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Ask Slashdot: What Would Your 'I've Got To Disappear' Plan Look Like?
New submitter diacritica writes "This Ask Slashdot is inspired by manhunts à-la-Bourne movies, but taking a more realistic approach to the world we live in. You are native to and live in a big city (> 1M pop) in a G8 country of your choosing. At T = 0h, you accidentally witness a strange event. At T = 1h, you realize you're being followed and you get the feeling that the police/government might be involved. Contextual data: you are able to speak one language apart from good English. You are 25 to 45 years old. You are computer savvy. You are engaged/married, you have family living in the same city. 99% of your money is in a bank account. You prefer to go 'rationally' paranoid. What would you do in order to feel safe after those first 24 hours? Remember, you didn't commit a crime, but there are plenty of real-world resources invested in catching you."
I wouldn't go out and get laid.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Nice try.
It's in the woods and there is a small stream that runs through it. I have a 2 year supply of Wise survival food in my basement I could load up along with the firearm, ammo, and I'd be good.
see title
new sig
1) Hide in the Ecuadorean embassy.
2) Hire a lawyer.
1) Post to Ask Slashdot
2) ???
3) Profit
Get the best hooker you can find for the money you have
The first rule of secret escape plans is that you keep them secret.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
What Would Assange Do?
...I'd click my heels together, and say to myself "There's no place like home...there's no place like home..." For those of us in the real world, however - these kinds of situations don't happen to normal people. One of the only reasons you disappear is because you did something REALLY wrong, or you witnessed a horrible organized crime... and then you go to the POLICE! They make you disappear...in a way that doesn't involve erasing YOU. It's called Witness Protection - and it's not as bad as Law and Order OR Dick Wolfe show it to be. The Russian mob don't always make everyone you ever knew or those who met you dead - including the pool guy.
Withdraw enough cash to feed yourself for a week, then leave. Go camping. Get out into nature. If technology is your concern, get away from the technology.
would be found hanged
I'd get a good lawyer, let the press know what I'd seen and then go to the police and give them a statement.
...that I posted my plan to /.
Then, after I had succeeded in hiring a good lawyer, and maybe a bodyguard, depending on who I thought was after me... start posting whatever it was I saw to every communal blog and forum I could think of, then start spamming newspapers with it, too. If I've done nothing wrong, why hide?
If you wanna be disappeared, just turn yourself in.
Please write my book for me.
Any G-8 country, you say? I pick Russia.
First step: Start preaching revolution.
Second step: Unneeded. I've already disappeared.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
...And then login at the closest place and transfer the remaining cash to bitcoins. After that, leave the city and forget you ever had a bank account. If you ever use that card again (or any other credit card again) you will be traced. Your life is cash only now.
Along with that take your cell phone, leave it on, and tape it underneath the nearest moving truck.
Tell your family "Thanks for all the good times" in a letter. Give them the hashes to whatever number of bitcoins is appropriate in the letter. Your family no longer exists, they are a liability.
Now you move, maybe even move countries if you think you can. Wherever you move, it's going to have to be big enough to not be known, but also small enough the cops haven't installed their own CCTV. Consider not driving anymore, either, that's a strong liability you'll be pulled over. If you must, ensure your car doesn't violate any laws, especially for burned out bulbs, tint, etc. And by "your" car I mean your rental car, because owning a car puts you back on the radar. Have fun! The rest I don't know about. You'll probably want to make sure you live in a room and don't rent proper and DEFINITELY don't own a house.
Record yourself recounting everything you saw, then post the video to as many sites as you can. The more you can say about the event the better, don't make it short and look like you know more then you're saying. Start babbling if you can manage it.
That way, there is not much of a point silencing you, since you've already done the worst you could.
Change name to Julian Assange.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Nobody will ever hear from me again or know who I am that way.
Ya blew it.
That's really all there is too it. You need cash to disappear. "They" would've already frozen or started watching your assets.
You're already dead.
because if you see something big enough that the government wants you dead, guess what? you are fucking dead!
I'm not interested in running for the rest of my life, so my goal would be to solve the problem permanently. If the problem is that I witnessed something, then I'd get my testimony and any relevant information in my possession as widely distributed as I could. Once the information is beyond containing, stopping me will no longer solve my opponent's problem. They'll have bigger problems to worry about than me. You can distribute your materials from anywhere these days - record a video on your phone, upload it to as many websites as possible, stick it on Wikileaks, email the press...
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
If I told you, then SkyNet would know! So ... "I'llll Neeevvveerrr Teeeelllllll..." (head rotates 360 degrees)
hide out in a unabomber stile shack
Sounds like you could use it your self.
I smoke two joints in time of peace and two in time of war.
I smoke two joints before I smoke to joints and then I smoke two more!
Hour 1.5, go to local soup kitchen :( ...
Hour 2, trade half of your 1% of your money not in a bank account for a bum's SIN and dirty ratty clothes.
Hour 3, attempt to submit forms for a birth certificate for said bum
Hour 4, use remainder of 1% to buy copious USB devices
Hour 5, spend an hour creating USB devices that "phone home" when plugged in (you want at least 20-100 USB's here)
Hour 6, pretend to lose these near where the government agents might be (also why you need many)
Hour 7, hopefully get a hit - start enumeration and finger printing on FBI (or what ever agency is after you)
Hour 8, check into a motel under a fake name
Hour 9, pull a Kevin Mitnick and setup a pager/cellphone to notify you when they are going to setup the Sting
Hour 9.5, put on dirty ratty bum's clothes and GTFO coz they've set up the sting and are on their way to the motel, if you're lucky no one will see you
Hour 10, sit in busy area of city pan handling in the bums clothes
Hour 24, no one will notice you for 14 hours or more because no one cares about homeless people
6-8 weeks later: obtain your fresh new birth certificate
day after: apply for a new passport, say you're traveling soon and get it rushed, use the money you pan handled to pay for it
week later: have your new passport, leave the country under your new identity
Enjoy!
If you're not a caucasian you should be able to ditch your cell phone and any identifying papers and disappear into the background. In the US at least, if you're Hispanic you can probably run all over the country and no one will seriously stop or detain you, regardless of documentation. Even if local enforcement does, claim to be illegal and the Feds will likely release you. At best the government will even send you out of the country "back" to Mexico. From there it's to any country you want.
There's no easy answer for family though, but keep in mind that they can't be stopped from leaving US soil, only prevented from entering.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
just go around telling everyone you know that you're gay for them and you want to date them exclusively and so on and so forth....
the whole world will do all the legwork of cutting ties and vanish.
then its just a matter of changing emails and your phone number.
I don't work for free. If we're going to crowd source this spy novel, what's my take?
Strip naked and go running down the highway screaming yankee doodle with a sparkler up my rear. After that, everyone would think I am too insane to be worth catching. Sure I'd get arrested, but I would likely be set free.
Your best bet would probably be to get as far away as you can, as quickly as you can, from everything you've ever had a connection to, by some means that requires no interaction with any other person. Look to the homeless for a glimpse of your new life.
I could tell you but...
Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro
That's pretty much what I have to do, except maybe the part where I disrobe in front of a Chinese couple. As Brell said so eloquently, if I live another 24 hours that would be very impressive.
wear a hat.
Tell your wife you went to visit family.
Use a friends basement to hide out in for a bit.
Only use cash.
tell all, make the media circuit, and when the 15 minutes of fame is over, they won't care about me any more. lose the election, go home, it's over.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I only let in celebrities - or at least internet celebrities.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
and a lawyer to represent my interests and sell the information to the highest (governmental) bidder. If a politician can buy the information (or the silence) then you can pad that number in your bank account with a few zeros and continue on like nothing happened. In fact, given the disorganization of most governments you may even be able to make the deal more than once for extra padding!
and you wouldn't have these problems.
first things first: For how long would i have to stay off the grid? For argument's sake, i'll assume i'll have to be out of sight for 6 months.
So the first thing to do is off course ditch any cell, or anything i have that can be traced. That includes cameras with gps sensors, gps devices and other similar gadgets that are location aware. I'd try to withdraw as much money as i can using ATMs in the first 3 hours, after that burn all debit/credit cards.
I'd probably try to set up an "insurance" against my dissapearance. Something like the encrypted torrent wikileaks published. Whatever i witnessed is probably importand enough, and interesting enough that members of the press, or wikileaks would be interested for. So i'd send them an encrypted copy of the story of what i witnessed. Then i'd set up a deathswitch account http://www.deathswitch.com/ were in case i was unable to enter the password the password would be sent to all those interested. Final thing would be to let those that are after me know that they should make sure i don't die or get caught if they want the event to stay private.
After that? Leave a note for your family letting them know that you're ok, but that you have to leave, and that they have to trust you. You'll communicate in a couple of days. Then get the hell out. Get on a bus, and try to get as far as possible from where you could be found. Stay out of major cities and try to stay low. If the search for you goes public, then change appeareances as much as you can. Different dress styles, shave your beard, color your hair etc etc. And keep running.
I do not speak another language besides English, though I can get by in French.
- ATM, get cash.
- Drive to airport, ditch car in cell lot.
- Bus into town, taxi to real bus station, bus anywhere.
- Disposable phone. Use my wife's Google Voice account to leave her a message. Thrown in the trash at any bus stop.
- Another bus ticket. Different direction.
- No McDonalds. Taco Bell, or worse, for food. I'm known for my fast food habits, let's not make it too easy.
- I'm inclined to cross the border at a place I know they are perpetually lax in one direction. I won;t be coming back for a while.
- Find work in a kitchen. Cliché, but hey. Or landscaping. You can do this easier than you think, and I can pretty much make up Social Security numbers, easy when you know the formula. I will, of course appear to be very old. And my favored employer won't care. They still exist in North America
Maybe this keeps me alive for a month. I obviously will not be very happy.
- Slither into the library/etc. and create a Slashdot indentity.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
To come up with Ecuador?
Luckily enough, this will not cause any change in your plans...
TBH, one other poster has a good idea. If you disappear for a couple of months you're likely to drop away and be lost until they look again for you for some reason. Go camping for a while.
Whilst you're "offline", work out what evidence you have and figure out a dissemination policy. If you have none, work out who is "after you" and what that means to them, attack being a good defence. Failing that, ignore the problem.
Back to civilisation, disseminate as widely as possible all the data you have before getting back to your life. Investigate and procure information on those you need protection from and if you thereafter think you're being brought in, don't bother playing by the rules. If they're thinking "the rules don't apply to me" then show them what it means when the rules of civilised conduct REALLY don't apply.
And if you have to preemt an attack, don't worry about getting big people, nor even the involved.
If Hollywood action movies have taught me anything, it's that the Big Bad ALWAYS thinks their family is out of harms way. If you're going to be boned, show them how wrong they are. Civilised actions preclude it, but like I said, they think those rules don't apply to them.
Make it so.
involves a shrink ray.
So the cell phone still works, the computer isn't hacked, the car hasn't exploded yet?
It takes a lot of time, preparation and MONEY to disappear permanently and effectively. You need a separate identity that already has a well-established "legend" and has no links of any sort to anyone in your "old" life. You can't just do that at the snap of a finger. It would take years to build up your "other you": credit rating, job history, you'd need to be running 2 homes some distance apart and in this day of FB tagging you'd need to make sure you weren't involved with anyone who owned a smartphone.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I see a lot of going against the spirit of the question, but to be more straightforward, you want to do a couple of things:
1) Get rid of your identity and get some cash - wipe and sell your phone, jewellery and anything else valuable on your person.
2) Get a backpack and clothes from a secondhand shop
3) Go to the library and find obituaries for kids in rural areas of different locales who died young and were born around when you were - steal their identities and open bank and credit accounts in their names
4) Get out of town by bus and find a DMV to issue you a license with one of your new identities - use it as identification for a low profile job
(Some of these steps are probably illegal. I don't recommend doing any of it.)
...and that's post about the precise details of my plan on the internet.
OPSEC, motherfuckers.
I doubt it's hard, technically to truly disappear. The hard part is that you have to be willing to leave absolutely everything behind.
Step 1: Phone off, battery out. If battery can't come out it gets destroyed.
Step 2: Wipe and leave behind anything that connects to the Internet.
Step 3: Turn everything into cash immediately.
You won't be able to hide that you're doing a runner, but you can make it harder to get your trail after you do run.
Get a hair cut, color hair (just 2 shades different, not drastic), add/remove facial hair, buy some cheap glasses frames with 0 correction glass in them. Buy entirely different wardrobe, half from Wal-mart, half from thrift stores.
A trip to Kinko's to print a temp set of fraudulent license plates for my car. Or better yet, swap plates with someone with the same model and color as mine. Or best give a buddy who looks like you $500 to drive the car to city X and fly back. You take the train/bus to city Y, in a different time zone from X and forget about the car.
