Ask Slashdot: What Would Your 'I've Got To Disappear' Plan Look Like? 789
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."
One thing for sure (Score:5, Funny)
I wouldn't go out and get laid.
You're a slashdotter all right. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:You're a slashdotter all right. (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome to every watch list, ever.
Re:You're a slashdotter all right. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Get the hell off the internet
2. Lose the mobile phone, iPad, and anything else with wireless capability
3. Become invisible, wear solid black (or white) clothing, no logos, brands or anything else immediately identifiable.
4. (If time permits) Wear sunglasses or some other type of glasses that distort how people see you, eg if the popular trend is cokebottle lenses, get those.
5. (If time permits) Get a wig of a different hair color and lenght. This is much harder for men, but you can just get something tha
Re:One thing for sure (Score:5, Insightful)
IOW, try to stand out in the crowd?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:One thing for sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Assange reference I assume (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:One thing for sure (Score:5, Funny)
Rule #2: Don't post your escape plan on /.
Wouldn't YOU like to know? (Score:5, Funny)
Nice try.
Re:Wouldn't YOU like to know? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wouldn't YOU like to know? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think my plan is safe enough to say aloud... French Foreign Legion.
Re:Wouldn't YOU like to know? (Score:5, Funny)
Spanish Inquisition because *nobody* expects the Spanish Inquisition. . . .
Re:Wouldn't YOU like to know? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
On a similar note, from reading the submitter's question:
Re:Wouldn't YOU like to know? (Score:5, Funny)
"Contextual data: you are able to speak one language apart from good English.
I speak good English and US English. Is that OK?
I would ask slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
see title
Ask Kevin Mitnick instead (Score:3)
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.
Re:Would you trust the answers you got from Slashd (Score:5, Insightful)
Here. (Score:5, Funny)
1) Hide in the Ecuadorean embassy.
2) Hire a lawyer.
Doesn't always work... (Score:5, Funny)
I only let in celebrities - or at least internet celebrities.
Re:Doesn't always work... (Score:5, Funny)
Man, you've been waiting how many years to use that line?
The first rule... (Score:5, Insightful)
The first rule of secret escape plans is that you keep them secret.
Re:The first rule... (Score:5, Funny)
The first rule of secret escape plans is that you keep them secret.
Hang on... Okay, got it. Second rule?
WWAD (Score:4, Funny)
What Would Assange Do?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So it's OK to potentially infect someone with an STD or get them pregnant as long as you are spreading juicy emails from the state department?
Not using a condom is a pretty big deal when the woman has asked you not to. You have no idea why she asked.
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps it is. However, as long as consent was given the entire time
But that might not be the case, though. One of the charges is that he penetrated a sleeping woman without prior consent to do that.
That's rape in almost any jurisdiction.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WWAD (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a formal and serious allegation which he is avoiding answering to by hiding. If he's innocent, why is he hiding? Read up on the extradition laws and you'll find it's *harder* to be extradited from Sweden than the UK, and that if he gets extradited to Sweden then *both* Sweden and the UK have to consent to extradition to the US on charges that haven't even been brought yet.
Two women have made serious allegations, he should face them using legal due process.
Re:WWAD (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Here is what I don't understand: if the U.S. wanted them to, the U.K. could have detained and extradited him at least as easily as Sweden could. So why the fear that Sweden would extradite but not the U.K.?
If there is no reason to believe that Sweden is more likely to extradite to the U.S. than the U.K. (my intuition is that, in fact, the opposite is the case) then I'm skeptical about Assange's real reasons for fighting extradition to Sweden.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WWAD (Score:4, Insightful)
Like it or not there were senior people in the government of the most powerful nation in the world publicly calling for him to be hunted down.
Yes we're used to automatically assuming that anyone who says the CIA is after them is crazy. 99.99% of the time this is the correct response.
when the homeless man on the street corner says the CIA have him bugged he's almost certainly wrong. When someone who's deeply pissed off the CIA and the american government like Assange did says the same they're probably correct.
