Privacy Pyramid The 4 Levels Of Digital Surveillance

when people think about online privacy

most of the time they’re just thinking

about hiding their activities from the

seemingly endless trackers on the

internet all those cookies and targeted

ads and people selling your data to

Brokers it’s kind of invasive and

unsettling and most people want a way

out of that but some people have more

personal reasons for wanting to

disappear online maybe there’s a crazy

ex that they’re looking to hide from or

maybe they need to hide from private

investigators and maybe it’s so serious

they need to hide from governments or

specialized agencies like the National

Security Agency better known as the NSA

welcome to whiteboard crypto the number

one YouTube channel for crypto education

and here we explain topics of the

cryptocurrency world using analogies

stories and examples so that you can

easily understand them in this video

we’re going to be talking about the

attacker pyramid and how there are a

variety of reasons that some people

might want to completely disappear we’ll

be discussing the steps that are

important to take for each level and

give some examples to compare them the

next video in this series goes into

specifics about how to disappear online

and the video after that your specifics

about disappearing alog together but

before deciding if you want to disappear

at all it’s important to know why you

feel the need you want to do this and

what it might look like disappearing is

not easy you’re always going to be

trading convenience for privacy but

there’s varying degrees of anonymity or

being anonymous and so you can have more

or less inconvenience depending on your

privacy needs so let’s get into this

attacker pyramid if you’re a hacker or

you’re interested in cyber security

you’re probably pretty familiar with a

different attacker pyramid something

known as the Pyramid of pain which

explains the different kinds of hackers

that can be threats we’re developing our

own attacker pyramid although we didn’t

come up with a great name for it you

will find it useful if you’re working on

increasing your privacy instead of

looking at threats as only being hackers

out there trying to get you we’re

looking from a larger angle of not just

online but offline threats and the

different steps you need to take

depending on where you fall in the

pyramid so basically depending on who

you want to hide from your plans and

your strategy are going to be changing a

VPN will hide hide you from Facebook but

it may not hide you from the NSA a new

name May hide you from a crazy X but

it’s not going to hide you from a

government who you’re trying to hide

from will change your plan so our

Pyramid has four different levels of

reasons of why you might want to become

Anonymous first being less tracked by

big Tech or other online actors second

hiding from personal contacts or

specific individuals third hiding from

organizations or groups of people who

have skills and tools like private

investigators and fourth is hiding from

governments or other official agencies

level one basic online anonymity the

first thing we want to think about with

the levels of this pyramid is what the

tradeoff between privacy and convenience

is layer one has a very minimal

trade-off it’s not too inconvenient to

stay private online it might be a little

Annoying to set up at first but once

it’s set up and you understand how to do

it you don’t really have to think about

it again think about the last time that

you browsed online you might not have

been as alone as you thought or Journey

up the attacker pyramid begins with the

the base level basic online anonymity

this is about dodging the prying eyes of

big Tech and other digital trackers the

keyword we’re thinking about for this

level is becoming hard to track now most

of us are aware that when you hop online

to check your email you watch some

YouTube video maybe like this one or

scroll through social media companies

are often tracking what you’re doing

they want to know what you like what you

buy where you go because then they can

feed you more personalized ads that

you’re more likely to click on and so

they will make more money but why should

you care about that well it’s more than

just the ads it’s about your digital

footprint the trail that you leave

behind our online lives are the first

place people in the rest of the attacker

pyramid will look when they try to find

us so no matter where you land in this

pyramid you’ll want to start here this

level will require things like changing

your privacy settings using a browser

that blocks tracking cookies using a

virtual private Network or VPN and using

intend encrypted messaging apps and

emails Honestly though these are really

basic things that everyone should be

doing anyways you can watch the the next

video in the series how to disappear

online to learn specifically what to do

and how to do it moving on though let’s

get to level two level two is personal

contacts okay so the next step up our

pyramid is for people who are trying to

hide from a crazy ex or a demanding

parent or even a creepy coworker while

big Tech is interested in everybody it’s

in the second level that things start to

become personal basically this level is

for people who don’t understand

boundaries but don’t have the resources

to hire someone with more skill to track

you down you have the power to build

your own digital Fortress by limiting

who has access to your personal info

you’re taking that control back in this

level the focus is on limiting your

entire online life you want to become

hard to hack and hard to track your

crazy X might actually be able to guess

your passwords so you need to make sure

that they’re secure and not the same on

the other hand a government such as one

that’s at the top of the pyramid they

will have people who will know how to

hack even secure passwords or honestly

they could use a warrant to skip that

part but your creepy cooworker probably

won’t know how to do that so after a few

attempts they’ll probably give up on

cracking your account unfortunately

though this level has a larger

convenience versus privacy tradeoff it’s

going to be a lot more inconvenient for

you because you’ll have to keep changing

things like your password and you might

need to even change your name where you

live or what job you have that way a

crazy X can’t track you down these

things will cost time and money and you

need to be very careful about what

information you give out and to whom

you’re giving it to for example let’s

say that you change your name you move

to a new neighborhood or a new city and

you make sure that you use new new

social media accounts that your ex

doesn’t have access to these things

might work for an individual in your

life if you’re trying to avoid but the

government or an agency will have all

the paperwork for your move and your

name change so if you’re trying to hide

from a private investigator or a

