I wonder how long it will be before someone truly cannot be anonymous in this country (or the world). Whenever I come across a book/movie about someone traveling to the future and trying to blend in, my immediate thought is that they will instantly be flagged as suspicious by a hundred different automated systems (where is your advertising profile, credit history, location history, iris scan, microchip??)
There probably are already enough biometrics, digital records etc. today that can accomplish this given the right incentives for everyone involved.
I have several relatives who live off the grid in remote places. They're not survivalists or militia folk or anything like that. They just like to maximize their privacy.
The keys to survival appear to be: Generate your own power (so you aren't beholden to a utility company), have a well drilled for water, have a boss who will cash your paycheck for you on payday, and live near a town where paying by cash isn't considered strange.
They still pay taxes, though, so they can't be totally anonymous.
One goes a step farther. He builds his own motorcycles to get around. According to him, the law in his state says that if your conveyance is home-built to a certain percentage (51%, maybe?), then you don't have to register it with the state. I have no idea if that's true, but to my knowledge he hasn't had any trouble with it in the 20 years I've known him.
I've met similar folk through back roads travel. Something I can't ever put my finger on is the mild squalor (my opinion, not saying this is true for your relatives) people are willing to endure. Sure, they do it for "maximum privacy", but can't you achieve the same relative privacy in ways that might lead to a higher quality of life? Generating power, drilling wells, boss cashing checks, etc... I get the sense there might be some form of mental health e.g. paranoia, but that's just a guess. I'd be really interested to hear your take on it if you don't mind sharing.
For example, drilling wells is very common, even in densely populated places like New Jersey. When I lived there, having municipal water was very unusual in some surprisingly populated counties.
I think what you're seeing isn't so much squalor in terms of poverty or dirt. I think what you see is the result of people doing things on their own. No one can be an expert at everything. No one can do as good a job as a professional. But if your value some other thing a little higher than the fit and finish of a professional job, DIY is good enough.
I'm slightly less concerned about being anonymous from the government and far more concerned about being anonymous from businesses.
How is it that every time I move, they still figure out where I live and continue to send me junk mail? I'm extremely concerned about the ease of arbitrary businesses finding out where some person lives. I want this to be unethical to the point that whoever leaked my address without my consent to be arrested and fined.
Protip: Only do the temporary change. It still lasts like 6 months so it would cover practically everything. You could potentially miss something later but for me it’s a solid trade.
For the most part I figure if something is really important enough people will figure out a way to reach me. My e-mail address is pretty easy to find and any business I have subscribed to services from has that. I consider it the official way to contact me. I already deprecated snail mail and phone as official ways to reach me.
Yeah, I hate those assholes for that, that's why I don't tell the USPS anymore when I move.
Whenever I give my address to a business for shipping, DMV, voter registration, etc. I also tack on a code to my address so that if they leak it as-is, they'll have blood on their hands, and I can publicly shame them for it. But that hasn't yet seemed to successfully track down the source.
I generate a unique code for each entity that I am required to provide my address to.
I usually change "Apt" to "Unit" to stump the automatic address-correcting APIs that will convert "Apt 10-BCRK" to "Apt 10". I found that changing "Apt" to "Unit" usually stumps them.
The idea is that if I see another business use "BCRK" to send me junk mail, or list my address on those idiot people search sites, I will write a blog and publicly shame the first business for giving it out.
Package delivery drivers happily ignore the "BCRK" part and my packages still arrive as usual.
When giving out billing address for credit card authorization, I find usually I can skip the apartment number field and the card still authorizes just fine, so I also don't need to tell online retailers the same 4-letter code that my bank has listed for my address.
This is a great idea and I would like to use it. However, I have only the house number and street address. What can I do in that case?
PS: I generate separate emails already. Example: somebusiness@mydomain.com However, I have not found a single case where they leaked my email address, so I am not sure if it helps for spam and privacy.
I separate emails, a different address for each company/organisation I deal with. Since I started in 2002, I have found multiple instances of leaked or sold email addresses. My Dropbox one was leaked for sure, as that was quite public, and some of the others seem sold, as the companies seem a bit fly-by-night (of course that may also mean they're clueless about security). One reputable-seeming one I contacted about it claimed they hadn't had a data breach, which I think probably just means they weren't aware of it. I've also had an address scraped and then copied manually from a classified ad - they left out the first letter when they copied and pasted, but I still get it since I have a catch-all!
I do the separate-email thing too and my spambox is chock full of emails to leaked addresses. The leaks seem mostly from large, upstanding companies that have had data breaches (Adobe, Myspace, ...), rather than from deliberate email address sales. It's still very handy to be able to just disable an email address... can't do that if you've used the same registration email on 1000 sites.
I imagine you could just still just use "Unit XYZ" or whatever.
If it confuses your delivery folks and it's the same people every day, just explain it to them to ignore that, but most likely they'll just ignore the Unit stuff and leave the package at your door as usual.
I found this out when I moved recently and I find it incredibly stupid. I'm now simultaneously annoyed that my new address seems to still receive mail for the last 3 tenants, but I also didn't do a change of address so whoever ends up renting my old apartment is going to be annoyed with me.
The last house I lived in was torn down and rebuilt. The address changed from 311 to 313 in the process. I've always wondered if it was because they were tired of receiving my junkmail.
Last time I moved I gave USPS a change of address to a PO Box. Then, after updating all the important ones I forgot, I let it expire six months later. I'm still getting junk mail at my new address, but some of the more annoying ones have lost track of me.
You're getting downvoted and I'm not sure why, but I'd like a moment to share my story and why I believe in what you believe:
My mom called me the other week and told me that a recruiter was looking for me. She gave me their name and number, but I was stumped. How the hell did:
1. They know that was my mother
2. How did they know her number
3. How did they know she would be able to reach me?
I've subsequently determined that my ICE information was leaked somehow. This is the only piece of information, other than life insurance, where my mother and I would be positioned as related. I do not have a Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit. I have this profile, which is my average online profile, and I have a professional one. Neither has ties back to my family, much less phone numbers. We also live in totally different states and they were calling her about a job for me in my current state and city.
I would say it is already unethical to dox someone, just if you do it in the name of sales or "connecting people" Americans somehow sweep it under the rug.
This is just a matter of correcting societal expectations.
That's a distinct possibility, but the odds that you've sent mail to your mother's house is high.
Doesn't have to be in your name, either. Your billing address, her shipping address? That can be packaged and sold to a third party.
It doesn't take much information to infer relationships, and we constantly leak information which is aggregated and sold. Facebook and friends are playing on easy mode, the markets for this kind of data predate social media and the professionals are very, very good at it.
I agree. I leave latitude in my mind that my conclusions are wrong and that this happened in other ways. Either way, it's not good. I wish it hadn't happened and as much as I'd like to say it didn't bother me much here I am posting on HN about it.
Same thing happened to me, but it was not to sell me something. It was nefarious enough that I cannot talk about it, without creating even more damages.
Social engineering can still go all the way, where irremediable damage can be done. Then good luck to get justice!
The direct mail business has this “public records” part figured out pretty well and they gather the data from anywhere they can. Wouldn’t be surprised if utility bills factor in as well.
There are a lot of women in China who don't officially exist. They are significantly marginalized because they can't use government services or easily get an online identity.
There probably are already enough biometrics, digital records etc. today that can accomplish this given the right incentives for everyone involved.