

Gone Forever: What Does It Take to Really Disappear? - lucumo
http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/08/gone-forever-what-does-it-take-to-really-disappear/

======
grellas
When a scandal broke shortly after 1900 to the effect that John D. Rockefeller
had a notorious family secret in the form of a bigamist/swindler father still
living in the United States, Joseph Pulitzer offered an $8,000 reward to a
press corps that utterly hated Rockefeller as a monopolist to go and locate
the father. After a frenzied 18-month search, they failed to find him before
he died. A Wikipedia write-up on this appears at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Avery_Rockefeller>.

This is equivalent today of the press being unable to find Bill Gates's father
even after being offered a rather large monetary reward and after applying all
of its vast resources to the effort - even as the father continued to live in
the continental U.S.

It was a lot easier to "disappear" 100 years ago, before the advent of modern
technology, than it is today. There is something vaguely _creepy_ about how
one's whereabouts can so easily be tracked with the modern tools at hand.

------
jacquesm
Interesting article, but you have to consider that the people that you'll
_never_ hear from are the ones with the success stories. So they may be a lot
more prevalent than you'd think!

Also, I really wonder if 10 years in jail is the right way to punish somebody
that tries to reboot his life in the wrong way. His kid needs him more than he
needs 10 years worth of punishment. Garner the guys wages but set him free.

~~~
dkokelley
Yeah what exactly are the charges? I'll I noticed were insurance fraud, and
possibly identity theft (from someone who presumably wasn't at all hurt by
it), plus the theft from the company. Sometimes I wonder if the punishment is
a function of how hard the authorities worked to catch him and how angry they
were at his antics. If he were caught the next day (even after committing all
the same crimes) would he have still gotten 10 years, or a slap on the wrist?

~~~
jerf
"All" you noticed is $1.3 million in insurance fraud‽ Stealing $1.3 million
dollars all by itself is up there beyond "slap on the wrist" territory. I
mean, what are you proposing for stealing roughly 30 years' worth of the
median American's wages (before taxes)? Six months community service?

~~~
jacquesm
Well, that depends on how you look at it. There are more parties whose well
being here is at stake then just this guy, and besides that he is now a drain
on your society, whereas if you'd put him to work you could garner his wages.

Locking him up for 10 years is just going to ruin the life of one child and
cost a fortune in maintaining him.

Six months community service would be a net gain for the community, 10 years
of prison is a net loss.

The function of a jail is not to take revenge, it is to keep harmful people
out of society. This guy did a great job up to the point where he cracked. I'm
sure he could be made to do a great job again given half a chance, and keep
him under the breaking strain this time.

~~~
alex_c
>The function of a jail is not to take revenge, it is to keep harmful people
out of society

There have been countless words written on the subject, but one of the
functions IS deterrence.

Look at it this way: you can try to launch a startup and guide it to a
successful exit. If it succeeds, you get some nice cash in the bank. If you
fail, you spent a few years and have no material gain to show for it.

Or, you can try to get away with a large-scale fraud. If it succeeds, you get
some nice cash in the bank. If you fail, you spend 6 months doing community
service and have no material gain to show for it.

Yes, it's obviously oversimplifying (ethics, experience/learning from a failed
startup, what do you enjoy doing, etc.) But there has to be a significant cost
of failure to prevent people from deciding it's worth a try.

~~~
pyre
You're missing a few things. The punishment of 10 years in jail _didn't_ deter
him. Why? Because he was desperate and viewed this as his only way out of a
desperate situation. I'm sure there are many people that attempt the same
things that he did for same/similar reasons. This punishment isn't going to
deter someone that thinks: (1) They have the 'system' beat (2) This is their
only option.

------
_pi
How legal is it for Amazon or Airlines to give out this information?

How legal is it for schools/companies/etc to give out information about
contacts to the Police? Why is it illegal to give out the record but legal to
say that there was activity?

It seems that these tactics are quite shady in terms of legalities. Why should
I get a warrant for X if I can just ask his vendors?

Why would someone have to subpoena your bank records but have Amazon up for
grabs so to speak?

~~~
jacquesm
It did say the school was subpoenaed.

But only _after_ they alerted the authorities based on a previous request for
a heads up. I'm not even sure that would have held up in court here (nl). I'm
sure a competent lawywer would have used that if it was possible statesside
though, so what with him being convicted I take it that it is legal.

~~~
pyre
IIRC, there wasn't anything in there about him pleading guilty or not
guilty... maybe there was no lawyer/trial?

------
planck
What a coward - he racks up $40,000 in personal debt on his corporate account
and then puts his family through the agony of mourning his death? Such a
disgrace.

