★ About the Mission ★

Privacy is not a luxury reserved for the technically sophisticated. It is a fundamental right — and like all rights, it must be actively exercised or it will be quietly revoked.

This site exists to make the tools and practices of digital self-defense accessible to ordinary people. Not just journalists or activists, not just developers or security researchers — but anyone who uses a phone, sends an email, or navigates the internet.

"Privacy is not about having something to hide. It is about having the power to choose what you reveal."

What You'll Find Here

Dispatches cover three main areas. Digital Privacy addresses the data brokers, surveillance capitalism, and tracking infrastructure woven into daily digital life — and how to route around it. Encryption covers the tools and concepts that make private communication possible, from Signal to PGP to end-to-end encrypted storage. Operational Security (OpSec) deals with behavior and habits — because the strongest encryption in the world is undone by a single careless action.

The Philosophy

This is not about paranoia. It is about proportionality. Every person has a different threat model, and the appropriate response to that threat model varies accordingly. A journalist protecting sources needs different tools than a parent protecting family photos. These dispatches try to meet you where you are.

Practical over theoretical. Free and open-source tools over proprietary solutions wherever possible. Sustainable habits over performative gestures.

About Citizen Scott

Scott Fallin writes at citizenscott.net. No tracking pixels. No comment systems that harvest your data. No newsletter that sells your address. Just dispatches, via RSS, the way the internet was meant to work.

Contact via encrypted email: scott.fallin@gmail.com (PGP key available on request).