Reading time: 6 – 10 minutes

A lot of people think email encryption is an awesome idea.  But very few of them ever do it.  Emails travel around the internet in plain text. Anybody routing the traffic can easily read the entire content of your emails like a letter carrier can read a post card.  When it is legal to secretly read your emails without a warrant and it is legal to detain you indefinitely without charges, more people than ever might be motivated to start encrypting some of their emails.

I’m sure part of the reason why many people don’t encrypt their emails is because they think it is too complicated, too time consuming, too cumbersome, or requires major computer skills.  A few might even think it is useless, since there are not a lot of people that currently encrypt their email.

If you know more about Gatekeepers and Keymasters than you do about public key and private key cryptography, you are in luck.  Not only is free email encryption very useful, but it is fairly simple, almost seamless, and you don’t need to befriend a bunch of encryption fanatics to use it effectively. Plus, you will not be summoning any giant marshmallow demons when you use it.  Follow these simple steps to set up free email encryption in 15 minutes.

Email Account

To get free email encryption you can use an existing email account, or you can set up a dedicated account to receive your encrypted communications.  A dedicated account is usually unnecessary because your email provider, and warrantless email snoops, will not be able to read any encrypted emails.

The email account that you use must have IMAP or POP forwarding capabilities.  Plenty of email providers, like Gmail or Fastmail, offer this feature in their free accounts.  Yahoo mail only offers forwarding on paid accounts. Before you start, check the settings of your own email to make sure you have IMAP or POP forwarding.  You will use this email address in the setup process.

1. Download Free GnuPG Encryption Software

Both the sender and receiver need to be using the same software in order to properly decrypt the message. GnuPG is one of the leading email encryption programs.  It is like the Microsoft Word of email encryption software, except that it is free.   It is very simple to install and should only take a minute.

Download GnuPG for PC

Download GnuPG for Mac

2. Download Thunderbird from Mozilla

Thunderbird is free email software that will allow you to manage your encrypted messages. It only takes a few moments to set up.  Follow the installation and setup instructions and use your email that has IMAP or POP forwarding in the setup process. This step is also very simple and should only take a minute.

Download Thunderbird for PC

Download Thunderbird for Mac

3. Install Enigmail Plugin

Save the Enigmail file to your computer.  Open Thunderbird and go to the Tools, Add-Ons menu to install Enigmail.

Download Enigmail Plugin for PC or Mac

4. Create Your Encryption Keys

Now that you have the software installed, you are almost ready to start encrypting your email. You will want to close Thunderbird and GnuPG before continuing.  Open Thunderbird up again and  go to the OpenPGP menu and select Key Management.  Then click on Generate and then New Key Pair.

Choose the email address you want to use  and come up with a passphrase to send and receive encrypted email using strong password techniques.  Click on Generate key and your keys will be generated shortly!

5.  Penultimate Free Email Encryption Setup Items

Thunderbird will ask you if you want a revocation certificate, which is a good idea to have in case of a disaster, so click yes on that option.

Check out your key id by going to Key Management under the OpenPGP menu item.  Search for your email address and write down or save the key ID.

6. Publish Your Public Key

You want everyone in the world to know your public key.  Without it, nobody can send you an encrypted email.  You can publish your public key in the public key directory by going to Key Management, highlighting your email, go to the Keyserver menu item and select Upload Public Keys.  You can also publish your public key on your website, email it to all of your friends, or put it anywhere else by going to edit, copy to clipboard and then pasting your public key where you like.

You are completely ready to use free encrypted email now.

Use Free Email Encryption

Now that you have  a new toy, you might want to test it out.    Check out these detailed instructions on how to send an encrypted email.  Compose a message and send it to “adele-en@gnupp.de” with your public key attached.  Send signed and encrypted messages and you will receive a response within a few minutes letting you know whether it worked or not.

Free Email Encryption Prevents Email Scams

Even if you are the only kid on your block with email encryption, it is still a very useful tool. Email scams are big business.  I am sure most of us have seen an email from someone impersonating one of your contacts.  When you sign an email, even if the email itself is not encrypted, the recipient knows you are sending it. The recipient doesn’t need to be using email encryption to prevent email impersonation scams.

Conclusion

Free email encryption is one of the best ways to get a lot more privacy for very little effort.  It will keep warrantless snoops from invading your private life. Massive surveillance of private messages will be much more difficult when private emails are encrypted. It is easier, less cumbersome, and less time consuming than most people probably realize. Check out more ways to protect your privacy in the book How To Vanish.

No related posts.

Reading time: 12 – 20 minutes

Cell phones are like drivers licenses. It’s really hard to function in the modern world without one, but they reveal a lot of information about you that you might not want to share. Fortunately, most people won’t try and verify the weight you put on your drivers license, and there are a lot of great ways to protect confidential information with cell phone security.

Cell Phone Security Is Broad

Unfortunately there are too many service providers, too many types of phones, too many different countries, a lack of fully developed solutions, and not much compatibility across them all to give you one simple solution to your mobile privacy needs. This is an overview of the information that you might want to keep private and a few general ways to do that, mostly for smartphones, but not-so-smart ones can be more secure as well. With this overview, it should be easier to discover and implement your optimum privacy configuration.

Laws are different everywhere. It may be illegal in some places to use some of these cell phone security tools or techniques. Do not use any techniques that will violate the law. That will negatively affect your privacy much more than if you had complied with the law and not used that tool.

Subscriber Information

When you buy a phone, your name is usually attached. You sign a contract or you make payments with a credit card, or do something else that ties all of the activity on that device to you.

Keeping subscription information private prevents corrupt governments from accessing that information with or without warrants, subpoenas or due process to silence dissidents, jail peaceful protesters, and hide abuse. It also prevents hackers and rogue employees from compromising networks and databases to steal the valuable data.

Prepaid Cell Phone – Prepaid cell phones can still be purchased for cash without a contract. Minutes can be reloaded with cash as well. You can use the prepaid cell for all of your communications, or just for the most sensitive communications. After a while, the prepaid phone will probably gather enough data to identify you. Replace your prepaid phone often.

Published Number

Most phone numbers can be found in online directories. Those directories are compiled by the vast amounts of data that thousands of companies gather from their customers. If you give a number to a company, or even give them a call, they probably record that number in their database. Your number then might be shared, sold and copied many times by hackers, corrupt governments, thieves and stalkers.

Your phone number can be a key piece of data to paint a data profile that identifies you and a lot more information about you. Hackers, thieves and overly curious stalkers could easily use your phone number to cause you harm.

Unlist Number – Ask your service provider to unlist your number. Contact the databases that collect this information, like Intelius and Acxiom, and follow their procedures for unlisting your number. Stop giving out your number or give out a fake number to people who don’t really need it.

Block Caller ID – Many carriers will allow you to block caller ID so that the people you are calling can’t get your phone number. In the US you can block caller ID before an individual call (for a price) using *67.

Call Forwarding – You can sign up for call forwarding that forwards calls from your public number to your private number, keeping your private number confidential. Google Voice is a helpful free call forwarding service.

SpoofCard – With Spoofcard it can appear that you are calling from any number you want, protecting your actual number.

Location

Your general location is constantly triangulated by your service provider’s cell towers. Your precise GPS coordinates and the WiFi networks you are close to can be monitored and recorded as well. When you use your device, the location is logged.

Corrupt governments can access this data with or without warrants and thieves can use it to target your house when you are on vacation. The cell phone can also be pinged at any time to determine its location, even if you aren’t using it.

Prevent Unwanted Tracking – You can turn your cell phone off to make sure that you aren’t connecting to any WiFi, your general location isn’t being triangulated, and your GPS coordinates are not being tracked to increase your cell phone security.

Malware can continue to broadcast location information, even when the phone is switched off, although it is not common. To prevent surreptitious tracking, remove the battery.

Data Stored On The Phone

Every phone has lots of information stored on it like contact lists, calendars, text messages, photos, call logs, browsing history and much more.  The most basic aspect of cell phone security is securing the device itself.

Corrupt, over-criminalized governments that gain access with unjustified searches could use this information to convict you of ridiculous crimes. Sneaky competitors can get inside information that harms a business if employees and owners don’t use good cell phone security. Thieves and snoops could get vital information like bank records, passwords, and many other pieces of information that might be on your device.

Settings – Many phones allow you to adjust settings to store less history on the phone itself. This way your old text messages, call logs and other sensitive items can be less vulnerable.

Password Protect – This isn’t just to prevent butt-dialing. This also keeps out the curious. Most thieves, illegal government searches and hackers will easily get around the password protection unless the phone is encrypted.

Delete – Regularly delete unwanted data. Just like a computer, its not really gone until it gets overwritten, but at least novice thieves and the casually curious won’t get it.

Don’t let your phone out of your sight – All someone needs is a few minutes with your phone to install software or hardware that can overcome almost any cell phone security precautions you have taken. If someone that you don’t trust has had access to your phone, you may think twice about trusting it.

Wipe/Remote Wipe – Some phones allow you to completely wipe the phone memory remotely. If your phone is lost or gets stolen, you can make sure that data won’t be compromised. Every provider also publishes steps needed to wipe a phone before you dispose of it.

Full Encryption – Full encryption is ideal to make sure that all the data is well protected from all but the most sophisticated attacks. The best encryption is open source, since there will be no entity that could provide a back door. There are few open source options available right now, so using a trusted encryption program is the next best thing.

Partial Encryption – Many smartphone apps allow you to encrypt certain types of data on your phone while the rest of it is not encrypted. It can be tricky to make sure there are no unencrypted copies of the data somewhere else on the phone, but partial encryption can be useful to save certain confidential files. Again, open source is best, but trusted encryption software is also good.

Kryptos (iphone)

CellCrypt Mobile (Blackberry, Nokia)

WhisperSystems (Android)

Protecting Conversations

Usually when you have a confidential call with your business partner, your spouse, your attorney or your doctor, nobody else is invited to the conversation.

Cell phone networks around the world allow governments to secretly listen in on those conversations without a warrant. Rogue employees can listen to those conversations too. There is even a slight chance that malicious software is installed on your phone to capture your voice conversations.

Voice Over IP (VOIP) – Many phones let you use VOIP to communicate over the internet instead of over the network which may be compromised by secret wiretaps. A VOIP app might be available or you can use VOIP through your phone’s internet connection. You will still have to trust that the VOIP service is not eavesdropping. Open source VOIP software is best, trusted software is good too. Some common software that is free but not open source is Google and Skype. None of this will stop malicious software on your phone from spying on you.

Kryptomobile

Antivirus – Although it is still rare, phones can be infected with viruses and malware, just like a computer. But, there is antivirus software for cell phone security, just like for computers. You can use that software to protect yourself from viruses. You can also protect from viruses by not opening suspicious email attachments and not clicking on sketchy links like you would on a computer. You can also make sure to download only trusted apps.

Texting

Text messages are very unsecure. They travel through the network unencrypted, are stored on your device and might be stored for a long time.

Text messages are available to just about anyone who gets any access to your phone like corrupt governments, clever hackers, thieves, and unscrupulous competitors. They get it by accessing the network, accessing your provider’s records, accessing your phone, and many other ways.

Secure Text Message App – There are some apps available that encrypt your text messages both in transit and at rest on your device.

Instant Messaging – There are several web based IM programs and IM programs designed for different phones that are encrypted and protect your cell phone security and text communications much better than old fashioned text messaging. Unless the IM software is open source, you still have to trust the source, but it is probably better than trusting a large provider.

Voicemail

Voicemail is stored by your service provider on their server.

Rogue employees, corrupt governments and hackers are the most likely to have unauthorized access to voicemail information.

Encrypted Voicemail – Some VOIP services will also offer encrypted voicemail. You still have to trust the VOIP service, but a small offshore VOIP service is less likely to reveal confidential data than a larger service provider.