Sure he might actually be guilty of rape. it might all be true. that's a possibility.
But do you really think the CIA or similar isn't out to get him?
It ceases to be a conspiracy theory when it's just plain sensible and likely.
Re:WWAD (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a formal and serious allegation which he is avoiding answering to by hiding.
Yes, he's avoiding answering them by asking Swedish prosecutors if it was ok to leave the country before he did, and then inviting them to interview him either remotely, or in person in the Ecuadorian embassy. All opportunities were declined. It's obvious that it's not his testimony they want, it's his physical presence. He even volunteered to go to Sweden, as long as guarantees were offered that he would not be extradited to the US. They guarantees were never given.
Read up on the extradition laws and you'll find it's *harder* to be extradited from Sweden than the UK, and that if he gets extradited to Sweden then *both* Sweden and the UK have to consent to extradition to the US on charges that haven't even been brought yet.
Just like it's illegal for the US to hold you without trial. Doesn't particularly seem to have stopped them. The underlying assumption to your statement is that the people/countries involved care about the law, or think it applies to them. From previous experience, they know they can pretty much do whatever they want, and they're not going to be called on it by anyone that matters.
Re:WWAD (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think you've answered the real question. If his real fear is extradition to the U.S., why is the risk higher in Sweden than in the U.K., where he has voluntarily remained for quite some time? I (and apparently others) would have expected the opposite. But if that's the case, Assange needs a new explanation for fighting extradition to Sweden, doesn't he?
Meanwhile, Sweden has always had a policy of not interviewing suspects outside the country. It is apparently controversial among Swedish legal experts whether doing otherwise would be legal under Swedish law.
If both these things are true (and I think they are) then while Assange seems to have no good reason to fear extradition to Sweden, Sweden seems to have a perfectly good reason FOR seeking it. No?
Re: (Score:3)
why is the risk higher in Sweden than in the U.K., where he has voluntarily remained for quite some time?
Simply because that makes the story work. Deus ex machina internet rules lawyering.
Re:WWAD (Score:4, Insightful)
If the US really weren't out to get him, why were it's elected officials suggesting he be executed and charged with treason? Why won't they give a diplomatic guarantee that they will not extradite him?
The entire "America can do no wrong" propaganda is a bunch of patriotic BS, propounded by a country with an extensive history of human rights violations.
Re:WWAD - Assange isn't hiding, ass hat (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Or, you could let the law determine the truth by following the due legal process.
Re: (Score:3)
If he's innocent, why is he hiding?
Nothing to hide, nothing to fear!
Re:WWAD (Score:5, Interesting)
The US extradition treaty with Sweden has some very curious provisions. See this commentary by a lawyer [internatio...onblog.com]. Section VI b of the supplement to extradition treaty [wordpress.com], in force since 1984, states that:
So, in force of this particular clause, once in Sweden Assange may well be quickly aquitted of the trumped-up rape charges, then sent to the Guantanamo concentration camp, and the US government may keep him there indefinitely "pending prosecution" along with hundreds of illegally detained political and war prisoners. Note that section VI b makes no mention whatsoever of the conditions in which Assange would be detained, nor does it specify any time limit for the prosecution. Even if Sweden requested the US to return Assange, the US would likely just ignore the request once they have Assange in their hands, citing national security concerns.
Re: (Score:3)
Agreeing to wear a condom as a condition of sex, then having sex without a condom, is a violation of the terms of consent that led to the sex. That is, sex without consent. That is, rape. A serious sex crime. In any sane country. Period.
News flash: Todd Akin didn't make rape denial okay.
Re: (Score:3)
If they had a verbal agreement to use a condom beforehand but in the heat of the moment didn't then does that mean he raped her? If she went along with it then accusing him of rape seems extremely sexist to me. No.. it just is sexist
Re:WWAD (Score:5, Insightful)
If Assange's defenders could rise to the moral level of accepting what rape is and accepting that the allegations are rape, we could rise to the moral level of Assange himself and accept the seriousness of the charges. Then we can discard the potential for extradition by demanding he stand trial or face charges for his alleged crimes, with a guarantee that he won't be extradited for unrelated reasons. If you read the other responses, you'll see that the left has not risen to this moral point, and instead has become rape defenders.