government agency as we move up the

pyramid these things won’t be enough

you’ll have to start disappearing alt

together for the rest of these levels

you’ll start to get more techsavvy the

first level is about being difficult to

track and the second level is about

being difficult to track and difficult

to hack both on online and offline next

up let’s go into level three

organizations the stakes are starting to

get higher now we’re dodging

organizations with resources like

private investigators hired to dig into

your life they’ve got the tools and

resources and the time to take a closer

look than most would maybe your crazy X

realized that they didn’t have the

skills to track you down but they’re so

desperate that they hired a private

investigator this level in the pyramid

is when you need to start looking for

privacy offline too at this level you’ll

probably want to take a look at the

video in this series titled How to

Disappear Completely it’s going to be

coming out soon so if you haven’t

already hit the Subscribe button because

we’re actually getting really close to a

million subscribers and you could be a

part of that plus you’re already here so

it’s really convenient to click the

Subscribe button on the other hand level

three is inconvenient but you get more

privacy too so far in the pyramid we’ve

made you difficult to track and

difficult to hack online and offline in

this level you really need to tighten up

your data trail this means checking even

your public records like your voter or

property registrations if you’re a

business owner most of your information

is going to be public too all this

public information and these documents

are a gold mine for snoopers consider

using a PO Box instead of your home

address whenever possible maybe even

create a private company so that you can

use it on public documents instead of

your own name at this level you’ll want

to think about the places where your

information could be old job

applications signup sheets even loyalty

programs at stores limit what you share

and ask who else could see this whenever

you share personal data if you’re in

level one or two of this pyramid you

probably don’t have to change too much

about your day-to-day life and level two

you may have to change which yoga studio

you frequent which grocery store you use

or which bank you go to but you can

pretty much stick with these new places

without much trouble but for level three

you will start to have to change your

habits alt together if you used to do

yoga you don’t anymore if you used to

use a particular Bank you don’t use that

one anymore if you walk your dog you’re

going to have to use new trails

regularly basically not only will you

need to change your online life you’re

also changing your offline life you may

even have to start to cut out people

that you know from your life stop seeing

certain friends or families or even

neighbors so now it’s clear the further

up this pyramid you go the more

inconvenient it is to maintain the same

level of privacy and it’s not just

inconvenient either it’s also

emotionally draining and stressful at

this level you’re probably worried about

who you can trust and every new person

you meet is a possible threat some

people might even call you paranoid you

definitely weren’t worried about that in

the first level and only mildly worried

about it in the second level but now

it’s a major Focus moving on we have

level four governments and agencies if

the inconvenience and stress of level

three wasn’t enough we’re now at the top

of the attacker pyramid where we find

the most skilled attackers governments

agencies and massive International

organizations if you’ve got the

attention of these folks you’re in a lot

more trouble than we can help in a short

YouTube video These entities have vast

tools at their disposal probably ones we

don’t even know about to monitor

individuals that they’re interested in

escaping their radar requires diligence

and often a deeper understanding of

digital and off offline privacy for this

level of attacker you’ll definitely want

to watch both of our other videos in

this series you’ll need to disappear

online because as we said earlier that’s

the first place everyone’s going to look

you’ll also need to disappear offline

because these agencies are super skilled

at tracking people down even if they

have a completely anonymous online

presence one wrong move and you’ll be

caught as an example while a private

investigator from level three might be

pretty skilled at tracking you down they

just simply won’t have the resources or

time that these people from level four

have a VPN alone is not going to help

you hide from the CIA in fact it might

actually make it easier for them to find

you this level is extremely inconvenient

maintaining your privacy will be a

constant all day every day for the rest

of your life inconvenience you’ll need

to take on a whole new identity cut out

the people in places you’ve ever known

and make sure you leave no Trail you’ll

probably have to transition strictly to

cash and have zero electronic devices a

note about this though this level gets

us to a gray hat area of morality you’re

either working at the edges of the law

or past it and it’s no joke the stress

will be intense but if you’re doing the

right stuff you’re here probably because

your life is at stake thankfully most

people will never have a need to know

about this let alone act within it while

there is some inconvenience in changing

your online passwords regularly it’s no

inconvenience at all compared to the

extremes you have to go through in level

four as we’ve climbed the attacker

pyramid from Big Tech trackers to

government agencies it’s clear that

privacy isn’t a one-size fits-all

solution each layer presents its own

challenges and requires specific

strategies to navigate successfully that

was a lot of jargon but I’m working on

my conclusions wherever you stand on the

attacker pyramid take a moment to

reflect on your privacy practices small

changes can lead to Big improvements and

how secure you feel both online and off

so ask yourself how Anonymous do I want

to be your privacy matters no matter who

might be interested in that data what

steps are you going to take today to

ensure that your privacy remains intact

if you want a digital hygiene checklist

an in-depth guide on how to perform your

own background check and my own personal

recommendations for hard wallets you can

go to the whiteb crypto.com homepage

page and enter your email by the way you

can use a privacy focused email and you

can join our mailing list I’ve actually

been sharing a ton of personal stuff

lately and apparently everyone’s been

loving it so you probably will too plus

I’m going to be giving those freebies

that I just mentioned to you anyways

thank you so much for watching I hope

you enjoy this video I really hope that

you’ve learned something maybe something

useful and most of all I hope to see you

in our next

video