Photos

Smartphones not only take photos, but they usually add a lot of hidden data to the picture file, called EXIF data. It can include time, date and GPS coordinates, among other things. Any photo that you email or upload from your phone might have this identifying EXIF information in the file.

Turn GPS Tracking Off – Some phones let you turn off geo tagging in the settings. Turning geo tagging off can prevent the data from ever being added to the picure file.

Wipe sensitive data before uploading or emailing – There are several programs which let you remove the EXIF data from images. That way you can send and share images without sharing the identifying information.

Mobile Apps

Mobile apps let you play cool games and have powerful business tools at your fingertips, but many of them can be mining a lot of data that you wouldn’t want to share. Linked-In, for example, stores your username and password in plain text. Since most people use the same username and password in many places, this is very damaging information that is very unprotected. And there are lots more apps that do similar things. Some apps even have malicious code hidden in them.

Use Trusted Apps – Minimize your usage of apps or only use trusted apps to increase your cell phone security. Research what data they access and then use them only if you are willing to share that information and are sure there is no malware in them.

Email

Email is the digital equivalent of a post card. The message passes through the hands of many servers en route to its destination and everyone along the way can read it. At the very least your email provider will have a log of your emails which can be subpoenaed or peeked at by corrupt governments.

Encrypt Email – You may be able to encrypt the emails that you send from your device so that nobody can read them in transit or at rest. If the recipient is also using proper encryption, the message may be protected from end to end.

Web Browsing

Your internet provider can see every website that you visit and they can see every wireless network that your phone connects to. Your browser can see every term you search for.

All of this data is readily available to rogue employees and corrupt governments. In many cases it may be sniffed out by clever hackers and sneaky competitors. Most of this data is also stored right on the phone where anyone that has physical access, even the casually curious, can find it.

Use Anonymous Web Surfing – Some phones let you use VPNs like the Tor network so that your carrier, the web browser, and the websites that you visit can’t see where you go on the internet. The VPN records would only be available to corrupt governments if the VPN is in a cooperative jurisdiction.

Conclusion

This is just an outline of what is possible. There is no single cell phone yet available that can accomplish complete cell phone security. You may only be interested in a few features. Figure out what features you want and what is most feasible to protect as much of your confidential communications using your cell phone or smart phone as possible.  Check out the book How To Vanish for more tips on protecting your phone communications.

RELATED POSTS:

1. Cell Phone Security: Mobile Phone Taps
2. Police Search Cell Phones On Massive Scale
3. Block Caller ID, Prevent Reverse Phone Lookup, and Keep Your Phone Number Private

Reading time: 16 – 26 minutes

The Liberty Dollar case has had a huge impact on the world of gold and silver trading, investing, ownership and use. I covered a lot of ground in Part I and Part II, but there is another important aspect of that case that leaves the legal landscape partly shrouded in ominous and threatening clouds. What is the risk of criminal prosecution or criminal conviction to those who make or use gold and silver rounds of “original design”?

Is There A Risk Of Prosecution For Trading With Gold And Silver

To answer that, we have to fully understand the actual law that was broken. We also need to consider the existing law that was not at issue in the Liberty Dollar case, the threats of prosecutors and the effect of potential constitutional challenges to those laws if a prosecution were undertaken.

Mr. von NotHaus Violated Fraud Based Statutes

The Liberty Dollar Trial was about fraud, not a private currency system as prosecutor Anne Tomkins falsely implied. The jury was asked to decide if the elements of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud were met, nothing else. No other legal basis for the prosecution was ever presented to the jury and implying that there was another legal basis is mis-stating the facts of the case.

Critical Facts of The Case

Liberty Dollar made, sold, and used rounds that had many similarities to official US government coinage. The rounds were minted with a face value but the FRN value of the silver in the coins was less than this face value. Liberty Dollar encouraged exchanging Liberty Dollars with people who were unaware that the underlying FRN value of the silver was less than the denomination minted on its face. Liberty Dollar profited from this difference in value.

Key Elements Of Fraud

To be guilty of fraud, a jury must decide that a person has met all of the elements of that crime. The Jury Verdict Form contains all of the elements that this particular jury decided. The critical parts are summarized here.

Count 1 – Conspiracy

I will not get into Conspiracy because it is not in controversy.

Count 2 – Counterfeit Coin (18 USC 485 and 2)

The core actions that Liberty Dollar must have taken to be guilty of this crime are:

1. To make coins;

2. That resemble official US government issued coins;

3. And use those coins;

4. With intent to defraud.

It is undisputed that Liberty Dollar made and used coins. Their resemblance to official US government issued coins was a question of fact for the jury to decide. As described in detail previously, there were plenty of facts that could lead a reasonable person to believe that Liberty Dollar rounds resembled official US coins.

The final necessary element was the intent to defraud. I personally don’t think Mr. Von NotHaus had the intent to defraud, but intent can only be inferred by surrounding facts and circumstances. Clearly there were several facts that could lead a reasonable person to believe that there was intent to defraud. For example, encouragement to make change with people who did not know that there was a difference between the FRN value of the silver in the round and the face value.

Notice that nothing in this count requires that the coins be of original design.

Count 3 – Current Money (18 USC 486)

The core elements here are:

1. Make and use a silver coin;

2. Intended to be used as current money;

3. Resembling genuine coins of the US OR coins of original design

Again it is undisputed that element 1 was met. Their resemblance to US coins has already been established. The intent can only be supposed from surrounding facts. The fact that Liberty Dollar encouraged merchants to make change with unsuspecting people could be the reasonable basis to find intent to use Liberty Dollars as current money.

It’s important to note the “OR” in Count 3. This means that the statute is violated whether you violate one, the other, or both of these prongs. As I have laid out previously, the “resembling genuine coins of the US” prong could easily stand on its own as having been violated. The “original design” prong is unnecessary for the conviction.

The “resembling genuine coins” prong is essentially a case of fraud. The Liberty Dollar rounds were presented as something that they were not, to the detriment of unsuspecting individuals. It appears the jury thought the case was about fraud as well. At least one person claiming to be a juror in the case left a comment in the original post stating that my previous analysis correctly reflected “what went on in court in the Liberty Dollar Trial.”

Who Was The Victim?

Many have claimed that there were no victims because the underlying value of the silver would eventually (and in hindsight has) become more valuable than the FRN that people gave up to get Liberty Dollars. Even people who mistakenly accepted Liberty Dollars, they claim, would have actually benefited.

This argument defies reason. The FRN price of silver changes. Sometimes it goes up and sometimes it goes down. Although I bet money that it will go up over time, it is impossible to predict the future. Nobody knows for sure if or when the price will change, how much it will change, and in which direction.

What must be understood is that to get someone to unknowingly accept Liberty Dollars instead of FRN is to unknowingly accept the risk that silver would appreciate in value instead of the risk that the FRN will decline in value.   This is a risk unwitting acceptors of Liberty Dollars did not agree to bear.

Risk Has Value

Another problem is that the person who takes the discounted Liberty Dollar could have taken their $10 FRN and bought more silver somewhere else had they been paid in FRN instead of the Liberty Dollar round. Thus if the price of silver rises, they would have been prevented from realizing gains on a larger amount of silver.  Thus people who unknowingly accepted Liberty Dollars instead of FRNs unknowingly suffered real or potential losses.

Tips To Avoid Prosecution For Fraud

So now that it is clear that the elements of fraud were met, what can honest traders do to avoid innocently coming too close to the line of fraud, which I think Mr. Von NotHaus did.   Everyone should talk to a lawyer directly for legal advice, but a general principle is to avoid anything that would give the impression of fraud to investigators and clearly include things that would help eliminate the impression of fraud. Avoid making, using or trading rounds, medallions or tokens that in any way resemble official government currency of any country.

Avoid:

• Using the $ symbol

• Putting the name of a country on it like “USA”

• Putting any word on it that appears on official currency like “Liberty”

• Using denominations that match the same denominations used in the official government coin

• Putting images on them that are similar to images used on official government currency.

• Offering them as change in FRN transactions

Some things that can be helpful are:

• Use fictional characters, like Disney Dollars or Ithaca Hours do

• Display the weight and fineness of the metal rather than a numbered value like $10

• Be extremely clear when using them that they are not official US coins.

Likelihood Of Prosecution

There are a handful of private mints, thousands of coin dealers and millions of people that make, use and trade rounds, medallions and tokens. If they follow many of these guidelines they are probably not at risk of prosecution for fraud.

Prosecution For Fraud Is Legitimate

Libertarian principles allow the use of force to protect against fraud. Dr. Viera concedes, in Pieces of Eight (pg. 1533) that Congress may have the Constitutional authority to legislate the “resembling genuine coin” prong. Since it is clearly shown that people were, or there was an imminent threat of being, defrauded, prosecution under this part of the statute is likely to withstand any philosophical or constitutional challenges.

Prosecution For “Original Design”

Anne Tompkins inferred that she intended to prosecute people under the “original design” prong. She was obviously relying on dicta from a few lower court cases as the broad basis of her threat.

Dicta is not the law. Dicta is a statement in a court ruling that is usually made by a judge in passing with little to no research or analysis. At best she can hope that dicta maybe, possibly, someday becomes the law. Thus she is threatening to fly us head on into the brooding storm clouds of untested areas of law.

What This Threat Of Prosecution Means To Honest People

There are real implications to this kind of threat. First of all is the cost of legal defense. Even a person who is ultimately found innocent will probably incur legal costs in the tens of thousands of dollars. If there are constitutional challenges, which might require multiple appeals, the cost could easily rise to the hundreds of thousands.

Overzealous Prosecutors Regularly Disregard The Intent Behind A Law (To Punish Real Criminals) And Target Anyone Who Accidentally Crosses The Line

While most people find prosecution of people with innocent intent deplorable, overzealous prosecutors have been known to disregard the reason for a law and use their discretion to prosecute anyone who violates the letter of the law, even if the defendant’s intent and actions are otherwise completely innocent.

A good example of that is the prosecution of an Ohio woman under anti-drug laws for buying 2 packages of cold medicine in 1 week, one for two separate members of her family who were ill. The uphill evidentiary battle that defendants face makes it easy for prosecutors to convince juries that a defendant should be convicted in these kinds of cases.

If That Were The Law It Would Be Completely Unworkable

If this dicta were adopted as law, cautious people would have to avoid making or using anything that could potentially be used to barter because such an item could conceivably be used to compete with official government issued currency. That could include millions of rounds, commemorative medallions, or tokens. That is obviously a ridiculous outcome.

There are a few cases where clearly marked tokens such as Chuck E. Cheese tokens or batting cage tokens are outside of the purview of the “original design” prong. Hence prosecution of those special purpose tokens is very unlikely.

A case centered around the “original design” prong would not be about fraud at all. It would be about the right of people to use whatever medium of exchange they choose. Preventing private parties from trading what they want in such a manner is complete tyranny. In Argentina and other places around the world, the people purchase vehicles as a hedge against inflation. Under Anne Tomkins’ erroneous definition of the law, vehicles would be illegal because they compete with the national currency.  Another ridiculous outcome.

18 USC 486 Is Probably Unconstitutional

The arguments supporting the unconstitutionality of the “original design” language are quite strong.

Art. I Section 8, clause 5 of the US Constitution states in part:

“The Congress shall have Power To… coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin.” On its face this gives the Congress the power to regulate the value of its own coinage, and that of foreign coins. There is absolutely no mention of the ability of Congress to do anything regarding private coinage.”

Clause 6 continues stating:

[Congress shall have power to...] “provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the… current Coin of the United States.” This clearly gives Congress the power to punish counterfeiting the coins that they themselves produce, and probably to punish coins resembling genuine US coins. Again, there is absolutely no mention of private coinage. In fact, the definition of private coinage is that it is not the current coin of the US. Therefore Congress has no authority over private coinage at all and neither does any other branch.

The Ninth Amendment to the US Constitution states

“The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The Tenth Amendment:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Since no Congressional power over private coinage is delegated, or even implied, nor is that power reserved to another branch of government, private coinage must be a power and right reserved to the states or the people under the 9th and/or 10th Amendments.