I am a WikiLeaks supporter. I even think Assange has been a positive force in terms of journalism. That doesn't mean he isn't a rapist.
Pretending that violating sexual consent is anything other than rape only undermines WikiLeaks and Julian Assange's journalistic work. And it ensures that he can be extradited for unrelated reasons by muddying the waters.
Re: (Score:3)
Having sex is not a legal contract.
Yes, actually it is. Any matter that concerns consent is a legal contract. It's a verbal contract, which isn't the same as a written one, but it's a contract nonetheless. In sex, consent is a contract. You can withdraw consent (and rescind the contract) at any time. So can your partner(s). It is every involved party's responsibility to achieve and maintain consent; failure to do so is rape, because sex has happened without consent. That is a fact. It's not a matter of opinion.
According to your twisted logic, terms of consent could have been that he was required to cuddle, or mow her lawn, or walk her dog, or some shit like that. Failure, after the fact is determined to retroactively take away consent?
Have you had even a little bit
Re:WWAD (Score:4, Interesting)
How exactly interrogating one of the parties is redundant? Ecuador offered the Swedish officials an opportunity to do just that and enter their embassy to question Assange. They refused. If their objective was to find the truth to access if they should press charges they would have accepted, that obviously wan't the case here. They are not even remotely interested in the truth.
Oh, and yes, suspects can often choose the place and circumstances of their interviews if they are not charged with anything, which is the case here. They can even refuse to say anything in most countries.
You can side with anyone you like that doesn't mean you are right, and yes, a crime whose maximum sentence is two years, which is seldom if ever applied by judges, and is almost always commuted to a year of communitary services, is a minor offence,
Simple enough (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
When I was young and ridiculous, I had a jump bag, a passport and credit card to get out of the country and up into a remote area if anyth
Re:Simple enough (Score:5, Funny)
Which of my identities are you suggesting should go camping?
Can the othes carry on as usual?
Really... disinformation is the name of the game. I'd rather stay where I am and let the guys following me go camping.
(of course, this could be disinformation itself....)
Re: (Score:3)
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.
If you've an avid sailor, and I've been sailing since I was a teen, a cruising sailboat is way better. Helps if you're near a coast or at least a great lake. I believe you're pretty much screwed as a sailor if you're in Utah, then again you don't have to be fleeing the MIB to be screwed if you're stuck in Utah.
Re:Simple enough (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Simple enough (Score:5, Informative)
Literature recommendation: Ghost in the Wires. Kevin Mitnick describes some his thoughts behind his fake identities. He even provides a reference to the book that told him most of the tricks he mentions (and probably many more he didn't dare to write down).
Re:Simple enough (Score:4, Insightful)
Won't work (Score:4, Insightful)
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.)
Not such a good idea now (Score:3)
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
Hide? Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Hide? Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your lawyer would then suffer a nasty accident, your press contact would be murdered, and the police would discover evidence implicating you in the crime. Also, psychiatric records demonstrating your delusional personality would turn up. Jeez, don't you get cable?
Re: (Score:3)
Bradley Manning committed a crime. I thought the original post said that in this case, the theoretical person had not. I sympathise with Bradley, and I think his treatment at the hands of the US is despicable, but it's hard to argue he wasn't committing a crime and equally, didn't know it.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm afraid I'm not cynical enough. Hard to believe in purely humanitarian motivation. Asylums these days are granted only if there is a benefit to the receiving country. Equador already had its fifteen minutes of infamy and it is working on more, now that the UK successfully put itself into a corner. Rafael Correa is a close friend of Hugo Chavez, and both are known for using the weapon of speech as a lethal weapon :-) Anyway, political leanings of those guys are best left to their voters - but as things a
Regret... (Score:4, Funny)
...that I posted my plan to /.
