Cutting Edge Computing

How Easy Is It to Disappear? October 20, 2021

After weeks of searching for Brian Laundrie, it seems that the authorities may have found his body in a nature reserve in Florida.  While I am not following this story, the headline made me ask how easy (difficult) it might be to disappear in the modern world.  In one of my novels, the protagonist, Jack Pryor, successfully covers his tracks for almost a week before the bad guys find him.  After all, many of us have given idle thoughts to dropping off of the grid, at least for a little while.

So I did some research into this for my story.  Jack’s apartment was blown up, and he was intentionally disavowed by the government, and forced to live by his wits.  He’s a computer guy, so he needed to track down the bad guys online, which made it more difficult. 

He was helped by a healthy paranoia, a lot of smarts, adequate cash, and a friend who provided him with someone else’s passport, driver’s license, and credit card.  He got on the Internet by breaking into an absent friend’s house, and by recognizing that while his apartment was destroyed, the wireless router still worked.  He could protect his online presence using different access points and VPNs for a while, but a concerted effort would find him within a couple of days.

Without the false ID, it would be impossible to rent a car or travel by commercial airliner today.  You can no longer use cash for those sorts of transactions.  He rented an AirBNB for a week, and stayed there two nights, until the check cleared the bank.  He also used the false passport and credit card to travel to Europe to track down his adversaries, and reserved three hotels in the same city, moving rapidly between them.

So in the modern world, this is pretty much impossible without an alter ego, and the documentation to back it up.  Like Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, you might find a budget hotel and cut a cash deal with the desk clerk for one night, but that’s about it.  Reacher has an ATM card for cash withdrawals; he used to carry an expired passport for ID, but that doesn’t work any more.  He stays undiscovered mostly by staying constantly on the move, often hitchhiking, even in this day and age.

If you’re an outdoorsman, you might be able to live off the land, using a tent and paying cash for your food.  There are tales of people doing that in the mountains for a year or more.  But the minute you use an ATM or credit card, you are found.  And don’t even think about a phone, cell or landline.

And because the world seems to want to go to cashless systems, you will be found even more quickly in all likelihood.  I personally like to use cash for most transactions, because I am cognizant that my credit card purchase will go into a database, where I will get spammed by various offers.  But that only delays the inevitable.

If you want to live your life in civilization, you cannot do so anonymously.  Most people don’t care, and are happy to provide far more personal information than they receive in convenience.  I try to weigh most decisions, not because I want to step off of the grid, but because I think it’s a daily tradeoff.