Change your Identity

Wired.com has an article that teaches you How to Disappear. If you’re like me and get about 150 junk mails over a long weekend, you may want to read this article on how to opt-out for good. The article gives a “three-tiered guide to pick a level of solitude”.

At the intro level, they suggest to just write to large name-database clearinghouses and demand to be expunged, anonymize your web access by surfing by proxy or using an anonymous remailer (which aren’t illegal in the U.S. yet).

The next level recommends getting issued a new Social Security number through some wile or another; “[c]ontend that your credit has been irrevocably damaged by a number-related snafu, or that you live in fear of a stalker who knows your digits.” Once you have a new SSN, never use it anywhere. In addition, you probably shouldn’t be using a cell-phone because of the “911-friendly tracking technology”, which is now required by law, and that “[m]arketers are cooking up ways to capitalize, like zapping burger coupons to your Nokia as you stroll by a fast-food joint.” The last suggestion at the middle level hits the pocketbook, as they suggest you stop using “buyers’ club cards”, as all of your purchase information is cataloged and will happily be sold to any bidder or used in a potential sub-poena.

The deepest level of privacy-seeking involves moving, paying cash for everything, limiting your expenditures so as not to attract attention, and to wear disguises to subvert the increasing usage of facial-recognition scanners and closed-circuit television that “will soon be ubiquitous in public spaces”.

Some of it sounds easier than the rest, but staying private and unique will get harder and harder as time passes. A homogenized, completely-known society is the easiest to control and market to.