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How to Be Invisible, Third Edition

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How to Be Invisible, Third Edition A NOTE TO READERS This book is sold with the understanding that it is not meant to offer or replace legal or investment advice. Laws vary—what is legal in one state may be illegal in another. Laws and procedures also change frequently and are subject to different interpretations. Moreover, the general situation described in this book may not apply to your particular circumstances. Thus, no action recommended in this book should be taken without first obtaining the advice and counsel of a trained legal professional. This book is dedicated to an anonymous member of Spain’s Secret Police. On January 27, 1960, during a brief encounter on a quiet back street in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, I asked him for advice on how best to avoid any problems in the land of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. The advice he gave me has served me well for more than fifty years. He said there was only one way to avoid troubles with the authorities: “Make yourself invisible.” And so I did. CONTENTS Title Page A Note to Readers Dedication Preface: What’s Changed, and What Stays the Same 1 How This Book Can Make You Invisible 2 Separate Your Name from Your Home Address 3 When Is a “Lie” Not a Lie? 4 Mailboxes, Public and Private 5 How to Obtain Your Own “Ghost” Address 6 Repairmen, Home Deliveries, FedEx, UPS 7 Untraceable Trash, Anonymous Utilities 8 Your Social Security Number and Date of Birth 9 Your Alternate Names and Signatures 10 Landline Telephones and Answering Machines 11 Smartphones, Dumbphones, Pagers 12 E-mail and the Internet 13 How to Locate a Trustworthy Nominee 14 Bank Accounts and Money Transfers 15 New Mexico Limited Liability Companies 16 Hidden Ownership of Vehicles and Real Estate 17 Laptop Computers 18 The Dangers of Facebook Are Real 19 The Art of Pretexting, aka Social Engineering 20 Secret Spaces, Hidden Places 21 How to Secretly Run a Home-Based Business 22 The Dangers of Facial Recognition 23 Ten Additional Privacy Tips 24 How to Disappear and Never Be Found 25 Cool Stuff That Did Not Fit in Earlier 26 Considering a Move to Another Country? 27 International Privacy 101 28 A Sad Story, a Secret, and a Few Predictions Appendix Index About the Author Copyright PREFACE What’s Changed, and What Stays the Same In 1997, the basic information you are about to read in chapters 1 through 12 sold for $297. It was called The Privacy Report and was sold by mail. When the orders came in—over 300 the first year—I printed the report myself, punched the pages, and inserted them into a three-ring binder. Although I included a two-year money-back guarantee, only 2 percent of the readers asked for a refund—the other 98 percent apparently considered the $297 to be a fair price. In 1998, I decided to abandon all the mail-order work so my agent sold the report to St. Martin’s Press. When it was published in 2000 as How to Be Invisible, I was profiled in Playboy, quoted in The Wall Street Journal, and featured on The G. Gordon Liddy Show. The book climbed to number 37 on Amazon.com and stayed high on the list, year after year, as the best-selling book on privacy. A revised edition was published in 2004 but now, eight years later, the time has come for a completely updated international-oriented version that includes information on smartphones, facial recognition, and social networks. 1 HOW THIS BOOK CAN MAKE YOU INVISIBLE One day you can be on the top of the world; the next day you can be in hell. One of Wiley Miller’s Non Sequitur cartoon strips is titled “LEGAL MUGGING.” It shows a businessman on the sidewalk of a dark street with his hands in the air. A sign on a post reads: CAUTION: WATCH FOR TRIAL ATTORNEYS. Stepping from a narrow alley is a lawyer wearing a stocking cap, dark glasses, and holding out a legal document. “This is a frivolous lawsuit,” says the attorney to his victim. “You can either spend years and thousands of dollars defending yourself, or we can settle out of court right now.” Although this was in a comic strip, what it portrays is not comical—especially when you are served without a hint of advance warning. More than 1 million lawsuits are filed each year in this country. How many of those do you think are frivolous, but are nevertheless settled out of court? More than one reader has answered a knock on the door and went into shock at being greeted by reporters, photographers, and trucks with big satellite dishes outside of his or her