Unless your internet connection has been down for the last 48 hours, you've no doubt heard about the latest project from the Day Job Killer/Affiliate Project X folks - Project Black Mask.

It seems like all the usual suspects have been promoting it, and even some that I don't hear from as often, like Rosalind Gardner for example. You can read her full review on the Net Profits Today blog, but she basically said while she doesn't like the black-hat nature of the book, there was some keyword research information that she found to be "worth the price of admission."

Well done, Rosalind - nice way to generate affiliate sales for a product you don't really agree with

I'm not one of the "big guns" in this business. I'm left to buy and review these products the same time the rest of the world can buy them, so I'm a little late to the party.

First, I should be clear about something. Project Black Mask is all about "black hat" techniques. Some of these techniques walk a fine line as far as the search engines' terms of service, many of them step way, way over the line.

To the point of making me uncomfortable about even testing them.

I don't judge people who use these techniques. As long as you're not spamming people or doing something that's immoral and/or illegal, my opinion is if it works for you then go for it.

You see, I agree with one thing almost every black hatter believes - that the search engines are doing exactly what they tell us not to do.

Scraping content (ours) and using it for their own purposes (advertising revenue, traffic generation, etc.) If we do that, we're going against their terms of service and they don't like us very much.

However, the search engines are a double-edged sword - we need them if we want their traffic, so we have to put up with their double standards.

The problem I have with some of the techniques in Project Black Mask is that they could conceivably cause you more harm than good, say by losing your Adsense account due to the sketchy nature of the sites it's on.

A lot of black hatters have multiple Adsense accounts, but the average internet marketer doesn't, and they're often at a loss for what to do if they lose their one account. And those are the people who will be buying this book for the most part.

Plus, several of the techniques outlined in the book are hurting people, not just gaming the search engines. If you've ever seen a forum overrun by spam - especially if it was your own or one you moderate - you know how forum spam can ruin a good forum and cause a huge amount of work for the site owner.

Another thing I wasn't overly impressed by is the fact that the book doesn't really paint a true picture of the work and technical skills that are necessary to be successful with black hat techniques.

The most successful black hatters are almost all "geeks" who can dig into the technical side of scripting and site building with no hesitation. Someone who has trouble coding HTML or CSS by hand is going to find it much harder to manage this type of business.

For example, there are several techniques outlined in PBM where the author recommends getting a script written to automate the process. For someone unfamiliar with the process of outlining a script's requirements, let alone writing one, this is not as simple as it sounds.

Overall, Project Black Mask is a pretty good introduction to the black hat side of the business, but I can't honestly say it's going to teach you how to be successful at it.

It's going to take a lot of trial and error, and the purchase of several hundred or even thousands of dollars worth of software tools to be able to make the kind of incomes that are thrown around in the book.

My advice? If you're wondering what this black hat stuff is all about and have $77 to spend, by all means pick it up.

If you're looking for a solid plan to start earning an income online, Project Black Mask isn't the book for you.