There is no neutral ground.
Every tool you use to create, send, or publish is either serving you or feeding the machine that maps, tracks, and sells you.
Most people don’t realize they’re building empires for someone else. Every draft in Google Docs. Every brainstorm in Notion. Every “free” upload to Medium.
You’re doing the work. They’re harvesting the data.
Privacy first productivity isn’t just about staying private. It’s about owning your stack so you can actually trust the system you build on.
Here’s the framework I use. Three pillars. One mission: build workflows that don’t betray me.
The 3 Pillars of Privacy First Productivity
1. Creation — Don’t Draft in a Surveillance Box
What you use to think and build matters. Most creation tools are giant funnels that suck up your metadata, autosave every keystroke, and ship your thoughts to a cloud you don’t control.
If you’re creating in a browser, you’re leaking.
Build quiet by default.
- Use plaintext. Markdown is your friend. It’s portable, future proof, and doesn’t hide traps.
- Go local first. Zettlr, obsidian, or even just a clean folder and gedit or Vim. Think like an old school hacker with modern discipline.
- Encrypt on disk. Your ideas have value. Act like it. Tools like VeraCrypt let you work inside sealed vaults.
I draft everything offline. Then I push the final form to a controlled sync. I never write in Google Docs. Not even “just to share.”
2. Communication — Burn the Default Channels
Email was never meant to be private. And yet, it’s where 99% of creators handle contracts, deliverables, and client feedback.
It’s insecure and metadata heavy.
If your communication layer leaks, your whole stack does.
Move fast, talk safe.
- Encrypted email is the bare minimum. Tuta, Proton, or PGP. Use aliases. Avoid Gmail like it’s radioactive.
- Go asynchronous when possible. Signal and SimpleX beat Zoom and Slack every time. No corporate logins. No eavesdropping.
- Strip metadata before sending. PDFs, docs, images. Wipe them clean with MAT2 or ExifCleaner before you hit send.
Keep comms compartmentalized. Different alias, different thread, different context. This isn’t about paranoia, it’s about hygiene.
3. Publishing — Don’t Build on Surveillance Sand
You post on Medium? Substack? Twitter/X? Great. You don’t own anything.
Your content is a tenant. It can be deleted, shadowbanned, or monetized without your consent. That’s not publishing. That’s feeding a content machine.
Reclaim your platform.
- Go static. Tools like Hugo or Eleventy let you build fast, beautiful sites with zero backend risk.
- Host what you control. Buy a domain. Self host if you can. If not, use ethical providers that accept crypto payments.
- Mirror your content. Post everywhere, but keep the source on your terms. Your site is your base. The rest is outreach.
I use Nostr and other socials to broadcast, but the archive lives where I control it. If I get banned tomorrow, nothing breaks.
This Isn’t About Hiding. It’s About Not Being Owned.
You don’t need to be invisible. You need to stop building your creative life on platforms that treat you like a data cow.
Every click in Notion gets tracked. Every share on LinkedIn gets mined. Every draft in Google Docs is another node in your behavioral profile.
Refuse the default.
Here’s the Litmus Test
Ask this every time you add a new tool:
“Does this serve me or does it surveil me?”
If it leaks, ditch it. If it locks you in, rebuild it. If it’s beautiful but invasive, it’s a trap.
The Point Isn’t Perfection
I still slip. I still compromise. Sometimes I send something over Proton knowing the other side will open it in Outlook. Not perfect. Just better.
But the more I root my workflow in these three pillars, the less I worry about betrayal. The more I own the process.
And when you own the process?
No one can take your work from you.
Claw it back.
-GHOST
Written by GHOST, creator of the Untraceable Digital Dissident project.
This is part of the Untraceable Digital Dissident series — tactical privacy for creators and rebels.
Explore more privacy tactics at untraceabledigitaldissident.com.
Content
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