home! From this day forward, when you read your newspaper or watch the news on TV, start searching for cases where an unknown person is suddenly thrust into the national spotlight, then ask yourself: COULD THIS POSSIBLY HAPPEN TO ME? The following are just a few of the many things that could bring the media, or worse, to your home: • A bomb goes off, you were in the area, and the FBI thinks you fit the profile. • An identity sketch of the person who robbed the convenience store at 11:45 p.m. last night is flashed on TV, and it looks just like you. And you don’t have a plausible excuse for that time that anyone’s going to believe. • You were innocently involved with the wrong people and the 60 Minutes crew is within minutes of tracking you down. • Someone faked your e-mail address when searching for sex with twelve-year-olds, and the police are at your door. An article in Newsweek, titled “Getting the Wrong Man,” gives a chilling example of something that occurs more often than you might think. Tom Kennedy found the body of his wife, Irene, who had been strangled and stabbed 29 times while on her daily stroll through a park in the Boston suburb of Walpole. Then, a few hours later, the police called at a nearby dilapidated bungalow where Eddie Burke, a 48-year-old handyman, lived with his mother … He was practically a textbook match for police profilers: a loner who knew the victim and was clearly eccentric. What on earth does “eccentric” mean? My best friends—with a smile—call me eccentric. Do I therefore fit a certain profile? Burke was visibly nervous and gave contradictory answers when questioned by investigators. Wouldn’t you be nervous, too? There was blood on his clothes and hands. And forensic dentists would soon match his teeth with bite marks left on Mrs. Kennedy’s breast. Burke was arrested for murder. Within twenty-four hours, the police learned that the DNA from the saliva on Mrs. Kennedy’s chest could not have come from Burke. Did they then release him? Incredulously, they ran more tests, which again exonerated him. In addition, blood found on Burke turned out to be feline; he had been tending to injured cats. A palm print left on Mrs. Kennedy’s thigh didn’t match Burke’s hand, while the bite-mark evidence proved inconclusive … Yet for six weeks, police kept insisting they had the right man in jail … While he was locked away, Burke’s life was put under a microscope. He was demonized in newspapers and on TV, each story accompanied by a menacing courtroom image of Burke. The sociopathic profiles were fueled by details of his home’s contents—X-rated videotapes, kitchen knives, the book Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them. “They didn’t mention the three Bibles in my room,” Burke says. “They could just as easily said I was a religious fanatic.” The police claim they followed a logical course and “had the backing of reputed scientific experts.” Let us assume that is correct. The point is that even though Burke was the wrong man, the contents of his house were published by the media. Suppose you are suddenly arrested, even though innocent of the accused crime, and the contents of your home or personal information are made public? Would anything on the following list—if found in your house—give you cause for concern? • Excess cash? • Guns and ammunition? • The contents of your smartphone? • All the e-mails you’ve ever sent or received? • Empty whiskey bottles or evidence of substance abuse? • Statements from your bank, your broker, your credit card company? • The contents on your computer’s hard drive, including so-called deleted files, along with a list of every search you’ve ever made on Google? If the police are after you, whether you are guilty or not, what is your first priority? Is it not time? You need time to think, time to get certain items out of the house, time to locate your attorney, or— heaven forbid—time to pick up some cash, arrange transportation, and flee. This book is designed to give you that time, and to help you keep your private information private. * * * Before we continue, let me say that if someone with unlimited funds is after you, you will eventually be found. If you doubt this, contact a competent private investigator and say, “I wish to disappear so completely that even you couldn’t find me. Can you help me?” The six-word answer will be, “No, because I can find anyone!” And I agree. Repeatedly, private investigators (PIs) make this point in their books, articles, and personal interviews. And if the police are truly after you, their record isn’t bad, either.
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