Extreme Privacy
"My Successes and Failures While Making People Disappear" Michael Bazzell has helped hundreds of celebrities, billionaires, and everyday citizens disappear completely from public view. He is now known in Hollywood as the guy that “fixes” things. His previous books about privacy were mostly REACTIVE and he focused on ways to hide information, clean up an online presence, and sanitize public records to avoid unwanted exposure. This 630-page textbook is PROACTIVE. It is about starting over. It is the complete guide that he would give to any new client in an extreme situation. It leaves nothing out and provides explicit details of every step he takes to make someone completely disappear, including legal documents and a chronological order of events. The information shared in this book is based on real experiences with his actual clients, and is unlike any content ever released in his other books. The stories are all true, with the exception of changed names, locations, and minor details in order to protect the privacy of those described. For many, this is the only privacy manual needed to secure a new digital life.
Stats for nerds
12recommend
16mentions
16people
2020–2026years
75% recommend25% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- It fits in with the rest of privacy in the US, which is slowly becoming reserved for the wealthy.
The 1% already have privacy consultants to help them keep their data private through shell corporations, legal trusts and other tricks. (The book 'Extreme Privacy' is from one such consultant and well worth a read)
Now if your want privacy in AI? Shell out $$$ for local hardware.
- For a detailed discussion about phones, personal data and anonymity, there is a good book written by a former police officer: Michael Bazzell (2024) Extreme Privacy: What It Takes To Disappear, fifth edition.
https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Privacy-What-Takes-Disappear/...
- Your strategy seems good to me. The primary reference that I use for this kind of stuff is Michael Bazzell's book "Extreme Privacy". It goes into some detail about his strategy for using custom domains to compartmentalize things. That's what I base my own strategy on.
The only thing that I would add is that I prefer to "salt" my single-purpose email addresses with a bunch of random characters to prevent enumeration attacks, since it would be trivial to figure out the email address that I use for different services by just guessing. If I used amazon@domain.net, I might also use uber@domain.net, etc. Adding a salt prevents this from happening.
- I would recommend reading Extreme Privacy by Michael Bazzell if these types of thing concern you. A relevant passage:
"First, I would never provide my home address on any application or W-9 form. This should only be your PO Box, UPS Box, or PMB address. Your employer likely does not care much about where you live, unless the job has residency requirements, such as a police officer. The IRS does not object to the use of a mail box address. They just want their money."
- > Browser
Brave. I keep extensions limited to reduce potential uniqueness. Unfortunately, I do use Linux. Would be nice to modify the fingerprint to be less bespoke, but I haven't taken the time to figure that out.
>Social media
I only use it through web browsers. Apps may be fine, but much harder to trust. GrapheneOS does make me feel better about it, but all the web apps now are great in mobile so it seems fine.
Extreme Privacy by Michael Bazzell[1] is an excellent read on this topic. It provides insight into mostly practical tips and can always be watered down to meet your requirements.
- Extreme Privacy by Michael Bazzell is a great resource to learn how to limit exposure to these aggregator services.
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