey man as possible towards the world at large.
It’s an older book, too, however.
That’s where Michael Bazzell comes in.
This guy helps people to disappear for a living. The man is routinely hired out by stalker victims, politicians, and celebrities to make sure that their private life is as private as possible so that they don’t have to worry about people finding out their phone number, address, email address, etc.
Where I think he is important is because his work is like The Art of Invisibility for the modern day. Technology is constantly changing, and that means that you have to constantly stay on the alert for what is changing in the world of privacy as well. If you remain static, you’re failing.
Do you remember that Tom Cruise movie Jack Reacher, where he talks about how privacy became a passion of his, and that’s how he got so good at disappearing? Bazzell is like that, minus the fancy karate moves. (Of course, I suppose he could know 22 martial arts. I’ve never met the guy, so who’s to say?)
If you’re looking at upping the privacy game, I would first check out his Extreme Privacy.
It’s a brick, but it’s probably the best primer he has on the subject, and he regularly updates it with the latest tips, tricks, and techniques within the industry of privacy. Then, once you’ve finished that one, check out Open Source Intelligence Techniques to learn more in-depth as to the tools that potential bad guys could be using against you so that way you know what to do to protect yourself against them.
Throughout the time that you’re reading these books, you need to check out his podcast: The Privacy, Security, and OSINT Show. His blog is fascinating as well, it’s just that you have to sift through a lot of podcast episodes that have been uploaded to it before you can actually find original blog content. He likes to podcast more than write, I think, so it’s not a complaint.
Another cool thing about this guy is that he tests out stuff on himself before he ever advocates its use with his clients. At the moment, he’s working on a legal passport/privacy deal that involves his heading out to the Caribbean to make sure that everything works without a hitch.
The point is, the man is a wealth of information, and I think that there’s a lot that just about anybody could learn by perusing what it is that he has to offer. Encryption, computer science, and the legal framework that constantly weave their way through the world of privacy are very complicated subjects that it’s very difficult to navigate through on your own.
Bazzell does a great job of explaining all of this in a very simple format that will allow somebody who isn’t completely illiterate behind a keyboard to do a few things to better help protect themselves. He does have coding tips sometimes as well, but the majority of his tips that I’ve found don’t involve any coding at all. He has a lot of scalable information in that way.
His information covers the entire gamut of everything possible too.
Anonymous online purchases, anonymous homes, phone numbers, phones, email addresses, computers – Bazzell covers it all.
He’s not just some kook, either. His books are routinely used by colleges throughout the States as textbooks for the computer guru degrees.
I know this all kind of sounds like an ad for the guy, but he truly is a great resource that you’ll be able to get a lot of solid information out of.
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And perchance you’re looking at a thorough, deep dive into improving your privacy (maybe you have a physically abusive ex-boyfriend that is stalking you), then Bazzell also offers consulting where he can get you completely squared away with living a “new” life with as minimal risk of being found as likely is possible.
Other interesting services he offers are a “Death Kit,” where he creates a digital vault for his clients that will be opened and sent to the proper family members in a secure way after you die, a digital magazine, and the ability to rent a temporary safe house.
According to his site, the safe houses are for those who are in immediate physical danger. Given that he seems to do a lot of work with stalker cases, he has a bit of experience here.
All in all, check out his work.
What do you think about being gray in the modern world, filled with surveillance and devices and the internet? Have you ever read Michael Bazzell’s books or listened to his podcast? Let us know below.
About Aden
Aden Tate is a regular contributor to TheOrganicPrepper.com and TheFrugalite.com. Aden runs a micro-farm where he raises dairy goats, a pig, honeybees, meat chickens, laying chickens, tomatoes, mushrooms, and greens. Aden has four published books, What School Should Have Taught You, The Faithful Prepper, An Arm and a Leg, The Prepper’s Guide to Post-Disaster Communications, and Zombie Choices. You can find his podcast The Last American on Preppers’ Broadcasting Network.
The first Amazon review of Kevin Mitnick’s 2017 book is almost a small book’s length itself — and very worth reading to get an idea of the complexity of trying to maintain privacy in today’s constantly changing world. One course and community devoted to maintaining privacy online is Glenn Meder’s Privacy Action Plan (which is not cheap) at:
https://privacyactionplan.com/
However the privacy problems go well beyond just being online. Some 90% of the world’s central banks are pushing hard to replace physical money with CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) which destroys our 4th Amendment privacy protections. It also makes it possible for central tax agencies like the US IRS to instantly dip into your accounts at will — and that’s in addition to central banks like the US Federal Reserve to digitally and instantly counterfeit the currency which steals your purchasing power without recourse. Hundreds of years ago such counterfeiting of physical money was a death penalty offense — which is why central banks were created so such counterfeiting by them (on behalf of their governments) left the population no way to hold such counterfeiters accountable.
