

How Wired's Evan Ratliff (the Vanish contest) Was Caught - jknupp
http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/09/how-evan-ratliff-was-caught/

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socillion
That Twitter account 'documenting' his actions was actually mostly
misdirection, except for very early posts - Evan confirmed this. As for this
being like real life, he was specifically trying to have a semi-normal life
which included using social networks. Also, the reason we caught him - glossed
over in the articles - was that he 'added' a Facebook application following
the contest. After that, the Twitter was easy to find. The fact that he
visited the app each day meant it was possible to track him in real time, We
knew he was at the Denver airport while he was still there. Summary: he made a
mistake on Facebook, which made everything unravel for him although he didn't
know it at the time. Although the New Orleans people he followed on Twitter
suggested he would go there, what confirmed it was an IP from the area. I
agree though that the challenges he was given were the reason we caught him so
fast. Without it, though, we would have found him within the next month or so.
The only way he could have avoided getting caught was with extreme paranoia -
using a _totally_ different username for each site and similar.

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sireat
I am not sure what it speaks about "new" real life, that using social networks
is considered a necessity these days.

I check the few social networks that I am on about 4 times a year(and would
much rather not check them at all).

IMHO, totally different username for each site would be very normal for
someone trying to vanish.

Personally, I am curious how they discovered the IP addresses, if he was using
TOR.

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callmeed
How is he getting IPs just from knowing his FB and Tumblr accounts?

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alain94040
I read the original article. It does sound like an arbitrary contest. Not real
life. I can't really infer real lessons from what happened here.

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neilc
Yeah, completely unrealistic -- basically just a publicity stunt from Wired.
Someone who is really trying not to be found doesn't create a Twitter account
describing his actions, protected or not.

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jonknee
You'd be surprised. There was a story where I live about a guy who got busted
on a drug charge and fled. Changed his name, got a British passport,
successfully lived in the UK for six years. He was found by local authorities
on Facebook. He is now in jail for 25 years.

[http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2055728_us_drugs_fugitive_...](http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2055728_us_drugs_fugitive_who_hid_in_oxted_is_jailed)

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pavs
Wow, this is really stupid.

