I started my privacy journey a couple years back, and I’ve learned a lot. Much, thanks to this forum.
Where I see a lot of frustration and misconceptions (some of which I may have once shared) are with people who are suddenly confronted with the surveillance state and freaking out. Things are so far gone, that it’s beyond overwhelming just to get a handle on where to start.
Something I’ve been thinking about doing is dipping a toe into consulting as a service to help individuals 1) figure out their threat model, 2) apply that to someone’s life, 3) provide concrete steps forward.
Having worked in other industries, I understand that once I provide steps forward, I can’t force anyone to follow them. I also can’t make companies or governments follow all the good advice they’re given, either, and I’ve seen plenty of highly-paid consulting firm projects collecting dust on a shelf. But that’s on the people paying for the info.
Obviously, use of a full NDA and hard line about no illegal stuff is fundamental.
Can ChatGPT do this job? Not really, IMO. Things move so quickly, and the “it depends” level pretty high, that I don’t think any LLM will effectively do this in a way that works. I do freelance research for authors on the side, and there are huge blind spots where LLMs simply don’t have a good knowledge base. (on top of general incompetence) People can try to compare (and my test case would be to compare) what I give them against an LLM and see where the gaps are that are practical and tailored to their lifestyle.
Does this sound like an insane thing to think might work? Do people already do this and I’m just not searching for the right terms online? I do think there’s a market for this, and I would also, personally, lean into an audience that is more sensitive to privacy issues in the first place.
I don’t think it sounds insane. It would certainly be a very niche market so you’d likely need to cast a wide net to find customers. Intel Techniques seems to offer these services and has a waitlist for customers.
My question as a customer would be what your credentials are to help me? Ok, you do privacy as a hobby. Cool. I can go buy a 500-page book from Intel Techniques for $50 that will tell me how to do a lot of the leg work on my own to start living a more private life. What knowledge do you offer that I can’t get from the book for cheaper? I’m not trying to dissuade you because I believe competition is good, but it’s certainly going to be a hard market to break into and you’ll need a way to stand out.
It’s already here.
There is that one online service in my country that is know in my bubble that offers digital life consultations and defense with various level of pricing/help.
All of their podcasts is on low level of details about it with paid service advertisement.
Thanks, and all good questions. FWIW, my credentials are solid, I just don’t want to enumerate them here and doxx myself too much. I’m also looking more at the beginner stages, where the most significant gains stand to be made. So even getting to or beyond things like self-hosting are beyond the scope of what I wold want to cover.
I grew up in a part of the US where people have always been paranoid about the government. Which is not a hugely lucrative market, but I feel like I can speak to that specific experience in more detail, and I know there’s huge interest in that population. To your question about a 500 page book - who the hell wants to read a 500 page book when, for a reasonable fee, I can provide an individual with information specific to them and their situation? I think with the level of “it depends” and subjectivity of each person’s threat models, even an interested person can’t just jump in here without some growing pains and confusion. I see it all over reddit and here, where the learning curve is steep and takes time, and when you’re starting from day 0 on it all, even knowing what questions to ask, or having someone to ask without getting slammed, could be helpful.
Yes, consultants is correct, the Qubes OS Forum has a dedicated section for “paid support providers”:
My listing:
I do not charge anything for support, similar to my public contributions in the Privacy Guides Community and other forums, but my technical capabilities are restricted to open-source software only.
Techlore did this previously, but I do not believe they do anymore.
I think the main issue is that consulting for regular people is typically not profitable. Even when there is a clear value proposition (i.e. it would save them a lot of time) the average person doesn’t want to pay for something like this. You’d have better luck with business executives and similar people who have already learned that delegation is the best way to get things done, but then you need to be very well networked or have very convincing credentials (and then you still need to network).
I think the problem for me is that it is not scalable. I would not want to help one person with this when I can help hundreds or more, hence working on Privacy Guides and making videos, etc. This may not apply to you, because consulting work is probably more profitable than whatever it is I’m doing. But from a social impact perspective, if I wanted to do something IRL I would probably look into teaching a class at the library or something before 1:1 consulting.