First, hire a good lawyer (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re: (Score:3)
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.
This is the plot hole in every one of these "hunted by the corrupt government" stories.
If you aren't the "only one that knows", you are much safer. If millions of people know or suspect, rational bad guys won't compound the original crime by killing you...they would instead spend all their time coming up with ways to show that although what you saw really happened, it wasn't them that did it. You still might get killed just for spite, but at least there's a chance that somebody would answer for the crimes
Re: (Score:3)
Just don't be surprised when social accounts are created under your name and identity and then are quickly used to threaten harm to various people (which is a crime.) Good luck proving that it was not you who posted a certain message. There was a news story a week ago about an ex-Marine taken and placed into a psychiatric hospital for something he (supposedly) wrote on Facebook.
If the government is after you (for whatever reason) the only sane and effective thing you can do is to leave the country as soo
Dear Slashdot, (Score:5, Funny)
Please write my book for me.
Disappear? (Score:5, Funny)
Any G-8 country, you say? I pick Russia.
First step: Start preaching revolution.
Second step: Unneeded. I've already disappeared.
Go for the simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Go for the simple solution (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Go for the simple solution (Score:4, Funny)
That's why you should try to babble. If you look crazy enough, they won't have much of a reason to either arrest you or make you disappear. Just another conspiracy nut on the internet. If they do something to you, it would just give your words some weight.
I'll Become...Presidential Green Party Candidate. (Score:5, Funny)
"99% of your money is in a bank account." (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Remove myself as single point of failure (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
Re:Remove myself as single point of failure (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
How's that working out for Julian Assange? Once you spread the information, their priority changes from containment to revenge.
Re: (Score:3)
What makes you think the way Assange is being treated is motivated by revenge? Even if you believe there is a conspiracy against him, the most likely explanation would be to stop him from continuing his work.
Re:Remove myself as single point of failure (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Either way, I'm no longer a threat to them.
Godfather types work on a different worldview with different logic - the risk of you opening your mouth makes you a threat, actually opening it makes you the enemy. Either way, you're screwed.
How to Steal an Identity (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Re: (Score:3)
Hour 2, trade half of your 1% of your money not in a bank account for a bum's SIN and dirty ratty clothes.
While most of what you say is good, I'm going to suggest NOT taking the dirty ratty clothes. They are really bad. Get some clothes at Goodwill, that's where homeless people get them.
Simple? (Score:3)
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.
Re:Simple? (Score:5, Funny)
- Bus into town, taxi to real bus station, bus anywhere.
I would imagine they would expect you to take public transportation.
Moreover, if I have to travel by bus, just shoot me here.
Step 1 (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Step 1 (Score:3)
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.
Not Bourne but Grisham (Score:3)
How "disappear" do you want? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Ahem (Score:4, Funny)
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"
Moon Prism Power, Make Up (Score:4, Funny)
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.
FBI Phishing Expedition? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
gordian not (Score:4, Funny)
A handful of barbiturates and a quart of vodka.
Nice try (Score:4, Funny)
Nice try buddy, but we aren't going to help you find John Connor!
How to vanish 101 - The "hard" parts. (Score:5, Insightful)
* 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
Re:I know where there is a cave near my house (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I know where there is a cave near my house (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
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...
Re:it would look like a frosty piss (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:sell everything (Score:4, Funny)
In today's housing market, you could finish your prison sentence before the house sells.
Re: (Score:3)
My stepfather was a cop. When you actually know what you're talking about (instead of just casting aspersions) you'd know that transferring a prisoner that a cop doesn't actively want to transfer can easily get tied up in all manner of red tape. For example, if they charge you with jaywalking they can deny extradition until you've had your trial and served your sentence. Even if a competing jurisdiction has charged you with treason. When transfers aren't tied up in red tape, it still takes far more than mak
Re: (Score:3)
On the other hand, if you are accepted in the Legion, you will have a fun time in places like Afghanistan, Djibouti or the Ivory Coast, to name a few. If you goal was to escape being shot at, you may want to reconsider.