~~~
edw519
Not only that, he made his wife _witness_ his death. The low just got lower.

~~~
dc2k08
>Prosecutors accused her of being involved from the beginning, but Roberson
says he isn’t sure

I think I agree with the prosecutors. The set-up sounds like she was in on the
plan, taking a stroll with her husband (without the child) so as to be the eye
witness in the charade but I reckon they probably made a pact that if he was
found out, they would protest her innocence and say he did it behind her back
and swam below the frigid water until he reached another dock down stream out
of sight. That would be hard to do especially for someone who sounds like he
was fairly out of shape. I doubt he got his toes wet. I'd say the dog got a
dipping and they said their goodbyes.

~~~
pyre
Yea. I was thinking that too. Especially his comment about 'a larger body of
water.' I was thinking, "So you're a 300lbs out-of-shape guy in the middle of
a friggin' lake, and you're going to swim to shore entirely underwater so that
no one sees you? Gimme break!"

------
knightinblue
I'm surprised all of these ppl stayed in the US. I would imagine it's a lot
harder to track someone down if they disappeared to the other side of the
world.

~~~
lucumo
I suppose it's quite hard to cross a border without some kind of ID.

~~~
mbrubeck
It's also harder to blend in as a foreigner, and as an undocumented immigrant
you'd have extra problems if you get into any trouble with the foreign
authorities. In your home country you can blend in just by acting like
everyone else.

~~~
technomancy
> as an undocumented immigrant you'd have extra problems if you get into any
> trouble with the foreign authorities

Pick the right country and that's not a problem at all; a couple of strategic
bribes can get you out of trouble in most of the world.

~~~
electronslave
I'd be interested in seeing your proof for this claim. My experience has been
the opposite: a stateless individual must entirely vanish from the map.

------
tommusic
I enjoyed reading the article, and the resulting recognition that to "really
disappear" is diametrically opposed to what we'd normally seek around here:

    
    
      - Brand Ownership vs Brand Abandonment
      - Search Optimization vs Search Pessimization
      - Collect User Metrics vs Stay Out of Site Logs
      - Networking/Meetups vs Self-Imposed Exile
    

It was intriguing to look down that alley, but I wouldn't want to live there.

~~~
joe_the_user
Yes, this interesting look at how hard it is to hide in a networked world. The
rumor has it that at one time, the CIA manufactured new identities for their
agents. I wonder how possible that would today - and especially how possible
that might be tomorrow, when not only is everyone online but everyone has a
record from being online a long time.

~~~
derefr
Might be easier. The more we rely on social networking, the less identity you
have to manufacture by actually going out and planting evidence, and the more
you can manufacture just by procedural generation at the target site.

~~~
billswift
On the other hand, the more manufactured background you have, the more likely
something is to trip you up, either because you misremembered it when talking
to somebody or you ran into somebody who was involved in the real world
situation and knows you were not. The best way to get away with a fake past is
to be vague, but not so vague as to arouse people's curiosity or suspicions.

~~~
eru
Inconsistencies are not such a big problem. A lot of real people are
inconsistent.

------
movix
Mr. Canoe - disappeared <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7512487.stm>

Here's some disappearing tips:

Plan before you go

Do research from different internet cafes or libraries

Tell no-one your plans

Use pay-as-you-go phones

Apply for no memberships

Cash is king

If you believe you are compromised, you are

Nice of the BBC to help us out with this information

------
philfreo
Does this article really need to be over 6 different pages?

------
chrischen
Marcus Schrenker stole his idea from an episode of the simpsons!

Good to know the navy will get to you really fast if you're really in a pickle
though.

------
tedunangst
Has some basic info about Steven Rambam in it, who gave an awesome talk at
Last HOPE about tracking down a guy many times, many ways.

------
kingkongrevenge
It doesn't take much to disappear if you're willing to live like a pauper in
the cash only economy, and you don't defraud anyone in the process of
disappearing.

------
joe_the_user
One answer - "don't use the phone registered to you" after you "die"!

~~~
hughprime
If you keep reading past the first page, it turns out that he didn't: he
deliberately left it in a gas station in the hope that somebody else would
pick it up and start using it -- that way the police would wind up pursuing
that person and give up when that line of inquiry led to a dead end.

The first part of the plan worked, but the second part didn't -- they never
tracked down the guy who picked up the phone, but the fact that the phone was
being used was enough to convince the police that he was still alive.

I guess the real lesson here is that simplicity is the best policy. His plan
probably sounded brilliant in his head, but made too many assumptions about
the way other people would behave.

~~~
whughes
If he had just destroyed the phone (broken in the water?), then his death
would have been much more plausible. Why would he leave it somewhere if he had
drowned?

~~~
pyre
If you read that part of the article, it says that he abandoned it prior to
his faked death (a week prior he left it at a gas station or convenience
store, iirc).

(No one reading the article? what is this? slashdot?)

