A new book by Nina Lakovic
Who ownsthe digitalyou?
Right now, probably a business you have never met. Your photos, your face, your voice, your money and your health data sit in cardboard boxes on the shoulder of a highway that was never built for living.
Escape the Kidnappers is a plain-talking book about personal data, online scams and the safer digital spaces we can build. No kidnappers in vans. The ones in your phone.
For whoever you'd wire money to at 2 a.m.
The road stays.
Living moves indoors.Escape the Kidnappers
Silibandia wants to own the digital you.
A scroll that eats your evening. A 2 a.m. call in a voice you would know anywhere. A breach at a company you never chose. This book names the trap, then shows the way off the shoulder.
Nina LakovicTap the cover to open it
Chapter 1 · The Phantom You
An ordinary Tuesday
- Your free alarm app logs that you hit snooze twice.
- You check the weather. The app pings your exact location to a fistful of ad partners you have never heard of.
- You order coffee ahead. The loyalty app now knows you are a triple-shot oat-milk person who shows up most weekdays at the same corner.
- On the train, an ad slides by for the running shoes you mentioned out loud yesterday but never typed anywhere.
- Before a single email, dozens of invisible handoffs. Bundled, scored and sold.
“Not by a hooded hacker in a basement. By the apps you actually like.”
The Phantom You
A detailed double of you, working a shift you never signed up for.
The picture the book starts with
Your whole life, in cardboard boxes
Imagine the open internet as one endless highway. You are hitchhiking with everything strapped to your back in flimsy boxes. Open one to see what is being taken.
One gust of wind, a data breach, a clever scam, an AI fake of your voice, and the boxes scatter across the shoulder.
Chapter 8
Meet Silibandia
Not a shadowy cabal from a movie. A very real, very profitable syndicate of platforms, ad giants and data brokers who get paid to keep you hooked, profiled and sold.
Silibandia is not five problems. It is one machine.
Chapter 9 · The turn
You were promised
a way off the road
Keep scrolling to open the door.
The road stays.
Living moves indoors.
We don't fix the highway.
We build buildings.
Doors you control. Walls that keep the watchers out. Rooms where you can be private when you should be and accountable when you need to be.
Chapters 9 to 20 · The way off the shoulder
Eleven Solutions Hiding In Plain Sight
The second half of the book is the fix. Each SHIP is an old, proven idea from law, architecture or math, applied to your digital life. Spin the ring.
Components that answer “who's really there?”
Components that answer “is this room actually safe?”
A component that answers “do we even mean the same thing?”
Look inside
Turn a few pages
Real excerpts and the book's own pencil illustrations. Tap a page, drag it, or use the arrows.
Escape
the Kidnappers
Silibandia wants to own the digital you.
Find refuge from their clutches.
NINA LAKOVIC
The road stays.3
Living moves indoors.
Contents
- The trap
- 1The Phantom You12
- 2Dopamine Jailbreak18
- 3Digital Ghosts & Highlight-Reel Despair26
- 4The 2 a.m. Traps30
- 5The Biometric Heist38
- 6The Slow-Burn Monsters44
- 7The Health & Body Data Grab50
- 8Meet Silibandia54
- The way off the shoulder
- 9Solutions Hiding in Plain Sight59
- 10The Keys to the Kingdom63
- 11The License Plate That Saves Your Privacy71
- 12The Trust Thermometer77
- 13Who Gets to Write the Rules?84
- 14Moving From the Highway Into Real Buildings96
- 15How We Know the Building Is Actually Safe103
- 16We Already Know Why, Now Meet the People108
- 17When the Machines Can Think113
- 18The Math That Makes Everything Work118
- 19Strengthening the Material Before the Storm Arrives125
- 20The Judgment No Algorithm Can Replace129
- 21The Indoor Blueprint132
- 22A Day in the Life137
- 23Off the Shoulder, For Good142
How to Read This Book
If you picked this up expecting another list of privacy tips, stay for a minute. There are tips in here. They are not the point.
The first eight chapters are the kidnappings. Not a heist with a mask on it. The ordinary kind. An evening that disappears into a feed. A cookie banner you tap through because rent is due and you are tired. An old post that costs you a job. A 2 a.m. call in a voice you would know anywhere.
Careful is how you last the week. It is not a place to live.
9Chapter 1 · An Ordinary Tuesday
7:02 a.m. Your alarm app, free of course, logs that you hit snooze twice. 7:14, you check the weather, and the app pings your exact location to a fistful of ad partners you've never heard of.