After that it would depend on how much cash I had and how well connected the people after me wanted me. A good fake ID would be in the loop somewhere, but I honestly don't know anywhere to do that in person any more. Some time at cafés or public libraries with computers (and some attentive browser washing) would probably turn up something. Drive to a city chosen completely at random that I don't have any previous contact with. (No visits, family, friends, etc.) Population of at least 50K.
I'm not sure if I'd leave the country or not. (In this case I'm in the US.) It would require a better fake ID and borders are choke points of surveillance. Also fingerprints.
If I felt the need to send "I'm okay" information to my friends or family I'd do it through the post at least a 3 hour drive from where I've set up camp. No return address.
If it was anything serious, you would be on a radio based neural interface within minutes.
There is no vanishing anymore, this is not the 50's or 60's.
Any plan has to include turning all of your family's cell phones off.
http://www.google.ca/search?q=how+to+disappear
http://www.amazon.ca/How-Disappear-Digital-Footprint-without/dp/1599219778
thats how i'd start.
Step 1: Post the video on YouTube. After that, too many people have seen it, and other than revenge, there's no good reason to come after me.
If that isn't an option, step one would be to publicly post my escape plan, then do something completely different.
The best overall solution is probably to try to get lost in a crowd:
If you're lucky, by the time they follow the trail of security camera breadcrumbs to your final subway stop, contact all the cab companies to find out if they picked up anybody near there, figure out where they took you, and check all the security cameras for all the transit hubs near there, you'll be across the border. If you're really feeling insane, buy an Amtrak ticket to a different destination on a different route (using a credit card with your real name) just before you head a different direction. As long as the platform is outdoors, it is unlikely that they'll be able to determine whether you did or did not get on that particular train, which might provide an additional delay.
Oh, yes, and as you're getting out of the cab, give a homeless person one of your credit cards. Make them chase a ghost.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
sell my house, my car, all the rest of my possessions, keep and spend ONLY cash, (no credit cards, no bank accounts) buy a dual sport motorcycle and some camping gear and leave civilization, camp out in remote wilderness areas, (not state or federal camp grounds) and you can forget a cellphone, forget a smart phone, the only electronics you should even have would be a portable AM/FM/Shortwave radio receiver if you just got to have one for news & weather, music, general talk and bullshit to listen to.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Go to Mexico, buy a Fast and Furious gun, bring it back to America and kill somebody with it. You'll be completely invisible to Obama's administration and to major news media.
I'd just delete my facebook account...
Smivs on the intertubes!
Living in Texas this sort of scenario has occurred to me before. First things first:
Grab the backpack of clothes, jacket, cash, a heavy knife, and burner netbook (aquired second hand a couple of years ago) all wrapped in plastic. Pull out as much cash from the nearest ATM as possible as quickly as possible, and get in contact with the most trusted friend possible in the shortest amount of time. Leave my cell phone with him, ask to borrow car or if he/she will rent a car for me with the intent of avoiding license plate scanners. Make it to the nearest Rio Grande Crossing (ideally I would already be near El Paso, though no one in their right mind lives there).
Once in Mexico I would change my appearance and acquire a false identity as quickly and efficiently as possible. From there it's a matter of finding shelter and income while remaining anonymous. Probably I would teach English and tutor in math/computer stuff until I could afford to open a small bar on the beach and live happily ever after in a country that does not extradite to the United States.
Nobody misses him either.
... and continue as normal.
Give them enough time to leave the USB stick with the case notes in a pub, and forget all about it.
That's pretty much it.
Then I'd do whatever jon katz did. I mean, nobody has heard of him lately.
Write books about dogs and their experiences in this post-columbine hellmouth world?
I'd just delete my Facebook account and then send regular Tweets about how the cops can't find me.
See The Partner.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Search Google maps for the nearest Ecuadorian embassy.
Go up to the guy following you, "Hi. My IQ is about eight billion. I couldn't help but notice someone used a raygun back there. Whether you have invented this or are trying to reverse alien technology, I want in. Go tell your bosses. Off you go now. I'll wait."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
If you are going to disappear for a short period, get cash, live in a cash-only motel and contact nobody. A one-time cash withdrawl near home will not tip anyone off as to your location.
If you wanted off the grid completely, you are screwed. You have to have previous long-term plans in place to disappear (and 99% of your cash in the bank is not indicative of such planning). For medium term, take a trip to a country that speaks your second language, but not much English and go some place small, where another person from your country would stand out. Don't hide, go out, make friends. Let them know you think others are after you, they'll warn you if the time comes.
If the question is "how do I live indefinately looking over my shoulder",
Step 1. Drop all routine. Change your route to work daily. Vary your time of any activity by 10 minutes or more every day. Get a gun permit (gun optional, the permit will be found by those after you and cause them extra caution, but if you are comfortable, get the gun to go with it). If you get a gun, get 10. Check them daily. Get them all the same caliber. Keep 100 rounds on you at all times, and magazines stashed around with and separate from the guns.
Buy lots of the WiFi webcams and stream them to a local computer, as well as a cloud storage you have someone else buy on your behalf. Make sure to do both. Everyone stops when they find what they are looking for, except in the movies. If they find the local storage, they won't look for the cloud. If they track the cloud first, they won't look for the local. If you are overly worried about it, buy an old laptop and set it up, then tear down some sheetrock and put the laptop inside your wall, patch it up good, and they won't find it. Ever. Bodies were being found 50 years after mob murders in building sites so concealed. Get a UPS for the local computer and Internet so if your power is cut, you get recording.
Document what you saw, send it to your lawyer. And your family. Figure out why they are after you, and either work with them or against them until they have no more worries about what you know/saw.
Learn to love Alaska
I'm stuck in a bad movie and I can't get out!
goal - non-extradition country which is pretty, cash is king, sell fish tacos on beach. Probably Belize... internet seems to think you can pay $25k to government donation which will get you legal citizenship and a family that will vouch you were born and raised with them.
stay public, grab spouse, pull cash, max credit cards on prepaid gift cards (these can be sold for 90% face value cash out in a few months), dispose of all electronics, buy goodwill clothes to keep low profile including hat. Greyhound ticket with cash to border town, cross border into Mexico, get to private flight instructor with only plane (no GPS, transponder), pay cash as tourist for a landing in Belize...kill instructor (only witness to know your location), sink plane - start new life in favela factory selling soda.
...Or any third world country.
It's very hard to get "off the grid" in a modernized country.
Most things take documents and ID, and people generally don't accept bribes.
If you were able to get to a third world country, disappearing would be a easy. Money goes a long way and people are more relaxed about needing passports and ID. There's lots of under-the-table dealings for work, so it's not like you need a social security card. There's good transportation and Cambodia shares an extremely porous border with Vietnam, Thailand and Lao. Tell people you're canadian. Blend in with the backpackers and disappear. You could spend the rest of your days on the beach with beautiful asian chicks...or sweaty backpackers.
Create a holding company.
Have it buy a cabin in the woods.
Me move into cabin in the woods.
Have holding company pay taxes, utilities, etc.
If I really wanted to hide, set up a network of holding companies to hide the holding company with the cabin.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'll say it again in ickle words for the hard-of-thinking.
Disappear a bit.
They will lose track of you.
Disseminate your stuff before you get back on the radar.
If the delay between you doing this and them spotting you, then the damage is done. After that, the ONLY reason they will continue is if you embarrased some shitkicker. In which case, they obviously do not believe the rules apply.
In which case, go wild, do whatever you want. Because they will.
Read up on what "Total War" means and then apply it.
If the first 24 hours are all I care about, I go to my safe and pull out the alternate passport, which happens to be in a different name and a couple of bucks from the stash. Then I go to another city to rent a five star hotel room and lay low for a week or so. First, nobody ever expects you to lay low in a nice place. Secondly, the systems that track you aren't especially bright, or tied together in the ways you would think they might be from watching tv and movies. If I cared about a larger span of time, I would probably pull a larger chunk of money out, and head to Ecuador with the family. I might do that anyway, though.
This signature intentionally left blank.
You know who's really asking this question, don't you? The cops are looking for somebody, and the trail went cold. So now, they're crowd sourcing "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego"
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Crap, the school year's started. Now how many stupid questions are we going to get?
(and doesn't everyone keep a bug out bag in their car, next to the emergency preparedness kit? I've hit mine up a few times over the years, even just for simple things like 'had to work all night, I could use a fresh change of clothes')
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
This man knows how to run from even the most well-connected foes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Once in my magical girl outfit, I'd fight those evil men. I'd prolly scare them to death too.
That may not be the kind of fantasy you were looking for, though.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
Dude! Write your own fucking book. Don't ask the collective wisdom of slashdot to write the main plot elements for you. You could at least have tried to disguise why you were asking. Duh! If you've got writer's block and a deadline (or just no imagination) tough luck. We, here, won't write your novel for you...
You think I'm going to just post my plan so you can use it against me later on?? Nice try..
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
Whether I'm a blindly loyal North Korean citizen who never questions his government or a happy Westerner who happens to live in a (hypothetical?) country with an honest government with only honest government officials, I'd probably go to the nearest police station and tell them I was being followed and let them deal with it.
On the other extreme, if I were paranoid I'm not sure what I would do. If I realistically thought "they" were bound to get me sooner or later and I would face a fate worse than death, I might save them the trouble.
As for the "in the middle" situations, I tend not to worry about it. I mean, what are the odds[NO CARRIER]
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
There's a reason this option is never illustrated in film/story lines...it's boring. But, between a bullet in the head and cooperating, I'd cooperate.
It's like in TNG when Trelane threatens to destroy the Enterprise. The Captain orders everyone to go about their business as usual. He's not a quitter, but what chance does his crew stand against a Q, aka god? None. So either go about your business or find a way to survive in the situation.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Avoiding law enforcement officer contact is your main problem as it's a well known fact that a large fraction of fugitives are caught during a traffic stop.
In the scenario above you're already being followed and if that's by government agents then you're probably done no matter what. The fact that they're following you and haven't actually arrested you yet means you have a little bit of flexibility. I'd probably go for broke and calmly head to the most crowded place I could think of like maybe a popular mall. Gotta ditch the cell phone somehow though so either slip it onto a cleaning cart or somebody's bag when they aren't looking. Just keep it moving and preferably away from you. If all else fails just accidentally "lose" it in a trafficked area. If I thought I'd given them the slip, I'd probably go into the bathroom and assuming it has droptile ceilings, I'd crawl up into it and wait. Hopefully they'd assume I was gone and just slipped away from them somehow.
The summary says I have 99 percent of my money in the bank so I'll choose the convenient figure of 1,000,000 dollars meaning I have roughly 9,000 buried in an undisclosed location known only to myself and 1,000 dollars cash in my pocket. When I drop down out of the ceiling the next day around late evening, I quickly go to the JC Penny and get some different color clothes with the money I have in my pocket. Then I go to Spencer's and pick out one of the hats with the funny hair sewn in to put on and some faux hipster glasses. Lastly before I leave, I'll find somewhere that sells razors and work on the scruff in the bathroom stall.
Now I look reasonably different so won't be immediately spotted on sight. Fortunately for me, the aforementioned "undisclosed location" is just adjacent to the mall so I head over there and retrieve my money. Next, just like Jason Bourne, I find some young broke person who'll trade me a ride for a good sum of money. Public transportation and taxis are out of the question for obvious reasons. Now, sadly, the person that gave me the ride knows my face and if I show up on the news he will probably know it is me. Since he knows where he took me, he'll be able to tip the authorities off. One way to mitigate that is to get him to get you close enough that you can make it either by walking or biking, say 100 miles away. So if I wanted to go to Tampa, I'd get him to drop me off in Orlando. When I finally make it to Tampa under my own steam, I've already by this time substantially changed my appearance with hair dye, unevenly soled shoes to force a different gait, accessories that I wouldn't ordinarily wear, and so on.
Now I need to find a place to hole up without needing an id as while I still have it on me, I can't use it anywhere it will be recorded. That's easy. I get the weekly free rag and find a "rooming house". Basically a house where you have your own room but share the shower and the common area with a few other guys living there. I've still got over 7500 dollars so I can stay there a while with that.
At this point, you need to work on 2 main things. 1) put together a story and some documentation and 2) find a romantic interest and make them fall madly in love with you. The second part is relatively easy but the first part is a little tricky. Obviously government issued id ain't happening so you'll just have to resort to stuff like fake college id, ymca id, etc. If you put it all together in your wallet and make it look right you can even walk away from an LEO with it.
And that's the holy grail to feel "safe" on the run. Do you have a legitimate chance of walking away from an encounter with a cop. Obviously you don't want to push your luck so no law breaking and stay out of public as much as you can. With your newfound love interest, figure out a way that you can work from home. Maybe start an ebay business or whatever. Write iPhone apps whatever it takes just do it all in her name.
What you really need is government issued identification. In our
Computer savvy or not, you almost certainly would not be able to erase all traces of you on the net, in any amount of time.
So, your focus ought to be on keeping people from locating you, the physical being.
