Comment by runjake | Hacker News Reader

Comment by runjake | Hacker News Reader

With all due respect to the former CIA officers, there's a bunch of poor and outdated advice in this article.

The one I'll point out is using a dead person's birth certificate to get ID and an SSN. The databases for the death index were cleaned up after 9/11 and if you try this, your attempt will be flagged and you'll likely be visited by law enforcement pretty shortly. You will not get an ID nor an SSN.

The best way to hide is to not leave any (legitimate) money/electronic trails. Practice disinformation. For example, use a credit card to buy a plane ticket to Bangkok on Saturday, then go buy a bus ticket to Mongolia with cash for Friday and similar tactics. It won't stop professionals from eventually finding you, but it will buy you (sometimes significant) time.

All this is pointless because almost certainly the US IC knows exactly where Snowden is already. It's laughable that anyone believes they're still searching for Snowden.

I believe by "state" they meant "nation," not "administrative region in the United States."

Do you work in intelligence?

Since they refer to SSN they most certainly mean a U.S. state.

I have SSN in my country (not USA). It seems generic advice, worded in a USA undertandable way.

Your comment amuses. On the one hand, its possible that the CIA folks in the article are offering bad advice, either knowingly or unknowingly. For example, I imagine that the CIA has a guy in the basement making fake ids, rather than having field agents make their own. On the other hand, I doubt you know more about it than they do. Of course, you'd never show off your collection of fake ids to win a internet argument...

> I imagine that the CIA has a guy in the basement making fake ids

As a government agency, don't they already have legitimate access to the real ID printing machines?

The guy in the basement is making fake non-US IDs.

Why in the basement? Is it illegal?

Sorry, I'm flabbergasted at the legal/illegal discussion over massive spying on non-US citizens.

I assume they will know if you don't use a plane ticket that they know you bought, but the idea is that by the time they could know that you are already in a different place?

That is pretty clever. I wonder if tickets with less verification could be even more effective (for example, two bus tickets; one with cash and one with credit for a day later.) Might buy you more time, but the lower ticket price might also make it less convincing.

Maybe an ATM withdrawal near the bus depot?

Giving a hobo your old credit card instead of burning it?

Leave your credit card on the back seat of a bus. Put your fully charged cell phone in the trunk of a taxi.

Maybe tell everyone you're in Hong Kong when you're in fact somewhere else?

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