There are many, many, many, many, many, many examples of private coinage used throughout the US, under these same Constitutional provisions, for centuries. See What Has Government Done To Our Money by Murray Rothbard for a full discussion and historical examples.

What Is So Unconstitutional About 18 USC 486?

18 USC 486 states:

Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. (emphasis added)

The constitutionality of the “original design” clause is clearly eviscerated by Dr. Viera in Pieces of Eight pg. 1533 (criticizing 18 USC 486):

“This prohibition [on private coinage] is plainly not grounded in Congress’s power “To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the current coin of the Unites States” because a person… who makes… coins… of original design is not doing anything with relation to the “current coin of the United States” by definition.”

The power to regulate coins of original design is clearly not within Article I Section 8 clauses 5 or 6. It is thus a clear violation of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the US Constitution.

Dicta that claim legitimacy of this language shows that judges have clearly failed to consult legislative history, constitutional authority, American history, or case law dealing with it. Thorough research and analysis would likely reveal the error in these statements of unauthoritative opinion.

The Outcome Of A Constitutional Challenge Is Unknown

Unfortunately, the current state of monetary law in the United States is nonsensical so it’s tough to know how persuasive these constitutional arguments would be to an uneducated judiciary. Thus a constitutional challenge is not guaranteed to have the logical outcome of invalidating the offensive language of the statute.

Someone Else Must Be Convicted Before A Constitutional Challenge Can Be Made

Without getting into some very intricate rules on “redressability,” it is doubtful that anyone could even challenge the clearly unconstitutional parts of 18 USC 486 until someone is convicted under the relevant part of that section. That is because a person can’t appeal a decision unless the outcome would change if they win the appeal. (Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737 (1984)).

Here, Mr. von NotHaus was convicted. His conviction would stand under the fraud prong of the statute alone and does not need the “original design” prong. Even if the “original design” language was declared unconstitutional on appeal, it wouldn’t change the outcome for him. Therefore he is unlikely to be able to challenge its constitutionality.

Another Legal Guinea Pig Is Needed

To challenge the constitutionality of the “original design” prong, another individual will have to be convicted. This time, their conviction must clearly be under the “original design” prong and not at all under the resemblance prong. This means that the constitutionality of this law will probably remain unresolved for many years.

Practicality of Enforcement

When innocent people might be wrongly prosecuted because it looks like they are committing a crime when in fact they aren’t, they must determine how likely it would be for them to be prosecuted for their innocent behavior.  Part of this calculation is determining how likely it is that they would be prosecuted based on the practicality of enforcing the law that could mistakenly be used against them.

Private Mints

A mint, the company actually making rounds, medallions and tokens, is at the most risk of prosecution. Their operation is probably fairly large, easy to find and hard to move.

Fortunately that risk is still very low, even after the von NotHaus conviction. The Sunshine Mint that produced the Liberty Dollars was not a defendant in the case and there have been no prosecutions of the many other private mints throughout the country. Thus prosecution of private minters under the original design prong is unlikely.

Individuals

It would be very difficult and expensive to prosecute individuals for using rounds medallions and tokens in private transactions. It would be incredibly difficult to detect and investigate. Unless people feel they have been defrauded upon accepting them, there is unlikely to be any investigation of individuals for using metal to pay for goods and services.

This is important for the millions of innocent people who will be trading things that are not illegal because they should know the risk of erroneous prosecution. It is extremely low because of these difficulties in detection and investigation of the transactions.

Risk Of Prosecution For Fraud

There are millions of rounds, medallions or tokens existing in the US that follow the guidelines mentioned earlier. To prosecute every maker, holder or user of them would be completely outrageous. It would also be practically impossible to prosecute everyone because it is impossible to monitor that many private transactions effectively, even with dictatorial control. Therefore, someone making or bartering with gold or silver who is following these guidelines has very little risk of mistaken prosecution for fraud.

Conclusion

Barter with metal has not been ruled by a court of law to be illegal. Barter is constitutional, whether it is for chickens, potatoes, FRN, gold or silver rounds or anything else you want. There is a cloud over the issue of bartering with gold or silver rounds, medallions or tokens because of the generalized and remote possibility of being prosecuted if you do. Bartering with metal is so common and widespread it would insanely expensive to systematically investigate and impractical to enforce such a policy. Thus, the threat is not nearly as great as the threat posed to Liberty Dollar. Plus, the “original design” language that smacks of dictatorial control is likely to be overturned because it is probably unconstitutional.  For more ways to protect your right to private exchange of goods and prevent being mistakenly prosecuted, get the book How To Vanish and sign up for the email list.

RELATED POSTS:

1. Liberty Dollar Trial and Coin Value
2. Liberty Dollar II – Did Prosecutor Anne Tompkins Violate Ethics Rules?
3. Is GoldMoney A Gold-Backed Bitcoin?

Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes

In my previous article, I talked about the first step to digital security: good passwords. Once you have a system, the easy part is coming up with secure passwords (IliKeC@tnip$1928 I used as an example came pretty easy).    However, the hard part is remembering all these passwords.

Difficult To Remember So Many Passwords

You could come up with different variations of your same password for the various accounts that you use. But all those accounts start to add up: multiple e-mail accounts, Facebook,  cell phone,  Bitcoin, banking, Amazon, iTunes, Dropbox…the list goes on and on. You may have a wonderful method of keeping the passwords straight, but do you really want to remember 50 variations of IliKeC@tnip$1928? If you like to keep your brain cells available to store random trivia facts for your shot against Watson on Jeopardy, there are software solutions that do the remembering for you.

A quick search on your favorite search engine (google, yauba, whatever floats your boat) reveals the plethora of available software solutions. Many are paid, many are free, and many are just no good. Some use proprietary cryptography, while others use open source cryptography. Some are cloud based, while others are traditional desktop software. So what’s a secret agent to do?

Free and Open Source Software Is The Preferred Solution

My personal preference for password managers is to look for a free, open source, traditional desktop solution. I like free because I try not to pay for software, since software trends change so rapidly. I like open source because I know what software and what cryptography is being used to protect my data. I like a traditional desktop solution because when it comes to my personal data, I want to be in control of it.

Now, I’m a huge proponent of cloud-based solutions for most of my software solutions. E-mail, word processing, music, file storage all taste better in a cloud-based solution. But when it comes to my user names and passwords–my access to all my private data, like my anonymous card for shopping online–I want to be in control of my data. Cloud- based solutions offer a great deal of flexibility and accessibility, but if I don’t have access to the Internet and the cloud-based solution doesn’t offer a local storage solution, I’m SOL. With the ubiquity of Internet connectivity these days, it’s not a likely scenario. But, if you are reading this, you are the type to plan for all contingencies, not just the most likely ones.

How To Use KeePass

So which free, open source, traditional desktop software do I use to keep track of my passwords? KeePass.

This awarding winning piece of software meets all of my requirements for a password manager and is a breeze to use.

After downloading and installing the software (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and portable versions are available), you create a new password database.

This entails creating a master password that you will use to unlock the database.

Once you’ve created the database, you can create entries for each and every login you have. And this is where KeePass truly begins to shine. Let’s use creating an entry for your e-mail account. Instead of using IliKeC@tnip$1928 as your password, you can have KeePass create a random password for you. You can set up the various parameters for the password, including password length and types of characters.

Not only does KeePass create passwords for you, but KeePass also remembers passwords for you. With a convenient copy/paste feature, you no longer have to type your own passwords.

Conclusion

As awesome as KeePass is, we’ve only scratched the surface of this fantastic utility. Digital security is like forcing the principle of the Fourth Amendment, requiring a really good reason to pierce your personal privacy, to work for you.  Check back for the follow up post with secret ninja tips and tactics of how to use KeePass as your greatest password weapon.  You can use KeePass to make sure you are keeping good records with strong encryption that won’t be compromised.  Everything from any hawala transactions you make to protecting your bank privacy.  You can even use it to store the usernames and passwords for your anonymous web surfing accounts.

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Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes

In one corner we have the vast address lookup databases, pulling in personal information from public records and the entire internet.   In the other corner is you, trying to keep your private address from becoming public knowledge.  If you are a star on a Hollywood star map, or just an average Joe who wants to separate his private and public life, public records of real estate ownership can make it difficult to protect your private address.  The address lookup sites are usually the heavy favorite, but here are a few tips for the underdog to protect privacy and maintain a private address.

Renting A Private Address

Rent.  Renting a house, condo or apartment instead of buying is one of the easiest ways to keep your private information out of public records and out of address lookup sites.  Property ownership records are public record, but rental records are not.

Try to rent directly from the owner of the property, rather than a property management company.  Property management companies keep records of their units and many of them sell their data, including data of their renters.  If you must involve a property management company, smaller ones are less likely to share data.

If you never give out your rental address, use ghost addresses,  order utilities and services in another name, among other things, you will remain very private.

LLCs and Corporations To Hold Real Estate

If you own property in the name of an LLC or corporation, the business entity will be listed in the public real estate ownership records.  Your name will not appear immediately in those public records.  Someone would have to make a separate request to the secretary of state to find out who owns that LLC or corporation.  It is not the most solid privacy protection of your private address, but it adds an extra layer of protection.

In many property ownership databases, it is possible to search for ownership records by owner’s name.  If you own multiple properties in your own name it will be easy to create an asset profile of you.  If you own multiple properties with multiple business entities it will be much harder to create such a profile, especially if each of your business entities exist for the sole purpose of managing one property.

New Mexico is the only state where LLCs are totally anonymous.  That means that if you own property with a New Mexico LLC your name can’t be connected with the property in the public ownership records or the business ownership records.  Plus, you can own real estate with a New Mexico LLC in just about every state in the US without any special filing or permission.

If you want to be very advanced, your New Mexico LLC can be the only owner of your LLC or corporation formed in another state.  That way, when someone queries the ownership of an LLC, all they will get is your New Mexico LLC.  It will be a dead end.

Trusts To Hold Real Estate

Another very private way to own property is through a trust.  Trusts are commonly used by large developers to stealthily buy up several adjacent parcels of land which they will later develop as one, without tipping off the sellers.  They buy each individual parcel with a different trust, established only for the purpose of owning the property and named in a way that doesn’t identify the real buyer.  Disney used this strategy to purchase the land for Disney World.  Imagine the price the last seller on the block could get if they knew who had been buying all of the other houses in the neighborhood.

The most private way to buy real estate using a trust is to transfer the property directly into the trust.  This is usually only possible if you pay full value for the property and do not mortgage it.  Almost every mortgage company will require you to transfer real estate to your own name first before you transfer it to a trust.  This will leave your name in the chain of title forever, so it is not preferable but it may be the best you can do and it is better than nothing.

If You Already Own Real Estate In Your Name

If you like where you currently live and you don’t want to move but your real estate is already in your own name, you can still transfer it to a trust, LLC, corporation, or New Mexico LLC at any time.  This will leave your name in the chain of title, which is searchable, but at least you won’t be the current record owner.

Other Tactics To Prevent Address Lookup

Private ownership and occupancy of real estate is only one part of you game plan to keep your name out of the address lookup databases. You need to round out your skills by mastering other important techniques that you can find in How To Vanish.   Never give out your home address, use ghost addresses,  order utilities and services in another name, be careful when you order pizza.  The address lookup databases have the advantage of being everywhere, but now you have the advantage of knowing how to beat them.

RELATED POSTS:

1. Keep Your Home Address To Yourself
2. Keep Your Assets Hidden In Plain Sight
3. Block Caller ID, Prevent Reverse Phone Lookup, and Keep Your Phone Number Private

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

A lot of people want to keep their personal information from being public information. That can be a hard thing to do, especially when so much of your data is flowing freely on the world wide web.  Your phone number might be stored in phone directories, pizza delivery databases, and all kinds of other internet databases. Do you want to block caller ID from revealing your name and address?  Do you want to prevent a reverse phone lookup for your name and address?  Following are some of the best ways to protect one of the most important pieces of personal information.

