A New How-To Guide for Going Off the Grid

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said that you should not go online if you have anything to hide. But considering that part of being human involves making mistakes, Schmidt’s comments come across as a sociopathic taut meant to lure folks online to establish that they in fact do not have a thing to hide so Google can capture their data. Of course, given the near-daily headlines about media and social sites engaging in unethical data mining, data leaks and privacy violations, it is little wonder that many tech savvy people would consider “going off the grid.” Now there’s a book to help folks do precisely that.

“How To Disappear: Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trails, And Vanish Without A Trace,” by Frank M. Ahearn, shows you how to perfect the act of disappearing. For instance, Ahearn advises that you delete all social-media accounts and never making calls from home, work or a cell phone that can be traced to you.

Of course, Ahearn’s advice is impractical for most people. Many businesses and individuals, lured into the digital age by crafty marketing that bandied how efficiently you could get along in life if you did everything online or on your cell phone, refuse to use traditional modes of communication, namely using snail mail or speaking in person. Moreover, exclusively using an “unmarked” cell phone becomes impractical given the spotty and unreliable service offered by most carriers as well as the fact that most providers require that you give your name and address before they with activate the phone. To be sure, one could pay in cash and give a bogus name and address to get the phone up and running, but then you gotta ask yourself, how long to do you want to keep that act up?

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