So, change your appearance, dramatically. Shave the head. Shave the beard. Wear lifts in the shoes. Color the hair. Wear a dress. Or a suit. Or a keffiyeh. Slouch. Or straighten up.
Don't use credit. If you're lucky, you had $500,000 or so in cash and a box of diamonds on hand before you decided to vanish. If not, find an untraceable way to get it.
Go somewhere awful with miserable infrastructure and officials who can be bribed. Bribe them. Continue to bribe them. Hope no one bribes them more to turn you over.
Disappearing is very, very difficult.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
If you accidentally witnessed something "strange" and believed that you were being followed in the real world, your actions should not and would not resemble what your character would do in a movie, and neither would "the government".
So posing the question to a bunch of nerds on the internet wouldn't make sense.
If you're a novelist looking to write some movie, however, and you run out of good ideas, you might ask Slashdot for a bunch of ideas for your story, posing your question in the way that was done in this story. That would certainly result in lots of ideas being generated by random strangers to fix your writer's block.
Remember the movie (or remember the references to it in "Throw Momma From the Train") where two strangers agree to kill each other's targets? No connection between victim and killer.
If you can have ONE buddy that NOBODY else knows about, you just go stay at his house. You agree to do the same for him. Since both your odds of needing the service are about a zillion to one, it's a cheap promise to make. You just have to pick the right guy who will actually come through for you - and not squeal when doing so.
This creates the problem of making that good a friend without ever corresponding with each other over any electronic network, now that it seems prudent to assume that "Total Information Awareness" has actually been implemented and that giant NSA data centre is hoovering up all e-mail. It would be better to never even phone each other.
For the true paranoid, add the problem that just joking about it over beers with another soccer dad during the kids practice and exchanging addresses and promises might not be distant enough.
I'm reverting to fiction here, but it's conceivable that the "Memoirs of an Invisible Man" scenario could happen to you, since you're being very paranoid to start with. In the book (not the Chevy Chase movie), the Invisible Man has a well-funded and relentless secret organization spending months and years trying to find him. He methodically thinks of the least-connected-to-him person possible, whom he can still find. He calls this guy he spent part of a summer working with in high school and hasn't seen in over 10 years - and, yes, that guy had been called by the government. Called upon physically, they poked around a bit while doing a "security check for a sensitive job offer".
So to find your Paranoia Buddy, you'd want to go through a couple of "degrees of separation" - ask that other soccer dad to recommend a friend *he* knows only a little, and not through electronics - and then maybe ask THAT guy for a recommendation. Or just do your buddy-shopping on the web, through whatever level of anonymizer you imagine trustworthy.
You can also have "paranoia buddies" that ARE connected to you, but only for resources, not a place to stay. You could trade copies of car keys with a friend and basically steal his car. Yes, by a few days later, your government tormentors would find him and be told that his car did disappear, but he didn't see you and has no idea where you are. That gives you a car for perhaps a day - long enough to be a thousand miles away in some random direction. If your unfindable buddy has a garage, they can't even find the car. Indeed, you could actually see him - he can cheerfully tell police that, yes, he stopped by, borrowed my car, gave me a cheque in return for $1000 cash, because you were a victim of identity theft and lost your keys and cards in the bargain - nothing illegal about him doing that, and he really does know nothing more.
These scenarios in movies are generally about a Man Alone - much more dramatic - but real spy stories emphasize that building up a network of (quiet) friends is a spy's best set of resources.
"99% of your money is in a bank account. "
Not knowing what dollar amount this is, that's your problem right there. If you don't have about US$1,000 handy in cash already available, you are more or less going to be traceable by anyone who is going to matter. And if you don't have any experience going "off-grid" for a short period of time when it didn't matter, you're going to screw up.
Buy a laptop, hire a live in house keeper, rent the apartment / house across the street from where i actually did live, setup surveillance on the original location, never leave the house, have the house keeper go out for everything needed. assess who what when why, and deal with them proper like......
Get a U.S. Marshal to follow you around and retrace your steps. He'll inevitably discover what you witnessed and the one-armed man who is ultimately responsible.
Is a typical Slashdot reader's wet dream.
Hell, most of the people reading this probably think they're already being followed anyway.
you're potentially infecting someone with an STD.
Now, when you think you may have had sex with someone with an STD, what is the point of getting THEM checked for it?You still need to know if YOU have it. No amount of testing on somone else will tell you if you have an STD.
(PS for you others on topic saying "They will just rubbish your information", well, if you're going to figure the worst is going to happen, your best option is to kill the person or persons you think are following you. If you're boned, you're boned. There is a certain amount of freedom in knowing that you are stuffed no matter what happens.)
You immediately report the incident to the police in such a way as to make it seem like you saw an otherwise unremarkable crime that the event could have been mistaken for assuming you were partially blind and deaf.
If you don't care about your family, then I suppose you could try to disappear off the grid. But, it's far better to hide in plain site if you don't have the resources to disappear properly.
and seek protection. I don't know why "they" are after me for but conspiracies are necessarily small. Whatever it is, the local police probably aren't involved and if any are they'll be few enough that I can simply insist on avoiding private rooms. The safest place I can be is in a room with a bunch of guys with guns, most or all of them dedicated to the defense of ordinary citizens like me.
Step 2 would be to find myself at least two lawyers -- one to attend me at the station and a second one to be somewhere I'm not just in case something happens. From there I'd document what I saw, explain my fears and ask counsel for guidance. You want to beat The Man, you need to outplay him and you need help.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I will recommend one thing someone not do if trying to hide:
Don't think someplace like Slab City, Quartzsite, or another "money-less" place that people think is a hippie haven will solve all problems. The natives live there not out of choice, but because there is nowhere else to go. In fact, if they knew someone was "desired", they would be more than happy to ensure that the large party in question would have a prize ready to go, wrapped like a Christmas present, in return for a suitable bounty. In fact, if a bunch of "slabbers" see that someone is desired, they also will end up "borrowing" the person's RV and everything else they came with. Trust me, desperate people do desperate things, and even the sturdiest lock on a generator doesn't mean it will be there overnight at a place where "justice" is served with the contents of a gasoline can and a lighter.
This also applies in any other tent city, as people think they can hide out there, but the residents will be more than happy to turn a person trying to "disappear" over, if there is a ransom involved.
If I know with some certainty I'm being followed, then it's safe to assume that whoever is following me is conducting surveillance in order to determine how much I do or do not know. If they knew for sure that I posed some sort of threat, then they mostly likely would have already eliminated me rather than simply following. Thus I would do absolutely nothing. As in, live my life as usual and not deviate one iota from my daily routine. Just keep on behaving normally until I've convinced whoever it is that I pose no threat and they decide to leave me alone.
FBI Weenie #001: "You know, we are a bunch of wankers after all." Sips Natural Ice from can.
FBI Weenie #002: "True. And we do suffer a lack of creativity." Sips Natural Ice from can.
FBI Wennie #001: "I'm bored out of my mind. It's been ten years since we had any real terrorists to deal with." Sips Natural Ice from can.
FBI Weenie #003: "Hey! Lets go mine slashdot and get some ideas. There's always a good one somewhere in the threads." Sips Natural Ice from can.
FBI Head Weenie: "Alright, I'll contact Stratfor and get them to whip up an Ask Slashdot title." Sips Budweiser from can
Moments later: Thousands of Slashdot readers see in their rss feeds: Ask Slashdot: What Would Your 'I've Got To Disappear' Plan Look Like?
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
(Lameness filter is lame.)
I swap the 1% of cash that I do have in a safe, turn off my cell phone and leave it at home powered off but not destroy it, pack and fire up the dual sport motorcycle with license plates, and go camping in the mountains. Not sure if I'd take a piece or leave it....it depends if I think I'm being pursued by that assassin from No Country For Old Men (a shotgun and a flamethrower) or just a disgruntled husband (small caliber Bond-like gun). Bourne always seem to cross borders with ease in the movies, but I know I don't have the chops to pull that off so I would just stay as rural as I could and try not to attract undue attention. Maybe in area of the country that distrusts well-dressed corporate henchmen/government officials with aviator sunglasses....maybe somewhere like Idaho. Idaho English is one foreign language that's pretty easy to learn and I can fake it a slight accent already. Also, the bad guys have a hard time navigating those black suburbans with tinted windows on forest service roads and even harder time pursuing a motorcycle. Or, maybe I'd stage a SCUBA accident where the body can't be found......in a deep, cold lake in the same part of the world.
go to a lawyer office. Get some representation.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I think you meant TOS, not TNG.
in the EU/US: get a lawyer. Sign over the account to my significant other. Go to the Police. Give a credible, but wrong confession of a crime, in the presence of my lawyer. While waiting for the trial: collect more infromation.
Yes. That is about it. The most safe place may be inside a prison.
...i'd surrender, as publically as possible after having made arrangements with a lawyer.
Fortunately, I don't fit your description (and I certainly wouldn't publish my plan on Slashdot in any case).
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
A handful of barbiturates and a quart of vodka.
You are welcome on my lawn.
First things first, you need to lose whoever is following you. I would get instituted under the Baker Act by acting insane and as a danger in a public area. I would make sure I have someone I know of around, though getting any privacy with them would be dangerous for them as well, so I would just give hints of sanity in my insane ramblings.
Once I've been instituted, If I eventually got released, I would access my account, withdraw everything I could, sell or abandon everything else, and join a circus or become a vendor at festivals under a different name, never getting a license or registration ever again.
Before you move, say "Good-bye". Take all your cash out of the bank; convert it to U.S. Dollars. Ditch the phone. No more Internet - Email, Facebook, all abandoned.
Go to a primitive region, like Africa. Leaky borders mean that Uncle Sam can't even tell which country you're in.
Change your habits; statistics show that police catch suspects because of their lifestyle patterns.
Shrrrriiiiiiieeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!
Every allegation of a sexual nature ever made against a male by anyone is TRUE!
Because all men are rapists!
Think of the children!
Unfettered emotional hysteria is always justified whenever a male is alleged to have committed anything of a sexual nature, because all men are rapists!
And all females are saintly princesses perched upon a pedestal.
All females are tragic victims.
All men are rapists.
Assange is a male, therefore he is a rapist.
Two females have made allegations of a sexual nature against Assange, a male, therefore he is unquestionably guilty, because all men are rapists.
It just stands to reason.
Personally, I think he should be sent to Gitmo just for being Australian.
A lot of "professional" advice on how to drop off the grid involves things like tracking down birth certs of dead babies from the year you were born, and get an SS number from them. The problem is that, if you've only got 24 hours to disappear, none of that is possible.
To do that in such a short time, you have to be willing to potentially let go of *everything* in life, including spouse, kids, house, etc.. That means you don't go back home. You don't call and tell your wife you love her one last time, you just leave.
For most, it should be a fairly easy thing to just withdraw as much from ATM's as your accounts allow, and leave the country. You should probably avoid air travel, since this "agency" after you could probably put you on a no-fly list, but taking a bus or train would be fine in the short term.
Once your in the new country, your options are mostly just limited to how much cash you have available. Ideally, you would get a good set of fake identification papers made, and apply for a new passport. Pick a third country, and head there, only to do it all again. Just don't be surprised to invest a bit into bribes and such to grease the wheels. Eventually, you'll be in a country with a fresh passport that doesn't easily trace back to your old life. Just make sure you never contact anyone you ever knew again.
But yeah, if you literally have feds following you 2 cars back and you are looking to disappear, there's not a whole lot you can do aside from committing a very high profile crime in public while they are following you, essentially jumping out of a burning building hoping to survive the fall. No ideal.
No, what this looks like is... *I am a student 'scenario writing', do my homework* kind of question.
I see a lot of those math-students on math forums as well, although this is the first scenario-writing-student-questions I've ever encountered though...
I hope it wont become a trend. Before you know it you'll have deja-vu's watching TBBT and QI.
rm -rf --no-preserve-root /
If you are a revolutionary, frame you for child porn.
If you are a child pornographer in a country where the population doesn't treat such things as the worst of all possible crimes, frame you for terrorism.
"You witness a strange event.... ....What would you do in order to feel safe after those first 24 hours?"
This whole question is rooted in HollywoodLand. Meanwhile, back in the real world of securely established governments in democratic countries, there is no need to intimidate or eliminate witnesses to exhibitions of their agents' incompetence, dishonesty or malice. Why not? Because they are confident that the free (but not independent) press will set the tone, and that jurors, magistrates, coroners and judges will deliver the verdict or opinion that society prefers. It doesn't matter very much that credible witnesses have the decency, independence and courage to stand in open court and, under oath, deliver truthful, honest and damning testimony: the witnesses decide nothing, deliver no verdict and offer no judgement. They can be heard and then minimised/discredited/discounted/ignored with impunity.
If you think any of that seems like hyperbole then please examine the cases of Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson, both innocent men who were murdered in plain sight in broad daylight by officers of HMG. The sworn testimony of honest, decent and impartial witnesses amounted to nothing, which is why those witnesses are as safe as any random person who wasn't even present.
