I wrote my first privacy-related book in 2012 titled Hiding From The Internet. This eventually evolved into the title of Extreme Privacy, which is now a large 517-page textbook in its fourth edition, released in early 2022. In early 2023, I began conversations with my staff about the potential for a future fifth edition. There was some resistance. We had just released the 550-page OSINT Techniques textbook and we were all exhausted from the process. The idea of attacking a new version of Extreme Privacy seemed overwhelming at the time. We threw around the idea of a smaller book.
Many readers of Extreme Privacy expressed frustration at the overall amount of information presented within one volume. At 320,000 words, it could be overwhelming to digest all at once. Other criticism was that readers did not necessarily need all of the information within the book. Some wanted to focus on trusts, LLCs, and nomad domicile, and did not need all of the technology-themed chapters. Others only wanted to learn about secure computers, mobile devices, and other technical topics, and did not care about my ideas on an anonymous home or car. This was helpful feedback, and impacted the decision to release this digital book.
The most criticism from Extreme Privacy was about the format. My large OSINT and Privacy books are only available in print. This has upset many readers who want to avoid Amazon or prefer to read on a screen. With this release, and the previous digital guides, we are only providing PDFs. There are no official print versions and we have eliminated Amazon from the entire publication process. This allows us to offer a lower price, and 90% of each purchase directly supports our efforts. If you bought this, thank you for your support!
We realize that a native PDF will lead to immediate piracy of this work online. We accept that. We believe that we can offer further benefits to legitimate purchasers by offering free updates when appropriate. If we ever need to modify existing content or add entire new sections, we can send an email blast to all purchasers which will allow them to download a new copy with all updates for free. Overall, we want to reward those who support us with a searchable, copyable, updatable, and printable document, even at the risk of losing half of our sales to the pirates. If you bought this, thank you for your support! If you did not, consider purchasing a legitimate copy in order to receive all future updates. If you find anything which needs updated or corrected, please email us at [email protected]. My staff cannot respond to emails directly, but they will monitor them for any changes which we need to apply to the next version of this guide.
With Extreme Privacy: VPNs & Firewalls, I present a new approach to our tutorials. It is not a replacement for Extreme Privacy (the printed book). Please consider it a much more thorough supplement about VPNs and Firewalls.