How hard is it to vanish in the digital age?

December 15th, 2009

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If you could disappear and reinvent yourself completely, would you? Before you answer that, let me tell you about Evan. Evan Ratliff is a freelance journalist and feature writer for Wired magazine. On August 14, 2009, Evan was officially on the Lam. No one knew Evan’s plans; not his girlfriend, family or friends. If he was discovered, it would be because of his own mistakes. You see, Evan wasn’t dropping off the radar to hide away in another country. His intentions were to drop his life and pick up a new one. If found, you were to say the password, “fluke,” and take a photo. Upon confirmation you would be awarded $5,000.

For one month Evan challenged himself to completely change his identity and remain hidden in a world where our digital fingerprints can outlive a cockroach. “You can be anybody you want online, sure, but can you reinvent yourself in real life?”

Evan went through extraordinary measures to ensure he wouldn’t be found. He created a new person, a new business, a new life. He cut his hair, dyed his goatee, wore colored-contacts beneath non-prescription glasses. He was a master of disguise, but it didn’t end there. He survived off of gift cards, IP masks and deception. While he had access to the internet, he couldn’t interact with his friends. His Facebook was padded with profiles of marketers and serial-adders. Everything about him was a lie.

When I first came across this story, I really thought nothing of it. I saw the Twitter links and checked out the challenge, but I suppose I didn’t quite understand why he was doing it or why I should get involved. Now that I’ve read the complete story, I wonder why I didn’t get involved. I don’t think I would have joined in on the search, but I probably would have followed it more closely.

Within a couple of days, Twitter exploded with mentions of Evan, even warranting his own hashtag, #vanish. What started as an exercise in escape turned into a massive multi-player online game. A gigantic community formed overnight, but why? Was it the money? Five thousand dollars is a hefty chunk of change, but is it worth staking out the Atlanta airport? Was it the thrill of the hunt? Or was it because Evan’s flight conjured up passing thoughts of starting over?

Lets face it, we’re never really disconnected anymore. Just because you leave the office doesn’t mean you left work. I know I am not the only one checking emails on my days off. We are constantly expected to be “on” because there is no reason we shouldn’t be. I would be lying if I said I don’t reminisce about the days before computers, iPhones and GPS. And quite honestly, I don’t remember much about those days anymore. I forgot what it’s like to be untraceable, disconnected and digitally-independent.

Imagine for a moment that you left home. No big deal right? Between texting, twitter and blogs, it’s almost impossible NOT to keep in touch these days. But now imagine that you had a plain pay-as-you-go phone with no tracking abilities. Your Twitter, Facebook and all other social networking accounts were wiped clean or just abandoned. Leaving a footprint was like stepping in lava. You had to constantly watch your tracks, making sure nobody was following. With no network to depend on, what would you do? Would you go through withdrawal and panic due to the disconnect? Or, perhaps, would you find comfort in the cut-off and disengage?

The challenge started off with excitement and a bit of cockiness, but by the end Evan was living in a paranoid reality. The problem wasn’t that he was doing everything alone, but rather the fact that the interactions he did have were superficial. They were fake. His vision of reinvention quickly dissolved into a lonely, wearisome reality. At one point he said he was afraid to step outside for the paper. I’m sure the fact that he was being hunted had something to do with that, but if you were to disappear, could you be so sure that no one would be looking for you?

Days before the end of the challenge Evan was found, proving that it takes more than just keeping your head down and being careful with phones and IP addresses. It was a bittersweet feeling, getting caught. At first he was mad, disappointed in Wired for throwing in the extra challenges, but that quickly turned into excitement when he realized his identity was back. There’s no place like home I guess.

With that being said, if you could disappear, I mean really fall off the grid and completely reinvent yourself, could you do it? More importantly, would you do it?

You can read Evan’s whole story here.

Tagged with: Digital Footprints, social media

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