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Social Media Can Help You Fake Your Own Death
Julie188 writes "We are inundated with warnings that social media is systematically stripping away our privacy. But Frank Ahearn, the so-called 'Dear Abby' of disappearing, is attempting to show folks how to use those same technologies to regain your privacy, even helping you go as far as faking your own death. Ahearn is a professional skip-tracer who has hunted down people like Monica Lewinsky. In an interview with Ahearn on Network World, he says, 'One can legally disappear through the use of corporations and offshore corporations. The idea is to embrace technology and to become a virtual entity.' My favorite tip is that New Zealand is the place to land once you leap off the grid. Not only is it far from most of the rest of the English speaking world, he says, but it also has great beaches."
The average person does not have the time to create disinformation or the resources to move to New Zealand. On the other hand governments and large organizations will find disinformation strategies very useful. It is only a matter of time before sites like wikileaks are inverted.
... a bunch of phoney identities under which to wreak havoc. Meanwhile, keep your real name and reputation clean. When one of the 'evil' identities gets into trouble, kill it off.
Set these up early in life and keep them going with minor activity. Loan a fake SSN out to an illegal laborer to stay on the books. Then, when you hit it big in Vegas, you record the income under the false ID. That person 'dies' (Hey, it was a Mexican gardener anyway), leaving no trace of the cash. Party with it using the next ID, etc.
Have gnu, will travel.
Why not fake a birth and give this person a unique identity online? Complete with pictures, tweets, Amazon account, everything.
CrisR
New Zealand has a population of 4 million.
73% of unmixed European descent. Demographics of New Zealand
Metro New York City has a population of 19 million, and is ethnically, religiously, and culturally diverse.
Approximately 36% of the city's population is foreign-born. In New York no single country or region of origin dominates. The ten largest countries of origin for modern day immigration are the Dominican Republic, China, Jamaica, Guyana, Mexico, Ecuador, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia and Russia. The largest ethnic groups in New York City are African American, Italian, Jewish, and Irish.
The New York City metropolitan area is home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel, and the city proper contains the largest Jewish community in the world. It is also home to nearly a quarter of the nation's South Asians, the largest African American community of any city in the country, and comprised as of 2008 a population of 659,596 ethnic Chinese. the largest outside of Asia. New York City
The Islamic population in 2004-2005 was around 600,000. Columbia Presents First-Ever Study on Muslim Political, Social, Religious Identity in NYC
Manhattan has 354 million square feet of office space.
But New York remains importantly, if less visibly, a manufacturing center. There are no unmarketable skills, however obscure.
The fool on the run takes to the back roads, the Pacific, the Klondike - where the youngest child will point him out as the stranger. The one who doesn't belong. Doesn't dress the part. Doesn't act the part.
The problem with Australia, if you can get here (kiwis let every one in) is we have so many more asshole cops that want to check your licence at every set of traffic lights. Not to mention the obscene terror laws (that they use on anyone they want, no need for a search warrant in Australia), or the random pedestrian frisking and pockets searches.
Rocket Surgeon.
"We are inundated with warnings that social media is systematically stripping away our privacy."
We are inundated with hair-on-fire cliches being used to preface a forced association between someone's inconsequential issue and some hot button topics and trigger words, in order to convince us that the association is valid and the issue is significant. Needing to use these is a good sign that the ensuing issue is too insubstantial to stand on its own.
Fear, uncertainty and uh-huh.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
many people of "middle eastern appearance" have never set foot anywhere near the middle east, which would make "staying" there rather difficult.
Take me for example. I have 0% middle eastern descent - I have Irish, English, a tiny bit of Scandanavian, two of my family tree paths are first fleeters, and yet I sometimes get asked where I'm from with Greece and "the middle east" being their two guesses.