Now that I mention it though, perhaps such classes would be a good networking opportunity to find people interested in consulting either way. This was the business model of a shop I worked at long ago, we’d get plenty of regular people in for basic stuff, and then when any of them (again usually business owners or rich people, but parents were also a sizable demographic) wanted individualized support we’d pivot to an hourly consulting setup.
I could be wrong about the feasibility though. If you decide to go with it, good luck
Various listings for consulting exist on XmrBazaar, although due to the inherent structure of P2P marketplaces, requires the client to exercise due diligence:
In addition, pseudonyms are par for the course over there, whereas I have a very public profile in person and in the digital realm like @jonah, although I do not necessarily produce YouTube videos, use the Fediverse, have Mesh curiousity, etc.
Thanks @jonah and @FranklyFlawless - it was an idea I was kicking around, and this helps. I wanted to avoid the more typical website/blog/videos route, but for the types of people I’m thinking about, that seems more realistic. In terms of social impact, I was trying to find a way to thread the needle of educating anyone interested, and then also getting some people to pay my bills in the process. Which does sound like it might be possible, but I think you’re right that a general resource that diverts people to occasional 1:1 consulting would be more workable.
I used to run a personal privacy training at work before I suddenly had lots of free time on my hands, and I’ve tried putting it out there a few other times for younger people. But finding people that self-select and are interested are what I’m hoping to narrow down, as people not into privacy simply can’t be made to care.
I’ve heard of this being done for wealthy customers with more urgent than usual needs to hide their online activity. Examples might include celebrities, people in witness protection, people with tech savvy stalkers, etc.
I’ve only heard of this being done in some podcast a long time ago that I’ve forgotten. Sorry that I don’t have more concrete information. Maybe this will help you think of where to market yourself for this?
Test it with some ad somewhere; $20(or whatever cheap) for ‘quick easy (personal) tips on how to get a handle on your digital privacy’ (im spitballing here). Have it link to a form where they can fill out some info regarding their situation and pay… Shoot make it even cheaper (5, 10?) then if they like your response (simple email you send them?) they can pay more for something more in-depth.
If anyone does this and it works out, throw a dog a bone (and i’m available to join the team). But yeah if you are serious about it, i think a trial run like that before becoming too invested would be wise.
Thanks for the suggestion. I was thinking I would start with a few posts in random places online offering to do a session or two for free to both get practice and get some feedback to refine the process.
Though, I also wanted to start off with an NDA and general description of logistics of methodology (nothing processed on FANG servers, etc.) to ensure that both parties are protected against data disclosure ahead of time.
Are you looking for a privacy consultant or are you considering becoming one?
If it’s the former, I believe they exist and that Michael Bazzell does it. However, my impression is that he does it for high profile people, meaning that they are either public figures to some degree, or they have a job or activity that requires that level of protection.
However, I am sure those services exist for regular people too. The simple fact that there are companies offering GDPR and privacy law compliance services, means that it must exist.
If you are considering offering this service, I think there is a market for it too, even for regular folks. But IMHO, it can’t be too expensive. And with all the information available online, you might have to find a niche, like maybe helping seniors.
IMHO, offering such a service would also require that your clients have a certain level of computer skills, and if they don’t, that’s something you might want to offer too. As someone who is not a techy as I would like to be, I would totally pay for a course that taught me how to disassemble and reassemble a computer, and understanding what does what inside.
Something I’ve been thinking about doing is dipping a toe into consulting as a service
So, yes, that’s me doing the consulting service.
Thanks for your thoughts, and yeah, the techy parts are where I’m thinking I would have to do a lot of early training and assessment to see how far I can get someone. My parents are a far edge test case for me, and my mom is old enough that she declared she’s not willing to learn another OS, and is just going to let Windows 10 EOL make her vulnerable, rather than bother with Linux Mint. My Dad only needs one browser to let him see facebook or whatever, so their habits aren’t exactly a deal breaker for shifting to Mint, but getting them over the hump of “this is fine” and knowing what to do if an update throws an error at them, is where I have to think long term.
