About the Founder

     I’ve spent nearly two decades in sales and marketing with a front-row seat to the rise of surveillance capitalism. In 2012, I jumped into digital marketing, the engine room of surveillance capitalism—helping small- and mid-sized businesses track clicks, squeeze conversions, and mine data from people who never gave meaningful consent. And I got good at it.
 
      I told myself I was leveling the marketing playing field for mom-and-pop shops. In reality, I was helping normalize surveillance—bringing it into every nook of American life, dressed up as better ROI and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).
 
 As a consumer and a marketer, I bought into the lies:

• “if you’re not doing anything wrong, what do you care about a little surveillance?” 
• “anonymized data” is harmless
• “it’s free” 
• targeted ads are a net good
• this is just the cost of progress
• there wasn’t much I could do.

     The money was good, and capitalism’s frictionless efficiency made me comfortable—and complacent.
 
     Then it stopped feeling like strategy and started feeling like betrayal. I watched manipulative algorithms distort attention, damage mental health, and polarize communities. Big Tech kept getting richer and more invasive. Then when it cozied up to weapons manufacturers and helped enable atrocities, it stopped being abstract. It became personal.
 
     Now, through OccuNX, I’m a voice of reason (and sometimes sarcasm) for people who don’t realize what’s at stake. I work with everyday tech users, concerned parents, privacy-conscious folks, schools, communities, and businesses—consulting, researching, and exposing toxic, intrusive practices. I also provide the tools and hardware to help people take back control of their data and stay safe online.
 
      I’m a quirky, fast-talking New Yorker from Long Island who’s seen how toxic today’s “smart” ecosystem really is. My mission is simple: give people the info to make informed choices—without talking down to them,
fear-mongering, or pretending privacy is a lost cause.
 
I founded OccuNX to share what I learned on the way out of Big Tech’s deep valley. I build privacy-first tech stacks for real people who want to live online without being watched. This isn’t about paranoia. It’s about power.
 
I believe:
 

 Everyone deserves digital tools that don’t spy on them.
 
Convenience shouldn’t cost your soul.
 
You can still do cool stuff online without feeding the beast.
 
If you’re ready to unplug from the algorithm, disrupt Big Tech and take your data—and your dignity- back,
welcome to OccuNX.

Shad Khattab