"You are native to and live in a big city"
Well, there's your problem.
First 24 hours huh?
Scenario 1: I am in my car,so I am screwed... they already have my ID and I can only expect a bullet to the temple at their first convenience.
I would not want to involve my family and friends, so calling any of them is out of the question.
While driving away slowly, so my tail feels no urgency, I would use that time to use my phone to post my story to Twitter, FB, CNN, as many outlets as I could during a drive to a tavern or nightclub where everyone knows my name. I would then hand the bartender my credit card and announce drinks on the house for one and all, and tell my story loudly and often until the uniforms drag me away to my fate.
On the other hand, if I am on foot, I might have a chance.
Obviously, if I drove there, I would not want to go to my car... that would invoke scenario 1.
So I go to any tavern or nightclub where I have never been before, introduce myself to the bartender as Joe Sixpack, and have a beer while waiting for someone to head to the little boys room, and then I follow them in. While in the restroom I chat up the fellow with a story about my PTSD from Iraq and how the Mossad is following me because I once gave candy to a Muslim child. I then walk slowly to another tavern while 'the man' interviews the bartender and the poor fellow from the restroom, obtaining my fake name and military history.
My next stop is again the nearest bar where I have never been before, announcing loudly a few minutes after arrival, with an air of disgust, that I am sorry but someone told me this was a gay bar.
If I still am being tailed, its time to confront the dude... "hey, haven't I seen you at the Blue Oyster bar?'. When he denies it I chide him for still being in the closet and walk to the next bar. If I am still being followed by now, its time to start a fight. Pick the biggest baddest guy in the place, walk over and introduce myself.
"Hi, I'm Joe Six Pack!"
"Uh, I don't know you. Should I?'
"Yeah dude!" (pointing to the tail)
"My boyfriend said he boffed you in the ass last night, you bitch!"...
In the ensuing mayhem, I make my escape out the back door...
This would make an excellent "reality" show. Have a group of individuals take off in different directions, then another group of investigators try to find them. Whoever stays hidden the entire season wins the prize money. They would have to film themselves and somehow send in the film at least once a week. Most people would fuck it up, but a few crafty folks might stay hidden that long.
I would have construction work done on a union site without 100% certified union labor.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
You get a free gun and a free trip to a remote place? Get a boat and try to live off the sea? North Korea? :)
There was a corrupt politician here in Portugal who fled to the other end of Brazil, to a small town practically in the Amazon. People all know each other and notice you arriving. Any place hooked up to the global media is essentially the same place where you are right now. Your picture will end up in the newspapers. Buy a farm house in an absurdly isolated place, and you'll still have a paper trail.
If a bank is open, I'd empty an account - either a personal or from one of the businesses. That's probably 1-6 months of living expenses.
I'd tell my wife that there is an emergency business trip to Asia or a "team building" exercise in some national park out west if I needed to take camping supplies. That happens about once a year. Being out of contact for a week overseas is not odd. Internet doesn't always work from everywhere.
Pick up a pay-as-you go SIM for my cheap GSM phone and swap it in. Pick up a newspaper with used car ads. Take a taxi to the subway and the subway to meet someone selling a used car in the newspaper. Buy the cheap car for cash from a private person in the newspaper.
After that, I'd disappear across at least 2 state borders and get into a lower-class motel or BnB to figure things out. Different authorities are involved across state lines, so if I can work with them to a resolution, that's possible with disinterested officials.
If I determine the need to leave the country, I'd enter a nearby nation by driving or ferry, then get on public transit there to an airport and catch a plane to a rural city in a South American country. If the airport seems too dangerous, get back on a bus and keep going from country to country to get to South America.
Ask Slashdot: What would your I just got back from the international spacestation and I want to go back to my wife and friends plan look like? :-)
You are in Kazakhstan and the bus driving you from the Kosmodrome to Moscow got hijacked by Sart separatists from Tajikistan in a bid to recreate their own sovereign state. You dont speak any Russian, nor any Turkic language, but you master US-style signlanguage. All your money is in the US, and you proved not to be such a good 'survival expert' as you once thought. Your friends nor your wife who you just married can help you and you're in a space-suit. and no normal clothing around...
Oh, and some jokes on physics are welcome. No McGuiver-is stuff please.
rm -rf --no-preserve-root /
I'd start posting as an AC on /., just in case people try to find me through my account.
Hmm, actually I never registered... yay! I'm safe!
Slab city. If you live in the US, you don't need to even leave the country or find a new ID. Just hide out with the people that gave up on society. They live rent free, and off the grid. http://www.vice.com/read/slab-city-884-v16n6
Duh.
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so I'm still in the pink, sitting on my own front step.
"who's that? are they on the list?"
"nah, washed up wannabe lost for Congress. ain't worth the bullet in either case, and I don't want to fill out the forms today."
"how about lunch at the Italian place, then?"
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
All you need to do is type CandleJack and just wait a few se
If you've got a car it's no problem to carry food/water for a week.
If you're hiking, you can easily carry a week's worth of commercial dehydrated food, and water filters are common (will make most water drinkable). Use chlorine if you don't want to pump the filter, or a gravity-feed filter bag.
Supplement with fresh-caught fish, or even snared gopher/rabbit/hare if necessary.
Drop my cell phone, tablet, etc, anything that can be tracked (or disable the tracking ability if it can be done), withdraw as much money as I can from the bank, encryp or destroy my hard drive, after making a backup of everything of great importance to keep with me (probably not remotely, since I wouldnt want whoever is following me to see what Im backing up/stop the self destruct). Also destroy or take any papers. Tell my family Im going on vacation, and then drive off until Im at least a few states away, ditch the car, and start walking (not on the roads for a few days though). Continue travelling by walking and hitchhiking, and then just hide out for about a month or 2. By then the search should have slowed down, and I wont have to worry as much, so depending on the situation I can either go back home, or go to another country.
* Document what you think you saw and distribute to various non-alterable sources.
* Inform family and friends of your situation to give them a peace of mind.
* Inform your employer of an emergency situation and request time off or leave of absence.
* Inform any utilities and creditors about suspension of service or cancellation.
* Create a non electronic list of contacts and keep it on your person.
* Print our copies your passport, identity documents and keep on your person.
* Assemble your resources, money, water, food, cloths, toiletries, medications, prescriptions, firearms, etc. into a Bug Out Bag.
* Store a good amount but not all money and copies of documents on your person.
* Leave your primary residence for a secondary location not forgetting to power off any broadcasting electronics
* Determine the adversary and their resources and speed of reaction.
* Decide on the next course of action, fight or flight.
You know, this was probably posted by the people who want to get Assange, and you've all helped them!
I spent 3 weeks in a homeless shelter where I registered with my ID and apparently police were looking for me the entire time. I saw them on several occasions but didn't know they were looking for me. After 3 weeks they sent an email saying there would be a nationwide search if I didn't contact them. Kind of funny it took them 3 weeks to bother asking.
I think you are forgetting how incompetent these people are.
Nice try buddy, but we aren't going to help you find John Connor!
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
It also sounds a lot like someone fishing for ideas to put into their next novel or screen play. It's way too specific.
To the original poster:
Do your own work and stop bugging us. If you can't cut it, perhaps you need to decide on a different major/job/career.
in the nearest embassy/consulate of the country I believe which can withstand the pressure tactics of of my mother/father land.
Disappearing in a G8 country can be very very hard -- don't try this at home!
Seriously, if all your money is in the bank, the first thing to do is to take traveler checks for as much money as possible and some cash. Then:
1) buy air ticket for the all the family to a distant country,
2) buy a bunch of pre-paid phones (and walkie-talkies) for all the family
3) take the family to nearest amusement park
4) explain the situation, draw a plan, mingle in the crowd, get out of the park per plan
5) have the friend pick us up and drop somewhere with enough food and water etc. May be this friend can rent an apartment for month-to-month in some non descript location which is where you could stay for the month
Now, I got run!
Getting a birth certificate? No problem. Getting the social for that person? No problem.
Actually using that SSN? Incredibly risky. Part of the process of dying now is the local vital records office sending a record of your death to the Social Security Administration. The second you do anything to get that SSN reported to the feds, (like open a bank account, attempt to acquire credit, or get a paycheck), you are toast. At best, it'll come back that the SSN is invalid, and a normal life can be annoying. At worst, they'll pop you for ID theft.
you could become a cross dresser, no one could ever find you then and you wouldn't get noticed hahaha
I read a wired magazine article on this same topic a few years ago.
http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/11/ff_vanish2/
When there was a chance that a child might not have yet acquired an SSN, that could work. Since now a record of every death goes to the SSA, that'll kill the SSN of pretty much every citizen upon death. (In fact, there are news stories every once in a while about how hard it is to convince the SSA that you aren't dead when somebody fat-fingers the wrong number or name into the database.)
And miss a chance to be recruited into The Conspiracy? I'm confronting my follower and finding out who Number Two's boss is!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
42
1. Draw all your money out of the bank. Destroy your cards afterward. You won't need those again.
2. Get off the grid. Ditch your cellphone. SIM and all. Don't bother to buy disposables. If you are doing a bug out, make sure you have a bug out bag with survival necessities (no, a netbook is not a survival necessity. A bascha is. A first aid kit is. A box of waterproof matches is. A supply of ready-to-eat food is. Water purification tablets and a container is. Maybe one or two changes of clothes as well, and pack for cold (several thin layers rather than one or two thick layers is better)). In fact, I'd say have a bug out bag ready anyway, because if you have to go in a hurry you're not going to have time to pack one.
3. Change your HABITS. If your usual work is salaried and stuck behind a desk, it's time to learn how to dig a field for cash-in-hand (see #2). You can be found if you stick to habit.
Importantly, though not one of the steps because this is going to be an ongoing thing, probably for the rest of your life; stay small. Keep yourself to yourself, stay quiet, do not confide anything of your past life to anyone. Do not make noise, do not get noticed. Be a stranger but be part of the crowd of strangers. The second you stick out like a sore thumb you will be found.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
That seems to be about Assange. You have a point there. If he actually did something wrong, he really messed up. I don't want to let him off the hook for sexual misbehavior just for Wikileaks' sake. If he did nothing wrong, that still provides a pretext for the authorities to go after him.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Assange is cooperative with the law. The law, however, doesn't say that once the case is dropped he cannot leave town and having left town, that he must come back.
Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace
http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/vanish.htm
(effectively, be rich or learn to live very, very simply)
Just cover your eyes! If you can't see them, they can't see you!
Free Manning, jail Obama.
I do everything possible to make myself an unbelievable witness. Develop a drug habit, visit some hookers, have gambling problems, etc. Then make up stories and get a doctor to make a note saying that I'm schizophrenic.
I'm no longer a threat.
For anything close to hiding away from the government's eye, you need cash. The more, the better.
My wife and I keep some cash in the house. Maybe close to 1% of my annual income, well below 1% of my net worth. (For a while, every month we pulled some cash out of our wallets and put it away -- we never took money out of the bank to do it.)
We just called it our emergency reserve. Maybe I should keep some more.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
It seems the Government can't track down illegal aliens, so throw away your ID, dress like a Mexican and demand you get welfare. Seems to work for 30% of the current population in this country.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
The goal is to set an example and precedent. Assange is just one man. They have their crosshairs set on the entire movement.
was more or less derailed by Michael Jackson dying. I wouldn't really trust the public eye to keep me safe, they're too easily distracted.
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Being sneaky isn't an option. Total Information Awareness works and if you are a high value target, you'll get found fast.
The best protection is total openness.
Tell lots of people quickly. Use internet forums. Use your real name. Make it so that if you do vanish, people will notice and start thinking. Crowd source your survival. Get a lawyer if that will help your situation.
There are enough honest people in the world to make open murders and abductions tricky. The more people who know and are watching, the more hoops they'll have to jump through. There's a reason bullies and child abusers make it a high priority to threaten their victim with the worst if they dare tell what is happening to them.
Of course, the internet is full of creeps and agents, but real people outnumber them. Be loud, be public. Once the secret is out, getting rid of you only confirms what you have claimed.
The next step for the dark side is to smear you through the media. Julian Assange is an example of this. But in that area, you at least have a chance.
and vengeance is a popular pastime for the idle rich. Besides, if anyone notices you getting taken out you're an example of what not to do. That's why we have the death penalty.
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Then I'd do whatever jon katz did. I mean, nobody has heard of him lately.
Thats a remarkably tasteful answer. I was expecting a worse comparison, like Roland...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
At that point, you're almost invisible to anybody until their computer breaks. 10 seconds after you leave, they probably couldn't spot you in a police line-up. Then I'd pick out a wardrobe. Gray T-shirt, jeans. After that, I'd goof off a lot. Do enough to keep those good performance reviews coming, but not enough to threaten anybody by being too creative or innovative. Get a credit card and buy completely ordinary things. Put up a facebook page with equally ordinary things.
No wait.....
