About Protect Your Oil

We live in an age where the world is powered by data. Every service we use, every device we interact with, and nearly every large-scale decision depends on information collected about people. In many ways, this has made life more efficient, seamless, and connected.

But usefulness does not imply harmlessness. In today’s digital economy, data is power. It fuels governments, corporations, and entire markets. Much like oil once did, data is extracted, refined, traded, stockpiled, and fought over. The difference is simple: the oil of this era is created by you and inherently belongs to you.

Yet most people have little visibility into how their data is collected, stored, shared, or repurposed. Once personal information leaves your control, it can be duplicated endlessly and used in ways you never intended or consented to.

Why protecting your data matters

Data is not always secured properly. Even well-intentioned organizations suffer breaches due to poor security practices, outdated systems, misconfigurations, or human error. When data is over-collected and centralized, a single failure can expose millions of people at once.

Data can be used against you in invisible ways. Personal data enables profiling—predicting behavior, beliefs, income, health, and vulnerabilities. It can be used for targeted hacking, dynamic pricing, surveillance, or sold to third parties you have never heard of.

Data outlives your intent. Information shared for one purpose often persists indefinitely. Years later, it may resurface through resale, aggregation, or breaches. The safest data is the data that was never collected in the first place.

Data is increasingly weaponized. From identity theft and social engineering to targeted scams and exploitation, attackers rely on personal data to increase effectiveness. The more data that exists about you, the easier it becomes to exploit.

Why Protect Your Oil exists

My name is Salman Shekh. I hold a bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering and have a strong interest in cybersecurity and privacy. After spending much of my professional career working in IT, I’ve seen firsthand how data is routinely over-collected, poorly protected, and undervalued by those who don’t bear the consequences when it leaks.

Over time, I’ve come to understand that privacy is not about hiding, it’s about control. It’s about reducing unnecessary exposure, understanding trade-offs, and making informed decisions in a system designed to extract as much data as possible.

Protect Your Oil exists to provide clear, practical, and up-to-date information on data protection, privacy practices, real-world risks, tools, guides, and analysis. The goal is not fear, but awareness—so you can decide what you share, with whom, and at what cost.