Never Sponsored
When we started sharing our privacy journey on X and on our blog at https://incognitocat.me/, we were surprised by how quickly sponsorship offers arrived. Our original goal was simple: after the major 2024 National Public Data breach, we wanted to share the same privacy tools and techniques we use ourselves. We had already been talking about this with family, friends, and coworkers. We even gave a few talks to senior groups and church groups. But we hoped to reach more people so they could see what is at stake and learn practical steps to protect themselves.
"The Age of Surveillance Capitalism"
Your information is collected, stored for a long time, and often kept with weak protection. Companies do this because the data is valuable to them, not because it is always valuable to you. Shoshana Zuboff, a professor emerita at Harvard Business School, explores how this system developed in her book "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism". You do not need to read the book to grasp the core problem: once your details leave your control, you cannot easily get them back or stop them from being used later.
Your information stays at risk because attackers keep targeting any organization that holds personal details about people. It does not matter whether a hospital faces ransomware or a website scans your driver’s license to verify your age. Once that data is out of your hands, you no longer control it. Someone can use those details to trick you or your employer (this is often called social engineering), or to open accounts and commit fraud in your name. A recent case involved a Pennsylvania woman arrested after her identity was used on Cash App.
The fact that so much personal information is collected for many different reasons, often without strong safeguards, should concern everyone. Yet most people see the constant stream of similar data breach news stories and simply wonder, "What can I do about it?"
Sharing Our Journey
Our goal is to help others see the problems we all face and to show how we are handling them in our own lives. Many people do not realize how many practical options exist or how easy some of them are to try. We answer "What can I do about it?" with real examples from our house and a little encouragement to start where it makes sense for you.
You might like the same tools we chose. You might find something else that fits better. Either way is fine with us. We simply want you to know the options exist and then use the ones that work for your situation. The more people who take even small privacy steps, the more privacy everyone gets to enjoy, including family and friends who may not take the same steps themselves. When you stop leaking your own information, you also stop accidentally leaking theirs.
Sponsorships
This space clearly offers ways to make money by promoting privacy products. Every VPN sponsorship on YouTube is proof of that. We decided against that path because we wanted our recommendations to stay realistic for the same budgets and trade-offs most of our readers face. It could be a paid sponsorship, a free trial, or even a gift. When the first sponsorship offer reached us, we talked it over and quickly agreed on the same answer: we wanted to follow the same path as everyone who reads or follows us. That means spending our own money and our own time.
Everything we write about comes from research, testing, and budgeting. Every penny we spend is ours. We look for deals and discount codes just like anyone else. We plan ahead for Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. We budget for each purchase or annual subscription, and we even use gift cards we have received. We also donate to private projects we have adopted, because we know the work and costs involved and want to help them continue.
As one example, we wrote about giving new life to our existing Synology Diskstation as a host for Jellyfin. While we were deep into reviving that older network attached storage (NAS) device, we saw ways to use it better as a file share and for network backups. The hard drives we had installed years ago were not going to keep up with the new workload. So we researched larger replacements, added them near the top of our list, and kept an eye on our usual suppliers. With prices rising so much, we knew we would need to save for a while. Then a good deal appeared and one of us received a nice gift card. That felt like the right time to move forward with the project.
We believe anything else would not feel authentic or give accurate guidance. It also would not be realistic for most people who follow us. If money is tight right now, switching to the Brave browser, opening a free Proton or Tuta email account, and using a private search engine can be a strong start. Later, if your budget allows, you might choose paid versions of those tools or something different that fits you better. The important part is taking steps and choosing the solutions that work best for your situation.
Open Diary
This journey is an open diary. We share what we have learned along the way, even when something was a poor fit for our needs and we had to find a different solution. As we wrote on our About page: We never accept payment to write about privacy, and we never will. No company compensates us for mentioning its products or services. We do not join affiliate programs. We never share promo codes. We do not serve as paid promoters for anyone. We also do not offer any type of donation options, newsletters, memecoin schemes, or sell merchandise of any kind. We will never contact you for any reason.
We are sharing everything we have learned and information we think might be helpful. We deeply appreciate every one of you who has joined us on this journey.
Remember: We may not have anything to hide, but everything to protect.