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
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There is nothing saying that he has to go back to sweden if he's given clearance to leave.
And you're the one bringing up the USA being behind this, but maybe the fact that the new prosecutor is being talked to by Rove who has no experience in the Swedish judicial system nor their electoral issues. So what, exactly, is he there for?
And what does the USA's involvement or not do to the FACT that given clearance to leave the country, there is no requirement for Assange to return to Sweden?
And now you're turning to a "He's resisting arrest is the law he's broken!". Well done. You cannot show what law he broke and is avoiding SWEDEN'S justice system so you go ahead and make one up for the UNITED KINGDOM'S justice system instead.
I know you're a USian now: you don't realise they're different countries.
Contact Michael Westin, Chuck Finley, Fiona, and Jessie. I'm sure they'd help me and my family.
Lose them in a crowd then just walk away. Get some basic survival supplies and take a bus or something far away and disappear in to the remaining wilderness areas of the US. If I survive then great, if not then at least I have the best view in the world to pass away at since there won't be any light pollution for how far I'd head out. Assuming a bear or mountain lion didn't eat me.
have actually done this before, to get away from my abusive mother.
Basically I got some cash, and did a combination of busing and hitchhiking until I got to a place where no one knew me. Then I got jobs that required no or little background checks, mostly with immigrants that I fit in with (because I look enough like that race to blend in). and basically just started a new life.
My plan was to use new internet names. For awhile I had very little access to the internet so it wasn't an issue... but as soon as I was able to get an apartment and the internet I was back to sites I use to frequent, and people recognized my personality and way of writing, and some people told my family where I was.
So eventually I gave it up, and went back to my old internet name. This wasn't a life or death situation, not even a jail or freedom situation... maybe if it was I could stay away from the internet and it would work.
* Don't use your vehicle or one directly traced to you.
* Don't use a credit card.
* Don't carry your smartphone. The EMEI-eieio number can be traced even if you swap the SIM.
* Don't login to to any online accounts that you have.
* Don't phone anyone that you've spoke with in the last 15 yrs.
* Don't stay in mainstream hotels or motels. You want a family run B-n-B in a small town.
* Don't go to stores that have a video system.
* Use cash for everything.
* Stay off large roads that have cameras - interstates, US hwys and large state roads.
If your face is in the media, you are screwed unless you can get deep into back country or have an old, trusted friend who will hide and support you so you don't need to be in public. With software devel skills, you might be able to create a thriving company with this person and never need to meet clients.
Getting a 5+ states away to a small town might avoid attention, if your story doesn't become national news. Avoid states with lots of criminals already. You want to end up where Barney Feif works.
but they involve breaking the law. I assume that you are innocent at T0, you MUST remain innocent at all times. If you break the law in this process you are now a legitimate target for arrest and imprisonment. So, I think no plan should involve you or your accomplice breaking any law.
If law breaking is allowed it becomes a whole different ball game and actually suggesting such plans would be really bad idea.
I did that sorta, for a few years about 25 years ago, avoiding an ex-wife (no kids). Move a thousand miles away. Change career (I did Dirty Jobs type stuff for a few years). Accidently give a wrong SSN when opening a bank account, or have a good friend cash paychecks like I did.
Then got back to my career. Real easy back then actually. My ex is now an RN and MD far away, and I don't have suddenly have money out of my bank accounts.
Everyone is missing a critical point here.. you have family. You cant just bug out. If you are a 1/2 decent person you think about your family first, you turn the F around and find out who is following you, why, and do whatever it is they want to keep your family safe..regardless of the personal consequences.
Most of you failed to read the FP, and even if you did, seem to have skipped the obvious first step.
* You have someone following you. You haven't yet manage to elude your potential captors.
* You don't know that your pursuers have government ties, just suspect it.
* You don't know that "they" actually know your identity yet - Even the MiBs don't really know everything instantly.
* You have almost no money on you (or if 1% counts as "enough", you have enough money to get a damned good lawyer).
You can test two of these and potentially fix one with one simple move - Go into the nearest branch of your local bank and take out a modest, odd-sized sum of cash well under $10k... Perhaps $3450 (no need to go crazy with precision, virtually all legit debts in the four-digit range will round to the dollar, and often enough to the 50s - And keep in mind that 35 bills will cause a very sizable bulge in your pocket). If the bank gives it to you, then "they" either don't know your identity, or don't belong to the government (note that the latter doesn't make you any safer - Plenty of NGOs pose as much, if not more, of a threat to you than the government-proper). If the bank tries to make you stick around for more than two minutes, time to vanish into the woods, penniless or not (and if "they" can get to the bank and nab you in under two minutes, sorry dude, you had no shot from the moment you saw A Strange Event, so might as well get it over with).
So, assuming you have a decent wad of cash (if you have either died at this point or know you can look forward to a life of hermitage in a mud hut in the Great North Woods, not much more advice matters, so turn to page 99, "the end")... Task #0a: Leave a message with your lawyer describing your situation and asking him to look into it, and say that you'll contact him in a week for an update. Task #0b: Leave a goodbye message (you can do that directly with most cell phones, without actually ringing the line) for anyone you care about - This will both protect them and make you less likely to do something stupid like try to go home three months from now. Take this chance to wipe your phone (not that they can't recover it, but might as well make it a bit of a challenge)
Task #1, lose your tail. Easier said than done, but we've all seen plenty of trick in movies you could try. Personally, I'd favor large crowds with lots of cover, ie, a shopping mall (outdoor market, all the better, but we don't have a whole lot of those in the US). Wander around for a while, always heading for the largest crowd you can see, and try to leave by an unusual route. At some point early in this step, "accidentally" leave your phone in a conspicuous place, preferably with lots of teens around. Someone will kindly pocket it for you and provide a new non-you moving target.
So you've lost your tail. Task #2, get the hell out of Dodge. "They" will watch most forms of public transit, so a series of hailed cabs or hitchhiking will give you the best chances. If you can get to a bus depot in an outlying suburb, you have a chance. Go to a different state.
On your first stop, buy an activate a pair of Tracphones. Mail one to your lawyer, and one to your wife (or mother). Now Pretend you still have a tail and repeat steps 1 & 2. Do it again. Bonus points for finding alternate means of transportation than buses and taxis (commuter trains don't ID you, long-haul ones sometimes do, airports always do).
So... Now you consider yourself more-or-less safe to stop and think for a while. Get a good night's rest, get a complete makeover (hair/beard style and modest color change), get some new clothes. Get another Tracphone, activate it, but don't call anyone yet.
Have your next bus ticket ready, and take a taxi/T to the opposite side of the city. Call your lawyer's shiny new Tracphone and see if he has anything useful to tell you. Don't automatically believe
First off, I'd have already prepared for this moment long ago. So I would then immediately break open the nearby hiding place that holds my loaded escape pack. This pack holds, among other things, at least rudimentary facial masking equipment, a fully charged burn phone (never used), a compact firearm, multiple rounds of ammo, and a lot of peppered turkey jerky.
I'd then call a car service, schedule pickup for 30 minutes, and give the airport as my destination. Then I'd grab a cab (not car service), leave my "real" cell phone conspicuously on and hidden in the back seat. I'd pay the driver $100 not to stop, only to slow, as I roll out of the cab into a weed-covered ditch.
From here I would hike deep into the wilderness, and as long as I had at least a canvas sack and a blade (any type), I'd be able to make or procure anything else I would need, including prescription medication. From that point on, it would simply be an extended vacation.
Yeah, I mean if you witnessed something like that and there were people after you, wouldn't they just shoot you on the spot? "Oh no, a witness to my heinous crime! I think I'll conspicuously follow him around and menace him while he empties his bank account and gathers his guns, and then mysteriously stop following him while he secrets himself to an undisclosed location. I can't lose!"
I would cross over the boarder to Mexico and then come in around Arizona. Im now an illegal immigrant. Im going to live in caly for awhile. I get food stamps. My medical is paid. I get living allowance also. Im set. !
Easy go camping in a State or Federal Park. You could stay in a Primitive Campsite free but still have access to showers and toilets. Plus most campgrounds have onsite hosts and forest rangers that offer a bit of protection. Just Remember to hide the plate on the car by backing in or putting it behind the tent.
I would remove all my money from the bank account, grab all of the guns, casual clothes, and portable electronics I own, as well as a nice suit, and stuff them in a suitcase or two, then go towards a small airport where my personal plane is parked. After that, I would fly to a far-away airport at random and settle down in a cheap apartment. I would then buy a racing airplane in case I get chased by the police. I would also stick strictly to bikes and public transportation to get from point A to point B. If things start heating up, I'll start using my hacking skills to siphon money into an overseas bank account and take up a policy of shooting out the engines of any police officers who try to stop me. With this policy, I will also take up a policy of stealing cars from dealerships and license plates from suburban areas and ditch any one whenever I have a run-in with the law. I would also go into public only if I'm wearing a surgical mask, a baseball cap, and sunglasses. Of course, this is all assuming that the conspirators can turn me into a wanted man.
the above posts confirm that Warren Zevon got it right... send lawyers, guns and money, dad, get me out of this!
Assange isn't hiding. Why do you keep saying he is? The whole world knows exactly where he is. The two girls who accused him traveled off to who knows where. All this over Sweden wanting to "question" him? Get friggin' real. If Sweden wasn't in cahoots with the US in an extradition agreement of some sort, the ass hats in Sweden could travel to the UK and question him. The two girls were *groupies*. They wanted his penis in them. Nothing more, nothing less. If they gave a damn they would have stayed in Sweden to press charges. Serious sex crime? Give me a break. Two groupies became pissed off when they talked and found out he was fucking both of them. Cry me a river...
Act normal, go home, post a detailed description of what you saw (preferably with phone camera evidence) publically to Facebook (and possibly elsewhere), under a title something to the effect of "Man, check out this weird thing that happened to me today!" Then carry on as if nothing happened. At this point, I would no longer be a threat any more than any one of several hundred other people who saw what I posted. (And "erasing" me would no longer benefit them any, apart from pointless retribution = cost without return).
But, perhaps because I live in New Zealand where the government is a little toothless* and there aren't any significant organised crime syndicates, I'm a little more casual than some.
(However, I would probably then quietly take my family camping, along with getting some advice from some "Apocalypse ready" buddies of mine (their words) and one or two choice others. If I had any reason to really be that paranoid - though I can't think of any reason why I would be).
* Yeah, yeah, Kim Dotcom, I know...
It was both the government and the mob, and the mob had a contract out on me. I managed to get into the hills/mountains, and then flat-footed it in a random direction for 3 days, caught a bus for Mexico, and disappeared. My friends, with no prompting on my part, started passing around rumors that I had been kidnapped by guerrilla fighters in Central America, and would likely not be seen or heard from again. I then changed my name and appearance, and managed to stay incognito for over 40 years. At this point, I doubt that the bums who wanted me offed are still alive, or if they are, they aren't likely to still want to do me... :-)
My family managed to get my $$ out of my bank account, and that helped me in my "relocation". I lived under an assumed name for those 40 years, got married, had kids/grandkids (and now a great grandson), and a career. Finally last year I had to peek back into real life. The new laws about travel and work meant that I had to do a legal name change from my original family name to the one I assumed all those years ago in order to get current ID and passport and take a very good position with a major international company. Fortunately I have a great attorney/friend who helped me work through all that cruft (especially verifying that I no longer had any wants or warrants from Uncle Sam) so my assumed name is now my legal one. So far, no unfriendly types have come knocking on my door...
Is that you?
I'd immediately e-file a fraudulent tax return, claiming an enormous illegal refund. As the IRS is proving every day, there's no way in the universe the government would be able to find you.
Don't disappear, go public. If you fear people want to silence you, make silencing you pointless. Post the strange event on your Facebook, call and tell your friends, tell the police you fear for your safety, call the city paper, park your ass on a very public park bench with a sign saying "I saw X and now they want to kill me." Yes, you will look like a paranoid lunatic, but that's okay. Make it so that kidnapping or killing you won't gain the conspirators anything, and will make your crazy paranoid ravings ring true.
If the group out to get you is so big that they can silence every one of these communications, or so powerful that they don't care if your death attracts attention, you were screwed regardless. But if your enemy needs to lurk in the shadows, your best chance is to stand in the light.
Assuming you can get a reasonable amount of cash ~$5000 from the bank quickly..
pull the battery on your cell, get a cheap motorcycle off craigslist that runs, borrow a strangers phone for this part. Get the title, keep the license plates
Get helmet and gloves, a dark visor will thwart identification. And you have a much better amount of mobility.
Heavy Traffic is now your ally, as police have other concerns, and can't follow you with a cruiser.
You can now get fast-food through a drive up.
Find a room for let from someone who has poor vision, consider having something distracting on your face, like a bright green band aid on your nose.