Keep Your Phone Number Private: Unlisted Numbers

You can unlist your phone number from many public databases.  In many cases you can request your phone service provider to unlist your phone number.  I have previously discussed some of the strategies to unlist your phone number from a lot of other public databases, mostly by contacting the database manager to stop publishing the information. That won’t prevent the number from showing up in other databases or finding its way back into the ones where you have already deleted your phone number.

Google Phone Number and Other Call Forwarding

Although not a perfect method, call forwarding can help you manage which phone number is available to the public. There are lots of free and paid services that will forward calls to any number you want. You can give out one phone number as your public number, and keep another number private. The public number that is call-forwarded won’t be linked directly to your location like a cell phone might, and it allows you to change your private number as often as you want. Plus, you might not need to block caller ID.  If you don’t mind constant data mining, a Google phone number through Google voice offers free call forwarding. If you prefer to be a bit more private, FreedomVoice is a good paid service.

Block Caller ID or Use Spoofing

You can block caller ID by dialing *67 (in the US) right before a call or getting your phone service to permanently block caller ID.  Spoofcard is a great way to secretly block caller ID.  They let you appear to be calling from any number you choose.   If you are only protecting your identity during certain calls, either spoofing or blocking caller ID might be good options.

Business Entities

You can always register your phones with a business entity. That is not a fool proof method, since only New Mexico allows anonymous ownership of business entities, but it puts one more layer of protection between your private information and the public.

Pre-Paid Phones Prevent Reverse Phone Lookup

You can get pre-paid cell phones with cash, with no contract, and refill minutes with cash whenever you want. This keeps that phone number unconnected in any way with your name, until you use it, of course. To be extra safe you can change pre-paid phones as often as you want. You can even be extra sneaky and get 2 pre-paid cell phones, give one to your friend, and only communicate with each other over those phones. That way it will be very difficult to tell that you two are chatting it up with each other.

Conclusion

There are lots of reasons why you would want to keep your phone number private.  It isn’t as easy as just having an unlisted number anymore.  There are lots of ways that phone numbers are made public.  Techniques like unlisting your phone number, using call forwarding, business entities, spoofing and even pre-paid cell phones  can protect your privacy.  The book How To Vanish discusses all of these options in more detail so you can choose the best ones for you.

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Reading time: 11 – 18 minutes

Sorry David Copperfield. No matter how good a magician you are, there are some assets that you can’t make vanish, and it has nothing to do with genetics. I’m talking about assets that have your name written all over them in the public record.

It is hard to put real estate, vehicles, and other  attention grabbing assets into a private safe somewhere. Even if you did, jealous ex boyfriends, business competitors, and shysters can still look you up and see what you have stashed away.

The reason why your assets can make you so vulnerable is because the law requires that certain records be made available to the public. That includes some records with very revealing information about you and your stuff.  Its a lot like forcing you to go out in public with your fly open.  Many of the websites that publish personal information, like Intelius and Lexis-Nexis, get a lot of their information from these public records.To make it harder for the curious and nefarious to tap juicy assets for personal information, you have to know where you are vulnerable.

The practice guide for California attorneys practicing debt collection has a great list of places to look for personal information in public places to help their clients get a piece of assets from debtors. Those same sources, and one or two others, can be used by anyone for less legitimate purposes. There is some variation by state on who can request certain records and how to do it, but these places are a great start to see how badly you need to keep your assets hidden in plain sight.

Keep Your Assets Hidden In Plain Sight

Phone Directories

Phone directories are the oldest trick in the book. Just about everyone, everywhere has a phone. A number can be a way to contact you even if you don’t want to be contacted. Phone numbers are also a great way to narrow down searches for other assets based on the geographic location of your area code, making the search for your other assets cheaper and easier. In some cases, your phone number can lead right to your front door.

County Assessor

The county assessor keeps track of the value of real estate and some personal property for tax reasons. This is a good way to find the value of any of these kinds of properties. In many cases, the assessor will have ownership information, including the address of the property and a mailing address where the tax bill is sent. If you pay any property tax, some of your information shows up in these records.

County Recorder

The recorder keeps records of all documents that are recorded. This includes real estate transactions, birth certificates, marriage records, death records, and a lot of other documents. Your real estate and an outline of your most important dates will show up in the county recorders office.

County Clerk

Court records, both civil and criminal, are public. If you (or your property) were involved in court proceedings, your information is out there for anyone to see unless you have taken steps to cover it.

Probate Index

Large assets transferred at death and who they are transferred to are all kept in the probate court records. If you or someone in your family has received major assets this way, the whole world can know.

Secretary of State

In most states, the Secretary of State will have a list of all of the business entities formed and who their owners, principal directors or officers, and registered agent are. If you act in any one of those capacities, your name is going to be easy to find. If you own any assets in the name of those business entities, they will easily be traced back to you.

State/County/City Permits and Licenses

Most states have a central location where alcohol permits, concealed weapons permits, building permits, and other business permits and licenses are made public record. If you have any of those kinds of permits, your information is out there for all to see.

DMV

Car ownership can be discovered through a request to the DMV. Often, when there is a car loan outstanding, the ownership information will also reveal a bank where you might have other accounts. A 2 for 1 deal.

Google

A simple Google search can turn up a lot of things that you might have been involved in. Did you act in a play in a community theater? If they post that info in the internet, it can lead right to you. So can coaching a little league team, or anything else you might do. Even Google Street View can confirm that you live in a certain place or drive a certain car. I have successfully used Google Street View to investigate opposing parties in litigation.

Your Website

You may have a website of your own. That website might have information on it that would lead a clever investigator right to your doorstep. Even if you don’t post your address on your site, the ownership information can be looked up on whois.com. If you registered under your own name and address, boom, there you are.

Social Networking

If you post it, they will come. Mark Zuckerberg found out the hard way how dangerous it can be to have some personal information available to the public.  Facebook and other social networking sites are a gold mine for information about your assets.  There are usually ways to make profiles private, but those settings have been known to change overnight with no warning, and their privacy is easy to get around. People have been known to make fake profiles of old friends of a target to connect with an otherwise private profile and get the juicy details of their life.  Even if you don’t reveal any information on purpose, a loose lipped friend may let something slip, the profiles of the people in your network can reveal your location, even the pictures themselves can have GPS coordinates embedded into the code of the picture, which have been used to track people right to their living room.

Shareholder Lists

If you own stock in your own name, it may be possible for another shareholder to get access to the shareholder list of the company and find you. Sometimes, those lists are sold to others. Once a list like that is sold, who knows where the information will end up.

Conclusion

Almost everyone has information in one or more of these public places. You know you do too, don’t lie. If so, your assets are hanging out for all to see. Go ahead and look yourself up in these places to get an idea of how private your assets really are. There are ways to remove almost every one of your major assets from those public records. The book How To Vanish will show you how to do everything you can legally do to remove that information. In future posts, and in a few past posts, I go over specific instructions to remove your personal information from every single one of these sources, without having to sell your assets on the street. Sorry David Blain.  No matter how good a magician you are, there are some assets that

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Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes

People always ask about the privacy books I read and recommend.  I have several books and many are very good.  They can be very helpful companions to How To Vanish the book, so I thought I would share my library with you.

I have already written about The Sovereign Individual which gives a good big-picture view of the future of large organizations and individuals regarding privacy.    The other books that I recommend are The Lifeboat Strategy by Mark Nestmann, How To Be Invisible by J.J. Luna, and How To Disappear by Frank Ahearn.

The Lifeboat Strategy

The Lifeboat Strategy is a great source for reference material on the statutes, historical developments, background information and many other things relating to privacy.  It also has several actionable tips and suggestions to do better protect your information and avoid violating the law.  This book is impeccably researched, with hundreds and hundreds of citations to original sources.

The author, Mark Nestmann, is a trusted expert on privacy.  His privacy recommendations and observations are very trustworthy.

Criticism

This book has a lot of detailed information that is interesting but not necessary for someone who wants to protect as much privacy as possible with the least amount of effort.

Even so, as reference material and as interesting background with some applicable law, this book is a great one to have in any privacy library.

How To Be Invisible

If you want to hear how to protect privacy from someone who had to do it for many years while living in a dictatorship, How To Be Invisible is a great book.  J.J. Luna offers a lot of practical and useful tips on how to protect your privacy in many areas of your life.  The book is full of actual stories and situations where the privacy tips were either needed or helpful from a wide range of people.  At just over 200 pages, this book will not be beyond the time constraints of most people to read and digest.

J.J. Luna is another well respected expert on privacy and really knows what he is talking about.

Criticism

How To Be Invisible is shorter and easier to read than The Lifeboat Strategy, but the actionable tips are still somewhat buried among information that is not as actionable.  Having to separate the actionable information from the rest can still take more time and effort than some readers might want to give.

How To Be Invisible is another great book to have for anyone who wants to protect their personal information.

How To Disappear

How To Disappear has very explicit steps and easy to follow, actionable items to protect privacy.  This book shows readers how to completely drop off the map so that they are almost impossible to find.  How To Disappear shows readers the most advanced and most robust ways to protect their privacy.

This book is also very exciting.  There are plenty of compelling anecdotes about people who either needed help or who had successfully eliminated the threats to their privacy.

Frank Ahearn is a former skip tracer.  His job was to track down people that have tried very hard to protect their privacy.  He shares, not only the skills needed to beat a skip tracer, but he does a great job at conveying the frame of mind a person might have if they are trying to hunt you down.  He also helps readers establish the right frame of mind needed to evade prying eyes of the best skip tracers in the world.

Criticism

How To Disappear is mainly targeted at people who really want to completely be erased from the map.  Following through means a complete change in lifestyle that is very expensive, requires extreme planning, will cut you off from friends and family except for very limited contact, and will probably mean starting a new life in another country.

There are still a lot of useful tips and techniques for the average person who just wants to keep some of their information from being public.  It will take more time and effort to read through and separate the things that the average person will find useful from the extreme cases.  Someone who wants to completely disappear probably won’t be able to do it right without consulting an expert to help them.

Even though it demonstrates some very extreme measures, most people who are interested in privacy would find this book useful and entertaining.

Conclusion

I have all of these books.  I like them all.  All of the authors are experts. There are plenty of other books that are good too.  I haven’t had a chance to read them all.   If you are interested in privacy you will probably find The Sovereign Individual, The Lifeboat Strategy, How To Be Invisible, and How To Disappear to be worth buying.

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Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes

Tattoo ink and internet ink are very similar.  A lot of people are getting tattoos and putting their personal information on the internet.  But, both tattoos and information on the internet are regrettably hard to remove.   Even good ol’ Mark Zuckerberg is finding out the hard way that making some personal information public might be a bad idea.

Whatever the popular trend is, there will always be some people who aren’t fond of permanent identifying marks.   But what can you do if you have made a few foolish mistakes in the past and you need to remove personal information from the internet?  Fortunately, it is a lot less painful to remove some of your personal information from the internet than it is to remove a Mike Tyson Special.

Go To The Source

Removing private info from online profiles is an obvious first step, but there are a lot of websites that share or sell your data without your knowledge.  There are ways to clean up a lot of that information too.

There are more websites that will share or sell your private data than anyone would like to count.  A lot of the internet is just a big echo chamber.  For every website with original content there are tons of other sites copying and repeating what was said before.  If you want to take down information, focus on removing it from those sources.  This narrows down your action to a few, rather than hundreds, of potential sources.

Intelius and Acxiom are two big data aggregators that are the biggest source for most other websites that share sensitive information on the internet.  Removing your information from Intelius or Acxiom will effectively remove it from most other websites too.  You may still want to remove personal information from other sites too, just to be on the safe side.