7:48, you scroll on the train, and an ad slides by for the exact running shoes you mentioned out loud yesterday but never typed anywhere. You pause. That little chill. How did it know?
You're not paranoid for feeling watched. You're just paying attention.
13Chapter 2 · Dopamine Jailbreak
Chapter 4 · The 2 a.m. Traps
It's 1:47 a.m. on a random Wednesday. Then, buzz. Not the gentle ping of a match or a like. A full-on ring. Caller ID flashes “Mom.” Your stomach drops instantly.
On the other end: panic. Tears. A voice you know better than your own.
Except… it's not them. It's an AI-generated clone of their voice, crafted in minutes from a few seconds of audio pulled from an old social media clip, a voicemail, or the recorded “Hello” when they answered what seemed like just a spam call.
32Chapter 5 · The Biometric Heist
Chapter 8 · Meet Silibandia
Chapter 9 · The SHIPS Framework
You were promised a way off the road. Here it is.
Instead of spending our lives reinforcing flimsy cardboard boxes on the shoulder, we can build real indoor spaces. Places with doors you control, walls that actually keep things out, and quiet enjoyment where your interactions can be private when they should be and accountable when they need to be.
The highway can stay the highway. We get to live inside.
62Chapter 9 · The road stays
Chapter 10 · The Keys to the Kingdom
Chapter 15 · Occupancy Permits
Chapter 22 · A Day in the Life
11:47 p.m. Sleep without surveillance
By 11:47, Maya's asleep. She knows, not hopes, knows, that nobody's tracking her sleep to sell to an insurer, nobody's building a location profile of her life, nobody's using her information without her consent.
Her digital self isn't being kidnapped while her analog self rests.
142Chapter 23 · Off the Shoulder, For Good
Notice the buildings that already exist, even the imperfect ones, and choose them when you can. Ask the annoying question when a form wants information it has no reason to need.
The highway isn't going anywhere. It was never supposed to. But you get to decide how much of your life you keep living on it.
So: what's the first door you're going to walk through?
146That's the preview
The other 150 pages are waiting
Twenty-three chapters, eleven SHIPS, a glossary, and a list of what to demand.
Nina Lakovic
Silibandia wants to own the digital you.
Find refuge from their clutches.
From Chapter 1
How kidnapped is your data?
Five questions straight from the book. Score yourself honestly. No judgment, just a clear-eyed look.
Who it's for
One book, two readers
Some people will buy it for themselves. Many will buy it for someone they love. It was written to work for both. Hover or tap a card.
For the one who gives it
Give them more than a warning about the internet
Flip
A bridge, not a warning label
A thoughtful gift for the young people you care about, and an easier way to start talking about life online.
- Why a voice on the phone isn't proof anymore, and how a family code word helps
- Why “just be careful” puts too much on one person
- What safer digital spaces could look like, in plain words
For the one who reads it
No judgment. No guilt trips. Just straight talk.
Flip
Written by a peer, not a security expert
It doesn't ask you to go offline. It explains why you're exhausted from staying on guard, why that isn't your fault, and what to demand instead.
- The scroll that ate your evening, explained
- The scams built around your exact stressors
- Your own keys, your own rules, your own rooms
The back of the book
This week, and what to demand
The first list buys time. The second is the point. Do not confuse them.
This week
Tick off what you've already done.
What to demand
The highway can stay. Demand the indoor version anyway.
- A roomNot a more careful shoulder. Doors you control. Walls that keep the watchers out.
- Your own keysProof that it is you, without a master copy of you in someone else's basement.
- A humanBehind every claim. A voice clip is not proof. A selfie is not a person.
- A permitBefore anyone moves in, from licensed people who lose the license if the space isn't safe.
- Your bodyBiometrics that stay on the device you hold. Not a warehouse of faces.
- A voteRules written by the people who have to live under them.
NLNina LakovicThe last line of the book
So: what's the first door you're going to walk through?
Paperback
$19.95
- Trade paperback, 6 × 9 in
- Full-colour cover, illustrated
- Printed on demand and shipped to you
PDF edition
$9.95
- The complete book
- Every chart and illustration
- Read on any device
Checkout happens on our secure store. Shipping is calculated there. The stories in this book are composites. It is not legal, medical, financial or security advice.
One building at a time.
We've got this.
One building at a time.Introduction
Escape the Kidnappers
The first half names the trap. The second half names the way off the shoulder. One building at a time.
Nina Lakovic