Take some time to change your look, then go make some friends. Let them know that your hiding from some massive debt, leave hints that organized crime/ crazy redneck militia/ LEO might want you too (depending on the crowd), With some planning you now have some under the table work. Keep the "information" pretty tight, just enough that they know you can't show up on the radar. Choose the friends well, by being under the radar your chances of being mistreated go up substantially.
It means that they do not even bother hiding.
Go South. Mexico borders have no checkpoints. Tijuana and surrounding areas has a zone that doesn't require you to have a visa. Going further south requires you to have one, but you are rarely checked for it.
You can wait it out in MX, live off savings, and play it by ear. If all your inclinations were true, you will need to dupe a passport for long-term.
Once obtaining a passport, I'd recommend heading further south, sticking to the west side of the peninsula. Head to Chile that doesn't require an exit for customs.
Always wear bleach white shirts and expensive shades to hide your paranoia and present an air of confidence.
If you're heading to the EU, you might want to fly into a country with weak customs like Italy.
Damn, would I be a great criminal or what?
All in all, you'll be fine 7 years if you have $50K stashed and living low-key in the south.
No one pays attention to the homeless. Oh wait... Nowadays, they turn homeless people into little green crackers. Nevermind.
Enough said..
And go to a homeless shelter.
Seriously. Who is going to check there? You'll be living with some crazy people and drug addicts... and it will be embarrassing. But it will be cheap/free and there will be no record of you anywhere. You can wait that out for weeks. Keep a pre paid cell phone powered off. You can make phone calls occasionally to make sure certain people know you're okay. Then take the battery out/turn it off... and wait.
When you feel safe, just get on a bus and go home.
If you need to take other people with you... camping might be your best bet.
If you have a friend, borrow their car and leave them yours. If you don't have a friend or no "good" friends then just risk your own car. Once you're out of the city no more credit cards. Just cash. Again, possibly you can get a wire transfer of money from a friend as they might not monitor the bank accounts of friends.
Stay away for a week or so camping and then come back. Do it right and the family might not even know their lives were in danger. That's a good idea for the kids since it might traumatize them. As to the wife/husband... your call.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
And it keeps you busy stealing or whoring, so yeah.. bad example.
In this case, stay put, go public. Shadow organizations don't like the light.
If you run, you are separated from people who can support you. You lose access to your resources. If you run, you can be disappeared and no one will know, because you're on the run, right?
Since you're a witness - Let people know, tweet, do a blog about it. "Hey Joe, I saw the damnedest thing..." By doing this you have already accomplished the thing they wanted to prevent - your talking about it. Taking you out then is counterproductive. Taking you out would increase scrutiny of whatever you saw.
At this point you can sit back and wonder if they were really out to get you, or were you just paranoid. Hopefully you'll never know.
Over 9000 of it.
There's no point in running if you have to lose everything that makes life worth living. Better to fight.
What you can do depends on what kind of evidence you have. "The government" is not a monolithic entity. If you have anything solid on what you witnessed, start calling congresspeople until you find one that's willing to stage a press conference and start an investigation. Or try your governor -- they love looking tough against the feds. Go with whatever party doesn't control the White House, or look for critics within the dominant party. If you can prove that you're being followed, get in touch with the internal affairs departments of the FBI and your state and local police. Raise as much of a ruckus as you can; all you need is a few people to officially take you seriously.
If you don't have enough evidence for Congress, go to the media (or maybe try that first if you're super-paranoid). Meet with a right-wing talk show host and convince them to tell the story on the air. Have them introduce you to a congressman, then see above. Entertainers, commentators, and legislators thrive on publicity. Offer it to them. Try everyone from John Boehner to Bernie Sanders, Rush Limbaugh to Oprah. *Somebody's* going to be pissed off by whatever you saw. Once the story breaks, you're probably safe, since the conspirators will be too busy covering their own asses to worry about you.
If you can't convince anyone, you're not really a threat, are you? Hammer the point home by making a psychiatrist appointment to discuss your "hallucinations". But don't really take your meds or you might forget to keep your tinfoil hat on. :-p
Visit the
The submitter assumed that the surveillance would be done by government/police. But that's not the only reason to have such a plan. You could be someone doing normal work, and suddenly find yourself in the receiving end of a jihad plot for a variety of reasons - from membership in any organization that they've suddenly turned on, to innocuous activities of your own.
Take the case of Molly Norris. A few years ago, she started an 'Everybody draw Mohammed Day' contest on Facebook, and after receiving actual death threats, she assumed a new identity, and disappeared. I know that the average poster here may not do anything even close, but that assumes that most people in Western societies know what offends Muslims and would set them off. Point is that anybody could be in trouble with Muslims at any time, and for a variety of reasons, some of them really inane. So it's a good idea to have such a plan at least to defend from them: it's not always going to be agents breaking into Elian Gonzales' home to return him to Cuba, or the face-off at Ruby Ridge.
Or rather read his autobiography 'Ghost in the Wires' to get a first hand account of how he managed to successfully change his identity and evade the authorities.
http://dilemma.gulecha.org - My philospohical short film.
Or Hogs! Convoy! Let's go!
Original Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwaygKjs2fI
Movie on YoutTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5XGvNpWXqA&feature=related
Fan Animation and Movie Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Bl3UYZTZ0&feature=fvsr
Go Convoy!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
* Ditch the wireless electronics, trade for cash or a small video camera if possible
* Lose the tail using several methods (it's very easy to do)
* Talk to a mall cop, security guard or a cop on the street and if necessary ask them to help you out. Even briefly passing by can severely unnerve a follower but on the other hand, the lower levels of law enforcement is usually not involved and they love to have some excitement. You can sometimes verify (if they are being held back by the cop) whether they are lower-level government agents (FBI, Marshals) or not or quietly disappear while they're being held up.
* Get in touch with your/a lawyer, most likely you did something wrong, you can't even walk across the street without breaking some laws.
* Publish the stuff on your camera online in a high-visibility place from a public system. Libraries work great, you can even set up connections between multiple machines/levels/buildings in order to subvert any tracking.
* Always keep your back to a wall, always have an eye on the exits and entrances to places you are
* Fuck the bombshells you will randomly encounter on these adventures.
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I'd shave off my beard. As much cash as possible from the bank, eat well, then die happy. There is nowhere to run, the Govt does not respect boundaries if they want you band enough.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
is post a detailed description of my elaborate escape plan to slashdot. Some of you guys are pretty sharp and could probably point out a few minor problems and make some suggestions.
Are we talking like "Rodney King" strange or "Roswell" strange?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Well played illuminati, but you won't get my plan that easily.
Hi, the submitter here.
Of course, I was expecting some "I would ask Slashdot" (Funny:5) and "I would not tell Slashdot" (Insightful: 5) answers but I think that a good procedure could be exposed to the public much like a public encryption key and still preserve the effectiveness.
It's quite interesting to read the 440+ comments and see there's a pattern (or antipattern). I gave 5-6 pieces of contextual data but there are two of them that are being neglected in some way. I said "you are able to speak one language apart from good English" but nobody took advantage of that, interesting. I also said "in a G8 country of your choosing" but I might well have just asked for US citizens (there are some honorable exceptions, true). The "computer savvy" clue was either ignored or überused.
The family ties are the most disturbing (or lets say annoying) to me. Just picture your husband/wife not knowing why you're missing, defaulting to Defcon 1 and going to the police. You want to avoid that at all costs but "they" might be monitoring her. That's why I think this Ask Slashdot should introduce a procedure in your lifes (as we do have at home and, btw, my wife was the one to suggest me to Ask Slashdot) so you have a code, something that sends either one of these two messages to your AAA relative: "I'm OK, just wait and I'll contact you again though it might take time" or "I'm not OK, open the red envelope and follow instructions". Note that those messages can be delivered without saying that as long as you have prearranged them.
The other thing is the money. I think, because this is RealWorld(tm) and not MatrixWorld(tm), you could try and get some cash from your bank but only in T.LT.2h. It's dangerous but not because of the "there's being a problem with your order, Sir, please wait here a couple of minutes" death sentence but for having entered a difficult to escape place (so you should devise a plan to get safely out of the bank).
I loved when in a previous Ask Slashdot about migrating to a country someone said Australia could be a good place to be in in the event of a IIIWW, this is geek-style thinking.
I too remember a guy I was interviewing for a job post in my company that had a plan in case of a zombi apocalypse. It was very detailed (not just the Cardio rule) and I nearly got him on board just for that but, alas, his FOSS knowledge was below par. Well, the main difference between a zombi apocalypse and my setting is that in the latter the world keeps going on as usual and you can't trust other "fellow" humans, but the point is that you can still prepare you way out just in case.
The core of the problem is that you didn't plan this in advance because, not surprisingly, you weren't expecting it but you're forced to devise a semiprofessional plan in hours time.
I'll post my own answer in a few hours time so you can be sure I'm not cheating here.
Or, you could let the law determine the truth by following the due legal process.
0. Remove battery and SIM card from cellphone.
1. Get bicycle out of garage.
1.1 Install touring panniers.
1.2 Install long-distance water kit.
1.3 Add "season appropriate" wear from gear shelf.
2. Grab "ditch kit" - Cash (Assume $3000 in cash),Credit Cards, ATM cards, passport, identification.
2.1 Remove batteries from all electronics.
2.2 Store all documents, currency and electronics in RF shielded bag.
3. Raid fridge/cupboards. Load panniers.
4. Get on the road. 20 miles in any direction to a suitable intersection. Turn on cellphone, call work, let them know you are heading 50 miles to north.
5. Turn off cellphone.
6. Head south.
7. Locate a pickup truck at a grocery store.
8. Turn on cellphone, do not make a call. Put cellphone in truck bed.
9. Continue traveling.
10. Congratulations, you are off the grid.
Hire several private detectives, send them all chasing the people who you think are chasing you, and their general 'interest' in the government plus the way they are omnipresent will most certainly put you, as a chasee, in a better position
1 Do not contact anybody you knew in your previous life.
2 Change your appereance. (clothes, hair, glasses, beard, whatever)
3 Get cash
4 Get away from all of your previous places you have every stayed for a while.
5 Work for cash or items or services you require (place to sleep, food, cleanup, new appearance)
6 Go To 4
I am a dual citizen but thanks to a name change in one country and bureaucracy in the other I have 2 passports with different names. I took advantage of the situation once when I had to make a trip outside a 3rd country where I was a resident alien awaiting some paperwork without which I couldn't re-enter the country. I travelled on my alternate passport and had no problems.
I have a pretty good idea of what I would do to go dark. There are a few people that I trust, and even fewer with some useful information sources. I can speak three languages fluently and have a working knowledge of three more, most of them from exposure at an early age. I am just paranoid enough that I have a good chunk of funds outside of anything directly traceable to me: at least enough to disappear for a good length of time, or even get a "new life" setup elsewhere. I have had a bag packed with "essentials" including my current preferred portable technology packed when I go to bed. It has some cash, a "clean" credit card from a foreign bank from the other country of which I am a citizen, more cash, passports and some personal items. Absolutely worst case scenario I could get somewhere safe enough to figure out the next step to take and remain safe while doing so. Depending who is after you there will always be areas of relative safety where outsiders stick out while you have enough cultural affinity to blend in.
Realistically this isn't going to happen. Part of controlling paranoia is accepting that most of it is simply unrealistic but that doesn't mean preparations are stupid. What would you do if there was a blackout and you couldn't get cash from an ATM for a couple of days or even a week? Do you have enough food to at least eat something cold? Have you got an emergency stove? How about some cash squirreled away? There is no need to be as paranoid as I am or even more so, but there are good reasons to at least contemplate some dislocation in your life.
That's easy -- only criminals need to run and hide, duh. If the government is after you, you're a crook and should be thrown in the clink.
If I witness a crime thingy committed by the government, which they did in some privacy, I would first collect some information /or skip that task) and tell it out loud to a journalist (public TV) and wait for the evening news. This will (in a paranoid scenario) move the hunt from me to the journalist and at the very time the information is in the office of the TV station the government is no longer able to get it removed. They could hack into it and disrupt the services, but that will come out (obviously public TV will go offline) and the aftermath would be disastrous. At least that would be the case in Germany, where I tend to live. On the other hand in Germany, the secret services are mostly harmless, and normally get caught by police or the press. So that would leave the police to do something nasty, which they do occasionally, which comes out every time (maybe with some delay) and has no real consequences. But if the government messes up, then that is in the news by the evening and afterwards the same people are elected. So why hunt anyone?
In the US. I would go to my embassy and let them do the talking.
They can follow me around as much as they like, I'll just stick close to my motorbike with its nifty sidecar. So far, they're staying out of my way. In fact, they're pretty eager on removing obsticles for me. Sort of like my personal army of servants. Very nice. - Raven
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I'm not Bourne, and savvy or not disappearing isn't going to happen for "normal" people if forces of that magnitude is out to get you. Sure, I could take the long shot, just pack my family up and go on "vacation" abroad, but odds are that would just flag me and I wouldn't get out of the country. So, never mind that. Do the right thing. Surrender.