Contact The Sites Directly

Most sites allow you to remove data like address, phone number, and social security number.  Every company has a different method and you need to follow their own procedures.  They might let you do it online, they might make you do it through the mail.  Lots of times they will want you to provide more personal information to prove who you are to remove your information.  Here is a list of the main sites where your information might be found with a link to remove your info.  You might want to check each one to see how much of your own personal information shows up.

Remove Personal Information From The Internet

Intelius.com

Acxiom.com

USsearch.com

Google.com

Zabasearch.com

Peoplefinder.com

Whitepages.com

Yahoosearch.com

411.com

Whowhere.com

Privateeye.com

Infospace.com

Anywho.com

PublicrecordsNow.com

Addressing The Symptom, Not The Problem

Removing information from any of these sites, even Intelius or Acxiom, is like removing an unwanted tattoo.   It is much better to avoid the tattoo in the first place than to try to remove it later.   Plus, there are no guarantees that you can even remove it completely.  The only way to do that is to know how your information gets in those databases in the first place, and prevent it from ever showing up there.

Where Do These Sites Get All Of This Info

All of these websites collect your information from a lot of places like your online profiles (Facebook, linkedin, match.com, etc.) public records (property ownership records, court proceedings, census data, etc.) job application or resume sites, credit reporting agencies, smartphone apps, entering a sweepstakes to get free stuff, and lots of other sources that they won’t even tell you about.  Data is valuable and most organizations that get it, sell it.  Selling your information is what made Mark Zuckerberg a billionaire.

Prevent Personal Information From Showing Up On The Internet

There are lots of ways to prevent information from ever showing up in these public sources, and from showing up online.  The best way is to leave personal information blank whenever you are asked to provide it.  When you must share information, use a ghost address, pre-paid cell phones, a business entity, and other anonymizing techniques you can find in the book How To Vanish.

Conclusion

Like tattoo removal, removing personal information from the internet is not perfect.  Traces of your personal information online may remain for a very long time.  If you already have some unwanted informational tattoos, its not too late.  The sooner you get started removing personal information from the internet, the better off you will be.

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Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

Anonymous speech is pretty important.  Political critique and commentary, reporting crimes, and many other situations demand the ability to speak anonymously to preserve truth, promote safety, and protect rights.  Anonymity also promotes the spread of the best ideas because the idea is not contaminated with the reputation of the speaker.

Anonymous Speech Is Free Speech

Blog comments are the new public pamphlet.  Instead of publishing a piece of paper, people post articles and comments to the articles.

You might need to make an anonymous comment:

1.  if you are in the military and want to leave a comment in support of Julian Assange, Wikileaks, Private Bradley Manning, or many other important topics deemed not appropriate for the military;

2.  if you want to leave a comment that would be classified as a characteristic of a domestic terrorist such as citing the US Constitution;

3.  if you want to make a comment criticizing Israel, criticizing US foreign policy, or supporting Saudi Arabia, Islam, Muslims, Palestinians, the Qu’ran, or Iran;

4.  when making a comment contrary to the political, religious or scientific beliefs, opinions and policies of friends, family members, co-workers, employers, or others in the community;

5.   when making any comment that might incriminate you in illegal activity.

It is imperative that there be a way to comment anonymously.  So here is  how to leave a comment anonymously.

Step 1: Use A VPN Or Other Proxy Server

When you leave a comment, the website administrator can usually see the IP address of the computer that left the comment.  This can be used to trace the comment back to your computer unless you are using a proxy server.  So anytime you want to make a truly anonymous comment, go through a trusted proxy like Witopia, Cryptohippie or Identity Cloaker.

Step 2: Use A Pseudonym

The internet is full of pseudonyms.  You can use the same pseudonym many times to build up a reputation behind the pseudonym, like Thomas Paine or Benjamin Franklin did, or you can choose a new and exciting handle every time you comment.

Step 3: Fake An Email Address

Some websites, like HowToVanish.com, don’t make you register to comment.  On these sites you can put sown any bogus email address with an “@” and a “.com”.  Things like “publius@federalist.com” or “mark@twain.com” will work just fine.

Some sites make you register or log in before commenting.  You can set up an anonymous free email account all over the place.  Do that using the proxy server, use the anonymous email address, and never use it again, except maybe to comment on the same website.

Conclusion

Anonymous comments on a website protect privacy, protect fundamental rights and promotes the public good.  You can find other tips for protecting the privacy of your communications in the book How To Vanish.  Now that you know how to comment anonymously on websites, use your powers for good!

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Reading time: 9 – 15 minutes

There are millions of things that can be done to protect privacy.  Some are better than others.  For better privacy, it helps to understand the big picture.  Like the laws of physics, there are laws that apply to privacy.  Every action taken in conformity with these laws will provide better privacy and help you understand which actions are best for you.  This simple formula will help you conceptualize how privacy works, what affects it, and how to better calculate and manage your risks.

The level of privacy you have is equal to the cost for others to acquire your personal information divided by the value of your information to others.   The more information that is easily available about you, or the more valuable it is the less privacy you have.

Cost Of Obtaining Information

There are several components to this side of the equation.   The cost to acquire information is everything that it might take to discover any piece of information about you.  This might be the time it takes to look something up or figure something out.  It might be the cost in terms of money to employ tools or technologies or to access certain databases.  It might be the expertise needed to discover patterns in mined data or to use advanced surveillance techniques.  It might even be the cost in terms of legal risk to someone illegally trying to get your information like hacking into a secured computer network or pretexting.  As you increase any of these sub-components of this variable, you increase your privacy.

Value Of Your Information

For most people there must be some incentive to get your information.  If there is no monetary, political, or other incentive, gathering protected information becomes a very expensive hobby.  Wikileaks does not publish the secret notes that 7th grade girls pass to each other in class.  They publish the secret notes that government officials pass which conflict with their public statements because there is more political value to do so.

Some information can guide profitable decisions and actions.  Your shopping habits are very valuable to marketers and businesses.  Knowing that, they can reduce their costs of providing you with products that you want, when you want them, where you want them and at the price you want them.  Reduced cost and probably increased revenue = increased profit.

Information about your personal wealth can guide profitable identity fraud or extortion.  Higher wealth means higher potential credit limits means more return for the same work done to steal a wealthy person’s identity than an average person.  The wealthier the victim, the more money extortionists can bleed out of them at a profit.   Higher wealth means that litigants will be able to demand more money in legitimate lawsuits and even demand more to avoid the hassle of a baseless lawsuit.

The higher your public profile, the higher the value of your information, whether you have money or not.   If you’re an A-list celebrity, the spokesperson for a contumacious website, or if your circumstances make you a very public person, your information increases in value.

You can manipulate the value of your information to a certain extent by protecting the information that would lead someone to believe that you are a high value target.

Level Of Privacy

Your level of privacy is the level of risk that you face of injury, either psychological, physical or economic, from your information being known to someone else.  You may even have different levels of privacy for different types of information.  Although your favorite color might be posted publicly on your blog, Facebook profile and tattooed on your arm, you probably wouldn’t do that with your pin numbers.  In either case, you are facing a certain amount of risk that your information will be used against you.

Interaction Of These Variables

As you raise the cost to acquire your information (the numerator on the left side of the equation) you increase your level of privacy (the right side of the equation).  That is true no matter what your value as a target.

You can raise the cost of obtaining your information by increasing the amount of time someone needs to find it, the amount of money they need to find it, the amount of expertise they need to find it or by increasing the legal risk of breaking the law to get your information, or any combination of these.

If you lower the cost in these categories, your level of privacy will go down.

As you increase the value of your information as a target, you reduce the level of privacy.  This would happen if you increase in wealth, raise your public profile, or if more of your personal information reflects its potential value.  As the value of of your information goes down, your privacy will increase.

Optimum Level Of Privacy

Everyone has different tastes.  Everyone manages risk differently.  Privacy allows you to manage your risks by giving you control over your personal information. Some people benefit from more disclosure, like most Hollywood starlets.  Disclosure of personal information is risky for others, like an informant on potential war crimes. Everyone has their own optimum level of privacy which they feel most comfortable with.

Different Strokes For Different Folks

Everyone wants to be able to manage their own risks.  If they are forced to take more or less risks than they are inherently prepared to take, they are uncomfortable.  I see this all the time when it comes to the risk of serious bodily injury.   Some people ride a motorcycle with no helmet, wearing t-shirts and shorts.  Others wear a helmet, chaps and a leather jacket.  Others stay away from motorcycles altogether.  None of them are inherently wrong, but nobody wants to be forced to take more or less risk than they are comfortable with.

Unless something drastic happens, a non-helmet wearing biker is not likely to give up riding as the next logical step to taking less risk.  She will probably start wearing a helmet, and maybe long pants and boots.  The ultra-cautious non-rider has already reduced most of her risk, but maybe she wants to reduce it even more by driving an SUV instead of a 1979 Datsun station wagon, or wearing a helmet while she drives.

Default Level of Privacy Low

The recent trend has been to reduce privacy by default.  Data is regularly collected, archived, shared, sold and even stolen, reducing the cost to obtain it.  And people have been more than willing to voluntarily give away a lot of their information.  Plus, the ability to aggregate and analyze large amounts of information has made the value of everyone’s information go up.  This has vastly reduced the level of privacy of most people.

This was mostly the result of people not knowing how much of their information was being collected, what was done with it, and a poor analysis of the likelihood of harm.  In many ways, it is like everyone has been forced or tricked into riding around without helmets.

How To Vanish Gives You Control

The purpose of How To Vanish is to give you control over your personal information so that you can manage the risks yourself.  Every tip and technique is designed to show you different ways to increase the time, money, expertise, or legal risk needed in order to acquire your information.  There are also a lot of things that show you how to reduce your perceived value as a target.

Some people will choose to do the small things to reduce their risk a little bit, like putting on a  helmet and other protective gear to ride.  Others will do a bit more, like avoid riding altogether.  And some will go as far as they can, like getting an SUV wearing a helmet when you drive it.

No Silver Bullet Solution

Once you let an idea escape your head, either by writing it down or sharing it with someone, you are risking disclosure.  Maybe someone will find the file where you put it, maybe the person you told will share it.  No matter what you do to protect that information, there is a risk that someone will be willing to pay the price in time, money, expertise, or legal risk to acquire it.  The captain of the Titanic tried to hide that boat on the bottom of the Atlantic, but James Cameron comes along and he is willing to pay the price to go find that information.  The best you can do is to protect your privacy in a way that makes you comfortable.

Level Of Privacy = Optimum Level Of Privacy?

For many people, their current level of privacy is not equal to their optimum level of privacy.  I would bet that 99% of those people are currently below their optimum level.  Where do you think you are?

You Can Increase Your Privacy

Encrypting some of your files with TrueCrypt increases the cost in time, money and expertise needed to discover the contents of those files.  Buying things with cash or using electronic gold accounts increases the cost in time, money, and expertise to discover and track your financial transactions.  Using a VPN like Witopia, Cryptohippie or Identity Cloaker increases the cost in time, money, expertise and legal processes to determine what you have been doing online.  Using multiple jurisdictions for any communication, transaction, or activity increases the cost in time and money, often by increasing the number of legal proceedings, to monitor and discover those activities.  Some of these tactics may not be sufficient for your desired level of privacy, others will be too much.  But all of them increase the privacy of someone and everyone can increase their privacy in some important ways.  How To Vanish the book shows the most important steps to take at any level to get the most privacy for the least cost.

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2. 3 Better Privacy Secrets Banks Don’t Want You To Know
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Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

Tighter credit and vast consumer databases has made it more profitable for banks to spy on you, especially if they are giving you credit. Better privacy is becoming essential for your financial privacy.  Banks are looking much deeper into your private financial transactions to decide whether to lend to you or not. The tools that they use are invasive, unnerving, and dangerous. Here are 3 secret metrics that they use to determine credit, how to prevent banks from being able to spy on you, and what to do to have better privacy if you still want credit.

