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Stay Off the Grid, Win $10,000
DariusD writes "Last summer, Wired writer Evan Ratliff wrote a story about how people erase their identities and start over. After it ran, he tried to disappear — spending 25 days on the lam until a few enterprising Wired readers tracked him down through some brilliant hacking and sleuthing. Now we're going to try the experiment again. Evan, Wired, Loneshark Games and I are working with Universal Pictures to do another, similar contest connected to the new film Repo Men, and this time we want you to go on the run. We need four applicants willing to disappear from their lives from late February to late March. If they can stay hidden for that time period, they'll end up with $10,000 each."
I'll be out of the office for a month. Please ignore the anonymous person checking stuff into the svn repo, I swear it isn't me...
Can I mod something +1 Scary if it's true but I wish it weren't?
The summary seems misleading. From what I understand, you aren't allowed to actually drop off the grid - they want you to actually perform certain activities, check in, provide clues, etc.
Otherwise I'd just take a month off of work and buy a ton of food and go wilderness camping somewhere (Canada would be nice, but not in Feb). There is almost no way anybody would be able to track you down.
On the other hand, I'd never take a month of vacation time just to live like a hermit and maybe win $10k - they really need to up the ante if they want people to do this for real.
It sounds like the contest is just about lying low, but posting hints. That obviously makes you far more detectable than if you were allowed to participate without any constraints.
That's fine, I'll also ignore sending pay-checks to this anonymous fellow as well, as he clearly isn't you.
Easy with one caveat. It would only be easy for people who wouldn't want to take part in the first place.
Indeed. All you'd have to do is get a friend to give you a lift to a national park and spend the month camping, and when you need something, walk out to the nearest town and pay in cash. This time of year, you'd probably want to choose a park in the southern parts of the country -- the accompanying Deliverance joke is left as an exercise to the reader -- but that's about it. Even if you're the governor of South Carolina -- the Appalachian Trail is the last place they'd look for you.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
I have seen this setup many times before. Once you sign up you are soon hunted for sport by wealthy businessmen and heads of state. You will disappear forever and "win" the $10,000, but your stuffed and mounted corpse won't be able to spend it from the underground chamber it is displayed in. I have seen this happen; beware.
Don't blame me, I voted for Cthulhu.
This is stupid. Anyone able to camp for a month could just go live in the bush. Or draw as much cash as you'd need and go hire a camper van for a month if you're a sissy for the outdoors. Double points if you find a way to park your camper van 100 yards from the offices of the guys holding this competition. Triple points if you wear a disguise and use their lobby toilets every day.
I hate printers.