Now, the problem with that is that I don't trust the government as far as I can throw them. And that's not very far, in case you wondered. So how do I make sure I get treated fairly? I don't. Quite the opposite. I just make sure it's as public as possible. I write down a full account of exactly what I witnessed, and what has happened since, everything I know objectively, everything I observed subjectively, and all my fears and worries. I use tor to post this in a couple of places on the hidden web, I e-mail it to as many journalists as I can dig up in half an hour on google, I e-mail it to blogs, to the EFF, to Amnesty, to the UN, to the Government, to FBI, to the library of congress, to various agencies and so on. The latter ones because here in Sweden a lot of those places have very strict rules to register every incoming communication with a number and all, some places even make those records public, which means it would be all the much harder to censor.
If any reporters indicate any interest I will spend my time with them after that, lounging around the newspaper offices or whatnot. The "bad guys" are welcome to come and arrest me there, or take me away from there for questioning. It would take a lot of work to silence an entire cadre of reporters efficiently without a leak, so I'd feel reasonably certain that the news of my removal would leak out. With that even if nobody believed my original assertions, suddenly they'd become the front page news all over the world.
So basically by following those actions I'd make the only good choice for the government to withdraw silently. If there is no further indications of wrong-doing, I'd just come off as a regular nutcase, a conspiracy theorist, and nobody would listen to a word I said. If they come after me, it becomes a big deal and everyone will know I hit a nerve with what I said, which will bring unwanted attention.
Of course nobody expects them to be rational, but it's still the best bet I've got. It'll at least give me a chance to get released once the media frenzy hits the magic level.
But I'll probably still get "caught". Then I guess I'll get waterboarded. Fun fun fun, in the sun sun sun.
Nuff said
anything i would post on a public site that's easily traceable and archived for god knows how long
Seriously, the most helpful thing to do is... NOTHING. If they're following you then it's to confirm their own suspicions, so if you flip out you'll be arrested ASAP. If you start cashing out your bank account then you are confirming their suspicions.
As long as they aren't approaching you then don't play the games. Play it safe and keep an eye out for situations which may call attention or suspicion.
If you're to be arrested they won't follow you - they'll just arrest you on the spot unless you've become part of a long-term investigation. If you're part of a long term investigation then you can get a lawyer and offer full cooperation. It may be that a family member of coworker is under investigation and you can set the record straight for yourself.
Otherwise if everything goes smoothly then wait a week and write it down on paper and have it notarized with a lawyer present some time later. Or record a video and mail it to your parents/siblings. That way if you're pulled into a court case at a later date you are prepared and already have a lawyer.
In short, Don't play games and don't go hollywood, unless you are reasonably suspicious that your life is threatened. In that case, get to safety and call a government agency that you can reasonably trust.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
While a ITIN (which is NOT an SSN) can be used in place of one in some situations (such as opening a bank account) they are not interchangeable; the IRS, ICE, and SSA know when you've fed them an ITIN instead of a real SSN. (A credit bureau might be fooled, I suppose...) Any eVerify (which is more and more nowadays, unless you want to work in construction or a meatpacking plant) employer won't hire you. And you'll have to do a bit of forgery work just to convince the IRS to issue the number.
There are very few people born in the last 20 years or so either in the US or to an American citizen abroad that don't have an SSN. An application to get one is provided to US parents at birth, and most parents promptly fill it out (or file the appropriate "foreign birth" paperwork) because you cannot be claimed as a dependent without a genuine SSN.
If, for bizarre reason, an American citizen is alive today, has not just been born, and does not have an SSN, the SSA will issue one, but only after a very rigorous process of verifying your identity, confirming that person has not already been issued an SSN, and the SSA obtaining certified birth records and citizenship records direct from the issuing authority. (So any forgery you present in person is worthless.) It makes getting a passport look easy.
not posting my plans on Slashdot.
BTW: fuck you NSA
I can read Swedish and since the police documents has leaked (of course) and is available on the Internet I have read them. Strange read. What the girls say, what Assange says and what other witnesses say, doesn't really match, but the truth is subjective I guess. Anyway, it seems that Assange has a problem with condoms.
One girl says that they had sex in the evening with condom; he did not want to use it, but she insisted. Then in the morning he initiated sex. She asked "Are you wearing something?" and he answered "You". Since he already was in her and she didn't want to nag more about using condom, they had been arguing about it all night, she let it happen. Then there is a lot about how she asked him if he had tested himself for HIV (he answered yes), what if she gets pregnant etc etc. She bought "the day after" pills, so she didn't get pregnant.
Then the punchline: Later, when she spoke to some friends about what had happened, she realized that she had been raped.
The other girl that he lived with in her flat while in Stockholm actually claims that he damaged the condom, on purpose, and ejaculated inside her.
And what if the legal process is corrupt(ed)? Or used nefariously? Will you personally promise to punish the people who did this if Assange ends up in US custody? Are you willing to die to prevent a miscarriage of justice if this happens? Do you even have a list of names of the people involved? Their connections? And why they are involved?
You tell Assange that he should stand up and be held accountable, but who is making sure the people charging him are held accountable? Try looking up some of their names, their affiliations, their connections and see if that level of "justice" should be expended on one person? And I mean any one person, even a mass-murderer... the cost per day is almost unimaginable, all for questioning about a possible rape charge that has already once been dropped?
Legal process may not exist anymore, there are so many laws that trump it now in most first world countries, that I am sad when I see a comment like yours and know you mean well :(
I would drive back to my hometown immediately. While there I would try to get access to as much cash as possible. The rest I would move to bitcoins and place the wallet on a flash drive in my pocket. As soon as dark came on the second day, I would leave and move through town in the dark. Where I come from there are deserted dead end neighborhoods connected to long dark abandoned railway tunnels. Using a variety of pathways through this abandoned streets / tunnel system I am confident I could lose pursuit and gain access to the rail network. I would then stowaway on trains heading west until I reached california. After that I would hobo it north to the "Gold Coast" and get employment at a marijuana factory, or hide out with a bunch of hippies in the woods protecting the redwoods, hoping to not get arrested. I would be in california. My last transaction would be on the east coast. I am assuming they would believe I was in my hometown somewhere using "home territory advantage".
Two words: Bradley Manning
Walk into the nearest hospital emergency room and tell the nice lady at the front desk what you've just told us.
Or, you could let the law determine the truth by following the due legal process.
Which starts.... with charges. Which, haven't appeared yet. He HAS NOT BEEN CHARGED. That means the old "don't talk to the pigs" rights are in play. (And it's never a good idea, make your lawyer do it.)
Due legal process is not defined by "let foreign governments create a smear campaign to catch someone long enough to disappear them" you anti-constitution faggot.
http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/11/ff_vanish2
Writer tries to vanish, gets the Internet to try to find him. Mind you, he tries to leave red herrings and has to objectives other than merely disappearing, so he takes a lot of risks - but it's an interesting read just the same.
Call Sal
I'd take the blue pill.
If I had a good plan, I would definitely NOT share it but massive amounts of people!
How to leave my current life to start a new life with a woman I love quite a bit more than my wife. I can't even see what I saw in my wife. Obviously, I never would have got married if I knew that wasn't "as good as it gets." I think there is some true, soul-mate love shit with this other woman. We haven't even kissed or slept together, but I just want AWAY from my damn family. I don't care if it doesn't work out between her and I. I JUST WANT TO FUCKING DISAPPEAR
Ask in /. for a plan to disappear
Dump my phone pronto, since I can be tracked from that.
Get a taxi. I'm in Brussels at the moment, and I'd have the driver take me to the three largest train stations in sequence (trying to lose the tails that might be following me). At the last station (Midi) I buy several train tickets, one way, all departing in the next 60 minutes. Copenhagan, Paris, Antwerp, Amsterdam, London, Koln. Buy a burner phone.
Go to get on any one of them. Get off with seconds to go before the doors close. Take the London one.
Send message to a friend, not a relative. Don't identify myself in the text directly. The wording would have to be carefully chosen.
Once in London, head to the Ecudorian embassy, I guess.
Sweden has been proven to have delivered "terrorism suspects" to the CIA, who has then subsequently sent them abroad for torture (see Wikileaks documents themselves or any of the countless news stories about it). I'm not sure the same can be said of the UK. So, regardless of which is easier to obtain extradition from, Sweden has a proven and globally known track record on human rights violations that can be used as an excuse to grant asylum, whereas the UK does not.
1. You need liquid money. Go to the bank and get some cash. $20 bills are preferable as they are most common. An ATM would be simple, but they usually only allow you to take out $500 per day for security reasons. So, you may want to go to the counter.
You have more assets than just what's in the bank. Jewelry, TV, Computer, etc. Pawn it. Yes, they will likely want ID, but you haven't lost your tail yet.
2. Lose your tail. Buy some airline tickets on a credit card. Drive to the airport and park in long term parking. Walk into the airport and through a crowd. However, you probably don't want to go through security. Leave the airport. I used to say, get on a train and catch as many transfers as possible. Most cities don't check your ticket at each station or when you leave the system, so you become very difficult to locate. However, cities such as Washington D.C. aren't like that, be careful. Also note that light rail surveillance systems have become much more complex in the last decade and they may have facial recognition that will ruin this plan.
I personally like the Borne Identity approach of finding a shitty old car, and giving the owner a wad of cash for it. Yeah, the car may break down, but no one knows it's yours, and it most likely won't be reported stolen. It'll be very hard to track.
3. Keep on the move, and keep a low profile. Try to travel in a direction other than the one you bought airline tickets for. You've bought yourself some time to come up with a plan from here. Weather permits, you can sleep in the car/camp. Truck stops have showers, etc. to keep you civilized. If it's cold, you may need to hide out in homeless shelters. Traveling on foot in the wilderness has advantages and disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage is you won't cover enough ground. It'll give the people after you a very small area to search. If you decide to ditch the car and travel on foot, be sure to hide the car well. Once your car is found abandoned, they will figure you are near by.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Wow. Am I that old? "Three Days of the Condor". CIA analyst played by Robert Redford is on the run. Max Von Sydow plays an amoral "troubleshooter" chasing the Redford character.
Chris Carters sites this movie as one of the primary inspirations for the X-Files.
It's aged well, check it out.
Surrender, convert, subvert.
I the case of someone fishing for ideas for a novel, I happen to be a writer myself. I am a great writer, everything I publish is a masterpiece, an instant classic. So am going to give you a couple of pointers, you know, from one writer to another. Lets start off with your current situation, you have a family, well say a pretty extensive and hearty life. You have taken witness to a horrible act, telling by the tails on you who look like they should be stealth but seem blatant enough as though they want you to see them disturbs you even further. This is probably part of something far sinister than some thug and goon thing. Now you want to vaporize yourself, but this is not physically possible, unless, maybe these guys catch you. Okay. Let us begin with your social life. Your Facebook, Email, Twitter, bla-bla-blah accounts Cellphone(contract) Credit Cards Even your work life and job. If you truly feel that you or your family is in danger, and that you want to disappear, consider these things gone. G-O-N-E Kapoof! (More on this in a second) Now, your family, do you think that they just want you? Or do you think that they will use them as some sort of bargaining chip? It is much harder, if not impossible, some someone to disappear their whole family than just themselves. Your kids, are they teenagers? They like Facebook too? This won't end well. First. Obtain as much cash as you can. Liquidate but not conspicuously. Get hold of a private investigator who is willing to help. Will cost you so be prepared. See what he can do for you. In the mean time You are probably going to have to "slip into the night" according to EVERYONE. That means your wife, your kids, your co workers, your entourage etc. Take all of your social network and sort of brick them, in case you get the temptation somewhere down the line. You will want to randomly generate a 75+ character string (special characters included) and a different one for each of your social accounts. Login into and change your passwords for each account, randomly generate a string for each one. Do Not make a record or copy these strings and save them, just go on to the next one. I have to do something so I will just leave some pointers for you to use: 1) Cash is King (or prepaid CC) Leave ALL of your current banking life behind. Kapoof! remember? 2) If cash is King, then Misinformation is Queen: Lookup and apply for information on renting places or moving to somewhere you are NOT going. Apply for apartments in these places. Go to the library and get books on places you are NOT going. etc. etc. 3) Disposable communications are your pawns: Disposable phones, email addresses, dead drops. Mailboxes Etc. These are your new friends. Get to know them in-and-out. Set up a complicated forwarding system within the mailbox stores so you can safely receive parcels etc. 4) Shell Companies are some of your other pawns. If and when you establish a new ID for yourself, you will want to incorporate. Buy things of significance through these companies blah blah blah. I have to get going, but when you have established yourself and you feel it is safe, never really can be. If you are willing to take the risk. Get hold of your private investigator just to check up on your family from time to time. Hope this helps. Not too integral of a piece but I am on limited time.
Pretty straightforward, only talk to people on the phone/post online when drunk.
99.9% percent of the world drops my packets :P
Alternatively, become the bass player for a band. Seems to have a similar effect.