1. Better Privacy For Rent Payments

Rent can be a very private transaction with no public paper trail. This is not the case when you deal with a large property management company. Credit bureaus are now collecting data from large property managers and gathering it in their own transactional databases. If your property manager knows something about you, so do the credit agencies. This usually means social security number, name, how much you pay, your payment history and where you live, even your emergency contact.

Most of this information is bought and sold just like most other database records. So if you think your address is unlisted, but you rent a property with a property manager, think again.

There are at least two ways to get better privacy to prevent this. The first is to deal directly with the owner, not with a property manager. At least use a small mom and pop property manager because they are less likely to have a sophisticated database of renters that they share with other companies. The second is to use a business entity to rent the property. An LLC can be formed and all dealings with the property manager will be under that name. If you live in a state where an LLC is expensive to form, you can almost always use an out of state LLC to rent a property without having to register it as a foreign LLC. You can use an anonymous New Mexico LLC, which has a $75, one-time fee and no annual requirements. The only recurring costs will be to maintain a registered agent.

2. Better Privacy In Bank Deposit Behavior

Banks obviously maintain records on their own customers. Banks are now using that deposit history to determine your income and credit worthiness.

To preserve a good history, yet protect better privacy, you may want to set up recurring, regular transfers with a separate account in a separate bank where you will get a loan. It can either be in your personal name or business name. A regular history of deposits and withdrawals can preserve a solid foundation for credit from that bank.

3. Value Of Your Assets

Banks now estimate your balance sheet. They want to see how many assets you have to determine if you are a credit risk or not. If you were to default on any loans, or declare bankruptcy, they want to know that there are some assets there to get.

To prevent banks and other credit institutions from being able to see your assets, use business entities and trusts to hold major assets, like large investment portfolios, real estate, machinery or equipment, cars or large collections.

Better Privacy Strategy To Get Credit When Needed

Using any of these strategies to protect your privacy may impact a lender’s willingness to give you credit. You can still get credit if you can satisfy the bank’s fears. If you are using business entities and trusts to hold your assets, you will not have as many large assets in your own name. This can look a bit risky to a potential lender. Any individual asset can be offered as collateral for a specific loan. In those cases, your ownership of the asset is still not public, yet you have satisfied the lender’s need for security. Also, in case the bank presses the issue, they will be limited to the collateral that was offered in case of a default. Otherwise, they might be able to go after any asset of their choosing, rather than the asset of your choosing.

Conclusion

Banks and credit agencies are going to try and spy on their customers.  That is their nature.  You can limit their ability to spy on you and have better privacy by avoiding property management companies, using business entities to rent, using multiple bank accounts, and holding major assets in trusts or LLCs.   Let us know if you have any other creative and legal ways to keep the banks from spying on you when you don’t want them to.  You might also consider taking other steps to protect your bank privacy, bank offshore, or deal as much in cash as possible.

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1. Offshore Asset Protection Trusts And Better Privacy
2. Bank Privacy Part I
3. The Sweet Sound Of Cash

Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes

The US legal system is not always friendly to people who have money. There is a real threat of an out of control jury award, high punitive damages claims, and questionable cases commenced to try and force a settlement by a wealthy defendant for less than it would cost to successfully defend the suit.

Plus there are threats by identity thieves and con-artists who target the wealthy. Some have predicted a rise in violence, extortion and kidnapping against the wealthy as has been common in the bordering country of Mexico.

Others worry that the economic situation which has worsened the problems I have already mentioned and also threaten any wealth denominated in US dollars.  A collapsed currency and a devalued dollar will not bode well for anyone who holds US based investments, regardless of their fears of personal security.

All of these threats face even moderately wealthy Americans, especially if they have not diversified internationally. International diversification can include investing in assets not denominated in dollars, holding assets outside of the US, overseas entities, and even foreign citizenship. Offshore asset protection trusts can be a great part of any internationally diversified portfolio and provide better privacy.

Better Privacy Doesn’t Mean Fraud

When we talk about asset protection, we don’t mean “hiding assets” or anything like that. All assets that must be reported for tax purposes should be. “Hiding” assets from creditors, hindering, delaying and defrauding creditors are all illegal and could lead to a court forcing you to repatriate your wealth or be jailed for contempt of court.  But offshore asset protection trusts can still increase privacy and protect from creditors legitimately.

Offshore Asset Protection Trusts And Tax Optimization

Offshore trusts can be structured to maximize gift, estate and income tax benefits. Often, they are exempt from income taxes because they are offshore trusts. If drafted correctly, beneficiaries can receive distributions income tax free or at least at the rate of the beneficiary rather than the trust creator. Plus, offshore trusts can be structured to avoid estate taxes.  Plus, gift taxes, often paid when funding a trust,  can be minimized.

Offshore Asset Protection Trusts: Protection From Actual And Potential Creditors

When a creditor pursues a trust creator there is one thing at issue which determines if the creditor can reach those assets. That is, does the creator still have control. If they do, even if it is minor control, the creditor has a right to attach those assets.

Courts are now sending trust creators to jail for contempt for failing to pay creditors from their offshore asset protection trusts if they retain any amount of control over the assets.  On the other hand, if the trust creator has no control, the creditor will not be able to reach those assets through a judgment.

Better Protection of Trust Beneficiaries

Beneficiaries can also be protected from potential creditors by doing two things.  Give the trustee the power to make discretionary distributions.  If the beneficiary has gotten themselves into trouble, the trustee can withhold payment until the trouble has passed.

The other thing that can be done is to let the trustee make payments for the benefit of the beneficiary, rather than to the beneficiary themselves. This way, even if the beneficiary gets into trouble, the trustee can still pay the weekly rent at the Bellagio, pay for the rental Ferrari, and pay the tab at all the buffets in town.

Jurisdictional Considerations For Your Offshore Asset Protection Trust

Even if the trust creator controls an asset held in an offshore asset protection trust, the jurisdiction chosen may provide some added protection by local law which makes attachment procedurally expensive. For example, some local trust laws do not recognize US judgments. Thus a creditor will have to re-litigate in the local jurisdiction to get a court to order a distribution. This can encourage lower settlements.

Plus, many havens of offshore asset protection trusts will have favorable statutes of limitations for fraudulent transfers. US law generally leaves 4 years for fraud and 10 years for bankruptcy. Many trust havens will only have a 1 or 2 year statute of limitations period.

How Do Offshore Asset Protection Trusts Provide Better Privacy?

First, most offshore asset protection trusts are not named after the trust creator or beneficiaries. Thus any major assets owned are not publicly linked to any person who could be the target of unjust litigation or fraud. Plus, trust fund babies are sometimes negatively stereotyped.  Financial statements remain private to protect the anonymity of beneficiaries and trust creators.

Yet another benefit is that assets that are transferred by a trust are not subject to probate proceedings, which are public.   If an asset that is transferred at death must go through probate, all of the information is public.

Conclusion

Offshore asset protection trusts are certainly the Escalade of asset protection.  As such, they are not cheap.  But, if you have significant assets, they might be the best way to protect the financial privacy, financial well being and even the physical safety of you and your family.  Other tools include Using New Mexico LLCs, using a ghost address, another privacy tools and resources.

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Reading time: 7 – 11 minutes

Most people like stuff.   We all need some stuff and some stuff puts the fun in functional.  Houses, cars, boats, all of it is stuff, and everybody wants it.  The more stuff and the more fun stuff you have the more risk there is that it will be taken away.  So what should your asset protection attorney tell you about protecting that stuff?  Should they tell you about New Mexico LLC registration for your stuff?

Asset Protection Attorney Worries

The world is not such a friendly place. Part of owning stuff is dealing with the liability that comes with ownership of stuff. If you own real estate, there are all kinds of liabilities that go along with any buildings or improvements on the land. There are also risks that someone will be injured on the land.

Owning a car means you have to be ultimately responsible for any damage that is caused by your car, even if you weren’t driving it at the time. A severe accident can easily cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.

Operating a sole proprietorship exposes you to personal liability for anything that happens as part of the operations.

Even your own personal stuff, like your bank account, your stocks, investments and other financial stuff are at risk if you are found personally responsible for anything that you do.

And ownership of any big stuff can easily be used as a way to track and find you.

Asset Protection Attorney Rival: The Plaintiff’s Attorney

Plaintiff’s attorneys are smart.  If they are doing their job of protecting their client’s rights, they will search public records for stuff a potential defendant has.   The more stuff you have, the more rights the opposing attorney can get paid to protect.   Stuff makes lawsuits profitable.

Even having insurance is not enough. Most people only have the minimum insurance required.   When damages exceed insurance coverage, the owner can be left with the bill. In many cases, this can be millions of dollars.

Having stuff can be a headache.  Some people decide to get rid of their stuff.  Others look to their asset protection attorney to help them.

How To Protect Yourself With New Mexico LLC Registration

You can reduce the risk to the stuff you own for a fraction of the cost of increased insurance coverage.

New Mexico LLC registration can be used to hold all of your stuff, both physical and financial. The best privacy and asset protection is to hold as few assets per New Mexico LLC as possible. Ideally, each asset should have its own New Mexico LLC. Here is just a few of the ways New Mexico LLC registration is good for you.

New Mexico LLC Registration: What’s In It For You

Privacy – New Mexico is the only state that does not ask for and does not publish the owner of the LLC. Every other state will require your name. Only holding an asset in a New Mexico LLCs will prevent anyone from tracing ownership to you.  Plus, you can use the New Mexico LLC to pay for utilities, phone, internet or other services that you don’t want traced to your name.

Limits Liability – When each asset has its own LLC, any liabilities created by the asset can only be satisfied by the assets of that LLC. Let’s say you loaned your car to your mother-in-law. Without your knowledge, she had a glass of wine for dinner, and then ran into a school bus full of orphans. Several of the orphans were badly injured resulting in millions of dollars in medical bills. Your auto insurance only covers $100,000 in damages, and punitive damages, which are likely to be assessed, are not included. If you owned your car personally, you might be on the hook for a big chunk of that multi-million dollar liability. If the car was owned by a New Mexico LLC, whose only asset was the car, only the wrecked car can be used to satisfy that part of the award. Your mother-in-law will be left with the remainder of the bill.

No Hassle – New Mexico LLC registration is a one time deal.  There are no no annual filings, annual reporting, or licenses so there is absolutely no hassle after filing it. As long as you maintain a registered agent, the New Mexico LLC will always be in good standing.

Inexpensive – Many states charge hundreds of dollars a year to maintain LLCs in good standing. If they are not in good standing they are completely worthless as asset protection. New Mexico charges an extremely low one-time fee. Even the fees for a registered agent, which is necessary in any state unless you want to be the registered agent, are much less than the annual LLC fees in most states.

Transfer Assets Privately – If you sell a car, you usually have to transfer title through the DMV. You will have to pay a tax on the transfer price, pay the new registration, even if the old one was not yet expired, and wait in line for hours on end in the happiest place on earth.   If your New Mexico LLC owns the car,  you transfer the New Mexico LLC to the buyer. The DMV, re-registration, taxes and all kinds of other unpleasantries are kept out of the transaction.

Hide Assets From Unscrupulous Investigators – Plaintiff’s attorneys will base their decision on whether to bring a suit based on whether the defendant has assets to pay the judgment.  Otherwise, lawsuits would be an expensive hobby.  A good asset protection attorney will make that stuff vanish.  If you have no stuff in the public record, all but the most legitimate claims against you will be dropped.   The more of your significant assets you have in a New Mexico LLC, the fewer those attorneys will see, and the less likely you will have to defend marginal claims.

Hold Valuable Assets – So your 1998 Dodge Neon might not be a prime candidate to put under a New Mexico LLC, unless you loan it to your mother-in-law.  Anything worth more than a few hundred dollars, or a bunch of stuff worth more than a few hundred dollars combined, will be perfect assets to hold in your New Mexico LLC. Things like cars, trucks, trailers, boats, planes, motorcycles, jet-skis, recreational vehicles, houses, real estate, land, rental properties, commercial properties, bank accounts, stocks, bonds, other financial assets, collectibles, equipment, animals, and anything else of value or exposing you to risk.