Maybe that’s part of it, too. Personally, I find that paid Claude is amazing for tech support, but how to get that as a longer form maintenance aid might be complicated.
I wiil share my own perspective on this. Depends of your threat level and if your concern is real or are just worries about security stuff.
The vast majority of users don´t need this kind of consulting considering you have today a vast offer of tools, community approved that can (like in software language) reduce your “surface of exposure”. So, it’s possible to get protected based on what your threats are by just making good decisions and adopting approaches that at least provide to you a satisfatory, and not only sense of security but in fact add considerable costs with cheap actions to not make you a single target. Thinkg about a car with a laptop inside at night in a street without illumunination. If you have two cars one without the laptop and another with your computer, much possibly you will become a number one priority to be attacked. So avoiding stopping the car in that street and choose a closed parking lot without leting your computer inside may help considerably people from targeting you. But, when we talk about very sophisticated attacks and you are a target and you know this, much possibly a consultant would help you in a very limited way. Even consultants lack knowledge about a sophisticated attacks because they are not “public discovered” yet… so… again… your threat level should guide you on what kind of exposure you can deal with and what measure you can take to stop or at least reduce this exposure and as most secure you try to stay, less resources you can use, because otherwise you maybe exposed, exploited, attacked…
Oh, no, I mean the logistics of setting up a free version of Claude that can help my parents (or anyone else using my parents as a proxy), and then if that doesn’t work, explaining how to pay for 1 month to solve the problem. Then cancel rather than pay $120 a year for tech support on standby. The free and paid versions of LLMs are significantly different. Seems a bit like nit-picking, but it’s a real hurdle.
Thanks, though I’m not talking about users here. I mean more like a segment of the general public who are interested in privacy and don’t know where to start in practical terms. Even if you just tell someone “oh, just look at Privacy Guides” it can be overwhelming to know where to start. I’m proposing being, basically, a paid hand-holder for people’s parents and grandparents who understand that privacy is in short supply these days, but need things like a 30-day plan on how they specifically will do things like de-google or have a threat model created for them to show them what level of effort they should engage with.
Most people are in such a bad place with their tech that they don’t even need specific privacy help, they need the bare minimum with pw manager, backups, legacy recovery protocols, ad blockers, email security, different passwords. They need tools to prevent them from being hacked and scammed by bad actors and just make them safer online.
Of course, a lot of these changes would improve privacy, but they’re just stuff everyone should do.
That ought to be free, not a business. We really need to draw a line between life and technology here: tech isn’t going to save you in a real chase. You have to realize that in real life, you’ve got way better ways to hide than relying on technology itself.
Look at it this way: tech is for basic stuff like Tor, not for emergencies. So, if someone knows nature, lives out in it, knows its advantages and how to turn the tables on whoever’s chasing them, that’s awesome. But at the same time, you’ve got to know the risks you’re running in a situation like a fast-moving river…
The best approach here is to be like water itself. Being smart isn’t enough; you need to know how to act, when to speak up, and when to keep your mouth shut, among other things.
My advice to you (not a recommendation): Free is better. There are still people out there doing this for free, like me, for instance. I do it for anyone interested, mostly for the vulnerable folks getting exploited by MLMs and the like. I recently shared some help here on the forum about mental exercises—it’s about self-defense and it applies on both ends: in real life and online.
What does it mean to be like water? It’s easy to say, but hard to pull off. I explain it in those exercises I mentioned, but here I’ll put it this way to fit the topic: working for free actually brings more real benefits, but you have to know how your adversaries operate, including the newbies who might take advantage of an expert by easily exploiting their weaknesses.
That’s all. It’s not an opinion, it’s just the way it is.
