If you’re expecting some polished corporate piece of prose that blathers about what jargon and buzzwords we will employ to keep you and your company safe from digital harm, I’m afraid you’ve knocked on the wrong door.
Back to Freedom was not built to sell compliance theater or enterprise checklists.
It exists for a different purpose: to help independent thinkers, dissidents, and critical voices protect their ability to speak, operate, and remain free in an environment that is increasingly hostile to both.
As we said on the homepage:
We’re Not “Just Another” Privacy & Security Outfit
Our background is practical, not theoretical. Team members have spent decades in the trenches of digital forensics, disaster recovery, infrastructure hardening, and frontline technical support, including countless years inside major technology companies watching the shift from open platforms to centralized control.
We have seen how surveillance systems, content moderation regimes, and financial pressure are used to constrain speech and shape behavior. So we decided the most useful response was not commentary alone, but concrete capability: the knowledge, tools, and operational practices that let people reduce dependence on hostile systems and continue their work.
That is the mission.
Everything else: The Arsenal, our professional services, the tools we’re building, the public analysis, exists to serve that mission.
So Who Are We?
Back to Freedom began with a core team of three. In the eighteen months since inception that core has grown to six full-time members, supported by a small number of trusted long-term contractors who are brought in on specific work.
The expansion was deliberate. Building and maintaining a living practical toolkit across Digital, Mental, Economic, and Strategic Freedom, while also delivering higher-tier professional support and carrying out the research and analysis needed to produce accurate reports and forecasts, requires far more depth than a three-person team could sustain.
We remain deliberately low-profile. A project whose purpose includes resistance to surveillance and censorship does not benefit from publishing full staff directories, personal details, or otherwise creating unnecessary exposure. You will meet additional team members when there is a concrete reason and after appropriate due diligence on both sides.
With that said, we do have a public face:
Sasch Mayer
Digital forensics and disaster recovery specialist with more than three decades of experience in online and offline troubleshooting, digital disaster recovery, and digital forensics.
Formerly part of Google’s frontline webmaster support (2008–2023.)
Now focused full-time on the technical and operational work of protecting free speech, privacy, and practical independence from centralized control.
What We Actually Do
We build and maintain The Arsenal, a structured, threat-model-aware body of practical guidance covering The Four Keys to Freedom.
We also offer higher-tier professional services for situations that require professional assessment, custom implementation, or direct support beyond self-directed work.
We publish analysis intended to help people see systemic pressures clearly rather than react to every headline.
We do not claim to change the world single-handedly. We do claim that individuals and small groups who take responsibility for their own technical and operational posture are harder to silence, harder to pressure, and harder to erase.
That is the work…