Ideal For Operating Location Independent Businesses – Don’t want Amazon to shut down your Colorado based affiliate account, want to protect the anonymity of your internet business or blog, or want to hold investments privately? A New Mexico LLC is the best way to protect these and other similar assets from disclosure and closure.

Lots Of Other Asset Protection Strategies – New Mexico LLC registration is the building block to construct many extremely powerful plans to protect your assets and wealth. This is only the beginning.

Why Your Asset Protection Attorney Should Be Telling You About New Mexico LLC Registration

Your Name or address never has to be associated with the LLC.

The costs for maintaining multiple New Mexico LLCs is probably less than maintaining one LLC in most other states.

No annual registration, fees, reporting or other costs apply.

New Mexico has simply created at powerful vehicle for holding assets and for protecting privacy.

New Mexico LLC Registration Made Painfully Easy

New Mexico LLC registration is a lot easier than you think. You don’t ever have to visit New Mexico, sorry Bill Richardson. There are some good turnkey operations that will set up everything you need to operate your business for a very low fee. One of the best value for doing this is a company that specializes in forming New Mexico LLCs.

Conclusion

The most effective way to start protecting your privacy and your stuff is to use multiple New Mexico LLCs to hold your assets.  It is the easiest and cheapest way to get your assets off the grid.   Visit the website of a company that specializes in registering New Mexico LLCs for just such a purpose.  The privacy that LLCs can provide is excellent and choosing the right state can make it even more powerful.

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Reading time: 6 – 9 minutes

Some people want to be seen.  Others want to fly under the radar.  Most of us want a little bit of both.  The real issue that most people have in the fight between public and private personal information is control over who has access to what information.  We want the ability to reach out to the public at times, and at other times retreat into our sanctuary.  Retreating is more and more difficult in a digital world.   But there is one concept that can help you hide in plain sight.  I call it reverse SEO.

What is Reverse SEO?

Never heard of it before?  Ok, I made it up.  But SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is a real thing.  It’s what websites can do to be noticed by the search engines, like Google, for certain search terms.  The better optimized they are, the higher their ranking for that term.

One important part of SEO is competition.  Some words have a ton of competition because everyone wants to be noticed for those words.  Other words hardly have any competition, so it is easy to be ranked for those.  Most people using SEO are intentionally trying to get noticed.  What if you are intentionally trying not to get noticed?  What if you want to share some information but fly under the radar?  What if you want to hide in plain sight?

There is one technique that you can use, whether online or offline, to separate your public and private life and hide in plain sight.  Seek out the highest competition.  How can competition help me hide in plain sight?  The more competition the more likely it is a competitor will be noticed before you, even by someone who is is looking for you.     Reverse SEO is deliberately relying on the clutter of too much information to generate as many false positives as possible if someone is looking for you.

Technique #1 For Using Reverse SEO to Hide In Plain Sight: A Common Name

The name James Smith is the most common name in the US right now.  Wikipedia alone has over 70 different famous James Smiths to sort through.  Then there are the moderately famous James Smiths like doctors, professors, etc.  If someone is looking for regular old James Smith, they are going to have to sort through hundreds, and probably hundreds of thousands, of records to find the James Smith they are looking for.  All of a sudden, those embarrassing pictures of you that were posted on the internet get lost in the sea of false positives.  No potential employer will have the patience to sift through all of that clutter and find those pics.   Similarly, a search in the public records for property transfers will probably have dozens of James Smiths.  Which one is the potential plaintiff trying to sue?

How can you implement this?  If you are really serious, you could change your name to James Smith, or some other extremely common name.  Dweezil Zappa won’t produce many false positives.   You can keep this in mind when naming kids, using a pseudonym, stage name, DBA, etc.

Technique #2 For Using Reverse SEO to Hide In Plain Sight: Blend In

You are not a unique snowflake. At the risk of you being too much like plain oatmeal, the things that you hold out to the public can identify you.  The more you blend your public presence in with the masses, the harder you will be to single out and identify.   Let me show you how a friend of mine in the special forces does this with his car.

He can drive any car he wants.  He chooses to drive a plain 4 door sedan.  It is not just any car, though.  It is one that is very commonly used in rental car fleets.  There are more of this kind of car on the road than almost any other make and model.  Not only is the make and model extremely common, but he has deliberately chosen a color that is extremely common.  Plus he has no identifying bumper stickers or window stickers.  So if anyone tried to describe the kind of car he drives, they have just described millions of cars in America.  He uses the presence of tons of competitors (people driving cars with similar features) to hide in plain sight, a lot like reverse SEO.

Technique #3 For Using Reverse SEO to Hide In Plain Sight: Smoke Screen

Some people have the power to publish information.  This can be a valuable ability.  If you can put information out in the public, you can flood the system with your own well crafted false positives and obscure unwanted results. Record companies used this technique to disrupt the threat of file sharing to their bottom line.  Back when Napster was first becoming a threat to record companies, some companies flooded Napster with poor quality and partial versions of songs.  They sometimes put up hundreds of bad versions of a song to discourage people from having to sift through all of the false positives before they found what they were looking for, the complete, good quality version of the song.  The record companies made the corrupt files look like the best version and probably programmed bots to make downloads of the fake versions the most popular.

Conclusion

I am not suggesting you all become little flavorless, colorless scaredy-cats trying to hide all the time.  Use this to calculate the cost and benefit to your life of individuality in the public realm.  Manifest your inner snowflake to your heart’s content in private ways.  But, if you want to have a public presence and maintain control over your private life, try doing a little reverse SEO on your life to hide in plain sight.  The truth is, I don’t really know how this idea, intentionally obscuring public information, can best be used.  So this article is like an idea mating call.  Someone else will be able to take this idea, mate it with their own idea, and come up with some very useful offspring. Then again, this idea might just be a useless mutation in the evolution of ideas.  Leave your idea offspring in the comments.  Let me know how they might interact with other privacy tools and resources, or with privacy fencing, or with transactional databases.

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Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

How To Order Pizza Anonymously

Notice:  This information is in no way to be used by pranksters, practical jokers or angry ex-girlfriends.  This is a discussion of the very serious topic of pizza and pizza delivery.

You may not be aware, but Dominos Pizza maintains the largest consumer database in the world.  That’s right, Dominos!  Most people might be careful about revealing their personal information to websites, software companies, spammers and all kinds of other businesses, but just when you least expect it, even your pizza guy is keeping track of you.  I don’t know which is the bigger pizza delivery fail.

Transactional Databases Keep Track Of You

Why is this such a big deal? If you have taken great pains to keep your phone number and address out of public records, you may have to start all over after revealing that info to your favorite pizza delivery guy.   Even if you’re a Little Ceasar’s person, pay attention because this can apply to a lot of other companies who are doing the same thing as Dominos.    It is only a matter of time before the Corleone family finds which database you are in.

If you think you might have been caught up in a database like this and committed your own pizza delivery fail, it’s not too late.  You can let your trail in the transactional database go cold, which is almost as good as never appearing in it in the first place.

How To Avoid The Dominos Pizza Delivery Fail

First, do not call from any number that is associated with you.  You can block your phone number from their caller id.  Use *67 before dialing their number or ask your phone provider to keep your phone number blocked from caller id.  (*67 won’t work when dialing 911, 800, 900, 877 or other designated prefix numbers)

Another option is to get a spoofcard, prepaid calling card or use another caller id spoofing technique to call from any number that you want.  They will be keeping track of who calls them and if the number is known to them, they will know who you are.  You could also use a different Google voice number every time you call or just use a friend’s phone.

Don’t give them your real name.  There is nothing illegal about using any name you want as long as you aren’t going to defraud anyone.

Be sure to pay in cash.

If you have gotten this far you are probably in the clear.  Your address alone will probably not be enough information for them to link the purchase to you and your location.  Unless of course you have strange ordering habits, like ordering a half cheese, half anchovie pizza with cheese sticks, Fanta and Cinnasticks every single time you order.  This kind of order going to a million different names at the same address is as fishy as your pizza.

To protect your address, you might want to give them the address of your neighbor’s house.  Make sure your neighbor is okay with it first.  You can put up a note on their door with the full amount of cash and tip asking them to just leave the pizza on the porch.  Or, you can leave a note saying “Sorry, I am babysitting at 2456 not 2458.”

Conclusion

Transactional databases keep track of all kinds of stuff that you do.  They are increasingly cross referenced with other databases and available to more and more people.  Make sure to protect your information at all points along the way to prevent your own version of a pizza delivery fail.  For more tips like this, sign up for the email list.

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Reading time: 6 – 10 minutes

I have been fascinated recently with the Washington Post intelligence analysis by William Arkin and Dana Priest. Both are well known journalists who have covered the military and intelligence communities for many years. Realizing that something had changed after 9/11, they dedicated two years to investigating what the intelligence community had evolved into.

They first dug up the location of as many Top Secret facilities, both government and private, as possible. Then took somewhat of a guided tour, gaining access to several high ranking officials inside the Top Secret intelligence community to explain and clarify what each agency does and how they do it.

What They Discovered

Almost everyone is amazed when they see the creatures the government had created not only in size and scope, but in the amount of waste, redundancy, cost and ineffectiveness. There are 45 different government agencies with 1,271 subdivisions, all involved with intelligence. More than 2,000 private companies with government contracts provide some service to Top Secret agencies. In total, there are over 850,000 people nationwide who have Top Secret clearance working on intelligence gathering, analysis, support, implementation, etc. The massive size and scope of the intelligence community is larger than it ever was during the cold war and is directed as much at targets within the US as at targets abroad for the first time. They really have spared no expense. The US intelligence community has effectively become the “fourth branch of government.”

The Post is clearly more shocked about the size and inefficiency of the creatures which have been created. I am more concerned with how dangerous these creatures inherently are and how difficult they are to control by their very nature.

The Real Danger Of The Intelligence Community

The Washington Post fails to point out the most dangerous part of this scientific marvel that has been created. The judicial branch cannot act as a check on the intelligence community because judicial review is not required for almost any intelligence operations. Subsequent prosecution for any illegal conduct is nearly impossible because of the Top Secret nature of the evidence. The legislative branch requires no accountability or measures of success to check and balance the intelligence community with funding restrictions. The directors of these agencies, appointed by the executive branch and confirmed by the legislative branch, have admitted that the system is beyond their control. Like a more dangerous version of Jurassic Park, these intelligence agencies are vicious creatures which have been animated, have escaped from their cages, and are taking over the park.

The intelligence community was so preoccupied with whether or not they could build such a surveillance system, they didn’t stop to think if they should. The fourth branch of government is the most dangerous branch regardless of whether this surveillance and dataveillance of citizens is justified or not and whether it is effective or not. The sheer power and scope of this system allows unprecedented power over the lives of individuals. Should someone in any of these agencies want to exert control, no matter what the reason, the lack of accountability and lack of supervision makes it possible.

Intelligence Analysis Is Dangerous To Innocent Citizens

This kind of organization, without control or accountability, attracts sociopaths. Even if the intelligence agencies are benevolent in purpose, and even if their function is benevolent for a period of time, they will become infested with voracious velociraptors. Imagine the Corleone family having just one database administrator in their pocket.  The inherent goal of anyone gathering this data is to manipulate it, find patterns, and prove those patterns to be correct. These vast collectors of information don’t want to be fed, they want to hunt.

There will be no way for innocent people to protect themselves from being devoured alive because US law prohibits citizens from protecting much of their important financial and personal data. For example, the census is a mandatory disclosure of information. It is likely possible to re-identify 87% of the census responders who thought they were anonymous. Where disclosure of data is not required by law, private companies, which are regulated by government entities, are coerced into divulging information about their customers upon request by the government with a national security letter.