Hour zero pull 100% of your money out. Get family, camping gear, fresh water, fishing gear, walky talkies and books on surviving in the environment's you're heading into. Needless to say, no credit or debit cards. Ditch cell phones. Keep a laptop but never connect that one to internet again.
Get to the nearest extremely large lake, rent/lease the boat with cash. Fancy is bad. Stay on the water or in the wilderness. Slowly get to know the authorities around the lake. Tell them your story. Wait.
Every rule has more than one consequence.
What I would do is sum up your situation in an "ask slashdot" question and submit it the the internet hordes. Within 24 hours you should have a bunch of good ideas and a TON of snide-but-hilarious comments. Then, pick the best option and implement it.
Assuming I only witness an incident and have done nothing wrong in the sense of the law. And provided that I live in a country that still respect the rule of law, I know that excluding the US but am Canadian anyway. I would contact my lawyers and bring down the wrath of god on whatever agency feel they can investigate or harass me. My statement would likely be charge me with something or back the fuck away! In a more polite form but you get the gist. You have no idea how fast the threats of lawsuits get some peoples to leave you alone. After further consulting with my lawyers we will provide a carefully written statement on the incident to show that we are more than willing to offer any lawful cooperation but that any further communication would be through my lawyer. You do all that and they might hate your guts but they usually leave you alone. Off course expect your tax return to be audited for the next five years and don't ever drive even slightly above the speed limit.
The beard thing is pretty good advice. I've noticed that going from beard to no beard (or the other way) makes me look very different. As in clerks at stores I frequent don't recognize me any more (where they did before). It won't fool people who know you well, but it will make you not match an old photograph at all. It also seems to screw with age estimates. Shaving a beard can make you look over a decade younger.
Including posting it on a public forum
Even as AC.
* pull a disappearing act. This would probably involve my house and/or vehicle blowing up. This may or may not coincidentially coincide with me cooking dinner on the gas stove or filling up fuel. The 'escape' part is the secret spy stuff we won't talk about, because that's secret and the hardest part. The secret part is that it's really not that difficult - they just have to be thrown off your trail long enough to think you're still close enough to find or catch. Being presumed dead works well for having them stay still and look for your remains.
* hit up as many banks and ATMs as possible for cash while they're still looking for you. Ideally, have an accomplice do it for you, contacted in a clandestine fashion.
* place as many covert monitoring devices on or near the people monitoring me as possible.
* disappear. Possibly somewhere in the woods, possibly to a cafe in Europe - who knows? That's the point. If I tell anyone, I'm not below the radar. Ideally, give every indication that I have no intention of returning.
* Wait until they're least expecting it (hopefully you made a thorough disappearing act), and kill them all like in the opening scenes of Commando.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Firstly, the "contextual details" blew reality in the equation right out the window. Second, doesn't happen. If you witnessed something you shouldn't and the government knows, you got less than 24 hours to escape those you witnessed, especially if they know you saw them. Finally, if the guvment is after you and you have done nothing wrong but witness a crime, wait for them to come or turn yourself in. The Hollywood bullschtein will only get you into real trouble or get you killed. Leave the spy stuff to the professionals. You see, they shake their heads and get flustered when they see what they do dumbed down just like we computer types cringe at movies like Swordfish and Jurassic Park. Some of what they do is depicted but how it really gets done ain't even close.
Seriously. Slashdot is once again scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Leave one of your real credit cards out at a "rest stop" in the US, or along a major travel route in any other country - where someone may steel it. Or give it to someone and ask them to make some purchases at their destination - on you. This might throw the pursuer off briefly as they see "you" using your card. Also, turn on your cell phone and tape it securely to the underside of a vehicle stopped along a major highway. You'll need to stop using your identifiable credit card and cell phone anyway. Do these in sequence, so they don't see you going 2 directions at once.
Is "don't publish the plan on the Internet". Good luck!
The first rule of the "'I've Got To Disappear' Plan" is you do not talk about the "'I've Got To Disappear' Plan"
The second rule of the "'I've Got To Disappear' Plan" is you do not talk about the "'I've Got To Disappear' Plan"
The third rule of the "'I've Got To Disappear' Plan" is if someone says "stop" or goes limp, taps out, the "'I've Got To Disappear' Plan" is over.
The fourth rule of the "'I've Got To Disappear' Plan" is only two guys to a "'I've Got To Disappear' Plan"
The fifth rule of the "'I've Got To Disappear' Plan" is only one "'I've Got To Disappear' Plan" at a time
The sixth rule of the "'I've Got To Disappear' Plan" is no shirt, no shoes
The seventh rule of the "'I've Got To Disappear' Plan" is "'I've Got To Disappear' Plans" will go on as long as they have to
The eighth rule of the "'I've Got To Disappear' Plan" is if this is your first "'I've Got To Disappear' Plan" you HAVE to disappear
The party's over
Let's be just slightly realistic about this, and make the people who are following you credible : they're criminals engaged in something major.
If your family are very, very lucky, your mobile phone is at home and you are dead. Under torture (footnote), you have told Them (whoever they are) your family's contact details and confirmed the details repeatedly in an unsuccessful attempt to get the pain to stop. If your family are very, very lucky, your absence of phone (or more credibly, having your phone with a battery that went flat several hours before the event of interest ; they re-charge it and check, because they're not idiots) may convince your captors that you haven't told anyone what you saw. You earnestly try to convince them that you really did not have another phone which you disposed of shortly before your capture, because if they think that, then your family and friends are also dead. This becomes your only goal in what remains of your agonising life. But, frankly, you're unlikely to be able to think that far ahead.
Then you disappear. Into a bridge foundation ; into a pig's stomach ; into a furnace ; whatever. You are no longer even meat. If you're lucky you're killed before you're incinerated/ buried/ eaten.
Your grieving family / friends eventually settle the probate (it's 7 years in this country), but may well be bankrupted in the process. But they'll be alive. If your ghost (ghosts don't exist) contacts them and persuades them to act on what you saw, then the criminals will kill them. Tragic car crash. Wiring fault burns the house down. Gunman at Batman movie. Whatever. Dead meat.
Oh, sorry, did you want a warm fuzzy feeling?
(footnote : torture for answers, not for cinematic effect : gag the victim and restrain. Cut them up - carefully - burn and electrocute at will ; on one side. The meat is a talking corpse, so the meat is not going to bear witness against you. Then remove the gag and ask questions. Re-gag. Repeat the torture, on the OTHER, previously undamaged side of the body. Repeat the questions. Compare the sets of answers. Repeat until meat dies or questions are consistently given the same answers. Not Hollywood torture with feather dusters and no cutting-off of faces and sex organs.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
That 5-figure cash amount is good for a year of living outdoors if you're careful.
Once I was out of immediate danger, I would post all relevant details on 4chan and let the epic trolls begin.
Governments outlive people, so there's no way you could take enough cash or resources with you if you don't already have a safe house setup somewhere. So go offensive and immediately get to your attorney who should be well versed in federal criminal law as well as civil law and have some understanding of international law with regard to protecting you from getting extradited. Have your attorney appeal to your state's/province's attorney general office for protection because you witnessed a possible criminal act and you now fear for your safety. (That you are fearing for your safety from the federal government is irrelevant as far as the A.G. should be concerned).
You will also want to simultaneously arrange for a "leak" to your local newspaper and TV station as well as sending anonymous "leaks" to national newspapers, cable news networks, and the AP in case the A.G's office just turns you over to the feds. Ensure that your attorney has several of his partners or even another law firm in on what's going on, so you have defense in-depth in case someone gets cold feet (genuine or is paid-off to), so there will be someone to file the appropriate papers with the courts. Also let you family and friends know so that if the feds are intent on making your "disappear" it won't happen without considerable notice.
And above all, don't be naive: if the feds want you, they are going to get you. Don't waste time, money, or effort preventing it, just presume it will happen and deal with it from that point on.
There is an interesting story on Wired about something similar.
Finding Evan Ratliff and the game RepoMan:
http://www.wired.com/vanish/
you need to ask?
They wouldn't straight away shoot/kill you. They'd want to know whether you have passed on the information to someone else.
They might also be interested in knowing the circumstances in which you witnessed it, so as to know whether (a) there was a leak from their group, (b) someone else witnessed it too.
I'd buy a case of 8.6 beer and beg for spare change in front of my local superette. Those guys never get a second look.
Singe capitulard mangeur de fromage
Lucky for me I invented a cloak of invisibility that I have right here ... er ... wait ... I left it over there I think ... er ... has anyone seen my cloak of invisibility?
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
Firstly, despite all outwards appearances, I am not crazy... I live in South Africa (a politically charged nation at the best of times) and live in a small mining town (Population 60 000, predominantly coal mining). The nature of my job not only means that I am often placed in threatening situations (Senior Labour Consultant, former head of IT for a national company), but also that I have started keeping a ready bag at my house (A backpack which contains basic toiletries, first aid kit, survival kit and a weeks change of clothes for cold weather and warm weather and about R 2000.00 cash which is aprox $ 260.00). I will admit that the survival kit sounds overkill, but I have paramilitary training which becomes even harder to explain, and have always believed in the old adage that over-preparedness is better than failure. The ready kit is stocked and maintained because I often have to leave town to attend to strikes or other labour matters across the country within minutes. 1. Since I have taken an hour to realize that I am being followed, it is obvious that I have given them sufficient time to tap my iPhone and my internet connection. Lets assume that I am at home at the time of this realization, so I simply run inside, grab my ready bag, my laptop bag and head to the car. 2. I stop at the ATM and draw what cash I can, then I give my cellphone and my atm card to the nearest bum, tell him to do the same every day until my limit is exhausted and provide him with my PIN. (Misdirection is the key). 3. Drive to a mates house who lives just outside of town and has very lax security, change cars (Leaving mine with the keys will ensure that he is not worried). 4. Drive out to one of the local mines I know where the security doesn't check when a valid access card is used at the gate and get inside the premises that way. 5. Park my mates car there and grab one of the LDV's that are always reverse parked with their keys in the ignition (Mine Safety Policy) and head out of the mine again. 6. Go to the airfield where my mates keep their planes (Mostly Cessnas, FAMB is a very quiet airfield) and park my stolen LDV inside one of the hangers, grab one of the ATV's that are kept there and head accross runway 14 into the game farm next door. 7. Disappear into the 'kloof' for about 3 months, camping, roughing it and living off the land while writing up everything that I know and saw. 8. Anonymously mail my report to all media sources, attorneys and other public figures that I know (I do know quite a few due to the nature of my work). 9. Wait for the public outcry and then surface as a revolutionary. 10. Take over the country and retire. The scary thing is, the above plan will work, even scarier, that is only my third backup contingency in such a situation...
Your own errors/misdoings did you in vs. APK -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3058625&cid=41093025
Duh, this is slashdot...
Also ignite the thermite sprinkled all over my electronics...
Then using my pre-arranged zombie apocolypse kit, move in with some deranged survivalists in the wilderness.
After that there isn't much left to do by wait, I would recommend lots of booze and recreational drugs.
The OP has the wrong idea. If you didn't do anything wrong, why are you taking it upon yourself to disappear? Instead of that, I would immediately notify as many people in as large a geographic area as possible about the situation. Disseminating this information will make it difficult for the government to vanish you because many people will ask questions.
OTOH, if you fear for your safety or that of your family, after doing what I recommended above, then you may indeed need to disappear because most countries frown on the practice of citizens using lethal force against police/government officials to protect themselves, even when they are justified in doing so.
So posing the question to a bunch of nerds on the internet wouldn't make sense.
Actually, if you were a paranoiac, this would be one way to get other people to confirm your ideas without having to share your own secret plans with anyone else. If you see your ideas on the page, you could say "oh, good, someone else thinks this is a good idea too!" Or you could be trying to make yourself feel superior because nobody else proved themselves as clever as you at planning their big escape.
Or you could be slightly less paranoid, and looking for confirmation that spending of thousands of dollars on survivalist gear wasn't a complete waste. Perhaps this is something to show the Significant Other to say "see, these are normal people who aren't on survivalists'R'us.com and they are also buying two shotguns and 24 boxes of ammo, so I'm not just being crazy." That could backfire, of course, unless there actually are enough crazy survivalists on Slashdot to back him up. (In that case you need more sock puppets and ACs, my mythical protagonist.)
I have a friend who I don't think is actually crazy, but he has three bug-out packs in his house, ready to go. One is easily carry-able and has the essential small and very light weapons, ammo, money and gold, ID cards, water filter, and assorted camp trinkets. The next pack bulks up the weapons with shotgun, rifle, lots of ammo, and more gear. The last pack includes shelter and food kinds of things. So depending on the circumstances of the exit he is making, he grabs the right gear for the job.
So far, he's gone camping. Which is good, because he likes camping.
John
Was it just a coincidence that the chapta code I had to type in when submitting the entry I'm now replying to was "chastity" ? :)