How Wired's Evan Ratliff (the Vanish contest) Was Caught | Hacker News Reader

How Wired's Evan Ratliff (the Vanish contest) Was Caught

wired.com

29 pointsjknupp11 comments

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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_...

What real life lesson were you hoping to "infer" from the contest? "If I ever need to disappear completely, I hope this article tells me how to do so?"

I found the fact that he was actually found within 30 days, using interesting applications of technology, to be rather entertaining. Not everything on HN has to change your life.

Deleted comment

Hm, I forgot they were running the contest, because all their article says is "Look at the other blog, they've got all the information." It looked like link spam.

Wow, this is really stupid.

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