The US got stuck with that historic scam after secret British money bought our 1912 election for their favorite socialist candidate, Woodrow Wilson, so the US Federal Reserve could counterfeit US money to fund US participation in the European civil war the British knew was coming. In our era the Biden crime syndicate is destroying the US dollar as fast as possible — while at the same time trying to introduce the same kind of “social credit system” the tyrants in communist China are using to dictate what their population can do, say, write, buy or sell, etc — while absolutely banning all competing crypto currencies not created or owned by the communist party. The US equivalent is our SEC exploring how to “regulate” any competing crypto currencies in this country — which will raise an extreme privacy problem as well.
The G20 countries have just blessed the idea of digital vaccine passports to keep anyone from traveling internationally without having taken the heart attack jab first. There are reports that when crossing US borders we can expect our smartphones to be seized and copied — again in wanton violation of 4th Amendment prohibitions.
Just imagine when the millions of retirees on Social Security suddenly can’t get their monthly income (as promised since the 1930s) without that digital ID and vaccine passport implant. Crypto currency and the ancient recourse to barter can’t solve those retirees’ problem. Etc, etc.
And the millions who will die of myocarditis will unintentionally help the money counterfeiters’ budget problems with their always insatiable spending addiction.
So the tyrants at WEF, their “Young Leaders” (like Macron, Trudeau, King Charles, etc) in country after country, and the majority of central banks worldwide are threatening to destroy privacy forever. While there are almost countless thousands of different cyptocurrencies, there will be no non-digital way people will be able to pay utility bills and tax bills or even grocery bills to large organizations that will be forced to accept digital money only.
In my opinion the globalist war on not only the privacy protections guaranteed by the US Constitution but on every other country with similar inclinations is already in full force — even if undeclared.
–Lewis
Gray Man sounds great. In a Pre-SHTF situation, given today’s technology, it may help to keep you off a “list”. It may help you stay under the radar.
In a Post-SHTF situation it is doubtful that the technology would necessarily be available for it to make a real difference. Post-SHTF would more than likely means that all the lists, even if accessible, would have very little relevance, and would not be updated. Let’s be honest….in a Post-SHTF scenario it’s your friends and neighbors that you are going to be dealing with, and it’s awful hard to be a “gray man” with them.
I agree.
Take the Ukraine/Russo war.
Half the country is without power or water. Bullets flying, in-coming arty etc. What good is that list going to do if the computer cannot turn on without power? Or the building it was in is now rubble.
Also, be on a list, but what good is that going to do if the home that person resided in is now rubble. Where is that person? Poland? Fled West? KIA?
And who is going to care?
Some have stayed for it is their home and it is all they know. Others who have also stayed will know them and each other. Like minded people or people with things in common, like being a member of a community tend to band together.
When your government is handing out AK-47/74, M-16 and other weapons from other Western countries to every able bodied male and more than a few females, everyone is openly carrying. Not reading about a lot of looting, except from the Russians and of course rape.
I once knew a man (since deceased) who got caught by “two SS officers and a Gestapo man” (he was in wartime Germany) who wanted to arrest him. He finally convinced them that it would be easier for them to take the information from his ID card and arrest him later. It was only later that the seriousness of the situation sank in.
But he recognized that if the Gestapo went to the house listed on his ID card, they would find only a pile of rubble. Let’s say that they then managed to find where he had next moved to, there they’d find another pile of rubble. He was then at a third place that was temporary. War time destruction really played havoc with the Nazi’s population control scheme.
I expect World War III to land nukes in many places in the U.S. and will likely make a real mess. Will the internet still be up? Will our fastest communications be PSK-31? How many power plants will still generate electricity? How many computers will survive to run data centers? Will there be enough people to do surveys? If people want to disappear, who can stop them?
China recently recognized that they have between 13–30 million people for whom they have no records of their existence. They don’t know how many. If a place like China in peace time can lose that many people, what is the probability in a post SHTF that accurate records can be made?
Years ago I read a SciFi story about how .gov tracked down grey men by the digital hole that they left behind so perhaps we would be better off compartmentalizing our lives. Preps and free thinking in one compartment and Fakebook and such in another. Cash for thunder toys and gear and the credit card for regular purchases.