Geography Irrelevant For Intelligence Analysis

The Post focuses on whether the intelligence community is too big to be effective, a legitimate concern. They also focus on the geography of the intelligence community. Geography is irrelevant when it comes to dataveillance and data aggregation and analysis. The most important information tracked by these intelligence agencies is digital. Digital info exists simultaneously in as many places as you want it to exist. Your bank accounts and financial accounts are just a bunch of digits in an electronic database. Your identity is just a few characters and numbers in an electronic database. These velociraptors do not need geography to feed on your data and they don’t need geography to hunt you.

How You Can Escape The Park (Sort Of)

Since Top secret America is most concerned with data and information, one of the most effective ways to avoid being devoured by the dinosaurs that have taken control of the park is to control the data and information that is traceable to you with Freenet.  Freenet is an open source (that means free) peer to peer network which allows you to post information to the network completely anonymously and acquire information from the network completely anonymously. It will cost anyone, including the intelligence community, millions of dollars per person to link information with identity on Freenet. It will only cost users of Freenet a few minutes in time to anonymize that data.

There are even more robust tools in Freenet which allow you to create a network among only trusted individuals.  This creates even more protection against the intrusive eyes of an out of control ministry of information.  It is one of the ways that Chinese, Iranian and other citizens of closed societies are able to communicate ideas and information without retaliation from their most vicious predators. This prevents any tracking of information to you unless a warrant is served to search an individual computer.

Conclusion

The Washington Post has done an excellent job discovering the scope and size of the intelligence community that poses a greater threat to Americans than Hitler, Russia, or Osama ever did. If defeating the threat of Hitler, Russia, or Osama was made easier by using Freenet, would you use it?  Surveillance of citizens by government, surveillance of customers by corporations, private transactional databases, government transactional databases and other forms of search without a warrant are dangerous to a free society.  Also, be sure to check out the new Privacy Tools and Resources page posted on How To  Vanish that contains several intriguing videos about your privacy.

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Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes

The Matrix grows larger and stronger with every SAR Report (Suspicious Activity Report), Currency Transaction Report, bank transaction and everything else in the transactional databases.  How To Vanish is partly about how to unplug from the Matrix. The Matrix needs you to feed it. It knows where you are and what you do. If it doesn’t like you it can cut you off and shut you down. Neo escaped, not just by anonymous web surfing, but by unplugging from the Matrix and then controlling how and when he entered. He did not have to avoid it completely, and neither do you.

SAR Reports, Currency Transaction Reports, Transactional Databases

One way to control when you enter the Matrix is to transact anonymously with gold and silver.  There are very few monetary transactions that are completely anonymous. Using plastic cards leaves a trail in transactional databases for the Matrix to find and involves a lot of third parties. So does writing a check. Cash is usually very good for protecting privacy in transactions, but even cash is subject to SAR Report requirements, Currency Transaction Reports, Currency Controls and other restrictions. More detailed information about these regulations is found in the Bank Privacy Report.  As inflation rages on, the SAR Report and Currency Transaction Reporting requirements will likely creep into more and more common transactions, thus feeding the Matrix. Using gold or silver in your transactions instead of using the traditional cash, credit and debit cards or checks is one of the best ways to protect the anonymity of any transaction and escape the Matrix.

Versatile Gold and Silver

Gold and silver can be traded in many forms. Bullion bars, coins, digital accounts and other methods have made transacting in gold and silver easy. Digital gold transactions could form part of a strong overall strategy, but they leave an electronic audit trail which the Matrix can follow so I will leave the usefulness of digital gold for another day. Large quantities of gold and silver, such as bullion bars, can be used for very large transactions but bullion benefits from remaining within the official chain of custody.   Plus, the size of such transactions means the individuals will probably be dealing in something that has other transaction reporting requirements anyways, so the SAR Report and Currency Transaction Reports would not really expand the Matrix in this context anyways.

Using Gold and Silver Coins to Disconnect From The Matrix

Coins come in all kinds of sizes and are a standardized form of currency in most of the world. They usually do not have any unique identifiers, such as a serial number, which would permit them to be tracked.  Even if they had unique identifiers, they could easily be melted and the metal sold by weight and still retain most of its value.

Beating The Matrix At Its Own Game

Neo was the chosen one and mastered the rules of the Matrix, eventually beating it at its own game.  There is an added benefit that US law provides when dealing with gold and silver coins. Some gold and silver coins are legal tender in the US. Their legal tender face value is significantly less than the intrinsic value of the underlying metal. For example, a 1 ounce gold eagle coin has a face value of $50. The value of the metal in the coin is worth well over $1,000. If you pay an independent contractor to do your landscaping in cash, and you pay him more than $10,000 during the year, you will be subject to a transaction report. If, however, you pay him 10 gold coins, a total currency value of $500, you deny the Matrix of that information because you will probably not be subject to the same reporting requirements. Some have begun to beat the Matrix and take advantage of this arbitrage. The law is not resolved in this area so I would discuss with legal counsel before making any transactions which take advantage of this arbitrage.

Sovereign Wealth

Gold itself is not controlled in any way by any other individual, entity or government. This makes it completely free of any encumbrance. Encumbrances hinder privacy. Thus using gold in your transactions is the most private way to exchange anything.

Give Me The Pill Morpheus

Where do I find this blue pill so that I can start doing things off the grid of the Matrix? In other words, how do I get physical gold and silver coins to start transacting with gold? There are local coin dealers in a lot of places who can sell you legal tender gold coins. Local dealers might be subject to some limitations, for example they may not be able to take advantage of economies of scale.

Good Coin Dealer

Reputable online dealers allow you to take delivery of coins in most places around the country and don’t require you to appear in person. Ordering gold coins online will leave a record, but once you have possession of this gold, it is more anonymous than cash.  Once you have begun purchasing coins from these dealers, find others that you regularly deal with who will accept gold and silver coins as payment.  Advertise that you accept gold and silver coins yourself.  In my law practice and because of ‘this economy‘, I am happy to accept payment from clients in many different forms including all kinds of gold and silver, both legal tender and not.  If you find it hard to do this directly, look for ways to use hawala transactions to complete payment.

Conclusion

SAR Reports, Currency Transaction Reports and other currency controls can destroy the privacy and anonymity of financial transactions, even those using cash. Even anonymous browsing cannot prevent the requirement to record your transactions.  If you might be subject to those kinds of transaction reports, you may consider using legal tender gold and silver coins to unplug yourself from the Matrix. It is your choice, you can read How To Vanish, swallow the blue pill and follow me, or you can take the red pill and go back to the way things were.

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Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes

I hated having to check the mail. When I did receive mail in my mailbox, it was mostly ads, bulk mail and mass mailers that were a complete waste of my time and a waste of trees. Before I had figured out how to stop junk mail, I still had to go through that pile of junk in order to not miss the occasional important piece of mail that I got. I found a way to stop receiving mail and don’t receive regular mail anymore. You don’t have to either.  I will show you one way to stop receiving mail.

Problems Sending Mail From Home

To Stop Junk Mail, Start Online

There are ways to stop receiving mail that you don’t want by contacting many of the mass mailing marketing agencies that keep track of you and send junk mail to you.  I may cover that in another post, but my purpose here is to show you how to stop receiving mail altogether to stop junk mail.  It is actually possible to stop receiving mail at your curb side mailbox, even if you have received mail at that address before. First, it is helpful to eliminate all important mail, like bank statements, credit card bills, etc. Check those kinds of important accounts online if possible. Online security protocol should be followed of course.

To Stop Junk Mail, Use A New Address

You still may have items or accounts that do not allow for electronic monitoring, or you may not want to risk the potential insecurity of online activity. For these items you can use a PO box or private mail receiving agency, like Earth Class Mail, to receive your mail. Another option is to receive mail at an office or location that has more security than a curb side mail box. All of these options will prevent someone from snooping through your mail, possibly taking important items or even stealing your identity. Earth Class Mail is also a good way to easily dispose of unwanted junk mail easily.

Once you no longer depend on the mail for service, you can take steps to stop mail delivery to your home. The post office allows requests from customers to hold delivery of their mail for up to 30 days. I am unaware if there are any limits to how often you can do this, or if you can extend this request for longer than 30 days.

Stop Receiving Mail By Not Checking Mail

You can rely on another postal regulation to cease mail delivery to your house completely. I don’t think the USPS likes people doing this, but it is within the regulations of the post office. If your mail accumulates in your mailbox and more mail cannot be reasonably delivered, the mailman will take all of your mail and hold it at the post office. Oreo will double stuff their cookies, the post office will not.  He will not deliver more mail to your house until you pick your mail up at the post office. You will be notified with a short note left in your mailbox where your pile of useless junk mail once sat. Once you have read the note, you should leave it in the mailbox for good so that the mailman is not aware that you have ever seen the note. They will only hold your mail for a few weeks, so anything older than a few weeks will be returned to sender.

This is easier to do if you can avoid the mailman. It might make for uncomfortable conversation if you regularly do yoga on your front lawn whenever your mailman comes by or if you see him at parties. If your house appears to be a vacation home, this technique will also be more effective.

Conclusion

I do not think the post office intends for people to stop checking their mail so they can stop receiving their mail.  That is the unintended result of their policy.  This is just one of many of the strategies discussed in the book How To Vanish that are legal but that the authorities don’t really want you to know about.  Do not let your private information sit unattended at the curb every day.  If possible use a reputable CMRA such as Earth Class Mail as this will both protect your privacy, increase peace of mind and save you time. It will also help you when you are traveling outside of tax free states so that you don’t expose yourself to unjust tax liability.  Fight the urge to check your mail just for a while and you will never have to check it again.

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Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

Privacy helps promote many of the freedoms that any good declaration of human rights would protect.  Press freedom, freedom of movement, and freedom of belief.  There are countless people who need to vanish but have not taken the appropriate steps, even though doing so might be protecting human rights.  In some cases, like Theo van Ghogh, it is unfortunately too late to do anything like send him a copy of How to Vanish and we can only learn from his unfortunate examples.  I don’t know if they are unaware of the benefits, or if they are looking and know not where to find the information that they need. Maybe it hasn’t even occurred to them that they need to know how to vanish to protect themselves, their families, their wealth, and even their lives.

Press Freedom is Comedic Freedom

Trey Parker and Matt Stone recently made an attempt to parody a religious figure in a cartoon without much thought to the consequences to their lives or safety. Thinly veiled threats were cast soon after the news of this parody became public, warning of violence against them. I haven’t seen the offending episode, but there is no level of comedic sacrilege that rises to the level of a capital crime.  Press freedom is a basic freedom, even if is not very funny. I don’t know if they have taken the appropriate steps to make themselves vanish yet, but as soon as the book How To Vanish is released, which it will be soon, I am thinking of sending them a copy.

Declaration of Human Rights, Even for Politicians

And it’s not just comedians who need to be protecting human rights.  I may not care too much for many politicians, but they have family members who really can’t be blamed for the mess those politicians have gotten everyone into. Newsweek, with their press freedom, recently reported that the brother of a crazy politician became the target of the ire of his brother’s constituents. Regardless of whether the politician deserved it or not, I bet the brother didn’t. Can we really blame Roger Clinton for the reckless lifestyle of his brother, or Billy Carter for the ineffectiveness of his brother, or Harpo Marx for the bumblings of his brother?  The publicity of some branches of a family tree makes the other branches that much more vulnerable to privacy invasion.

Protecting Press Freedom and Other Freedoms

The most basic steps that can be taken to avoid the plight of the comedian and the relatives of comedians would be to maintain anonymous residences by owning property in trust, renting a residence from a private party, using location independent communication, like MyFax.com, and never disclosing the actual physical address to anyone.

Press Freedom… For Real This Time

Journalists and their sources are similarly at risk of exposure to some harms from their lack of knowledge of the concepts of How To Vanish. Apple is threatening legal action against Gizmodo and the person who turned the prototype iphone 4G in to have it analyzed and its specs published. Although I do not condone any actions in violation of any law, had both entities used proper techniques to anonymously disclose the information to those who could anonymously disseminate it, both would be free from the hassles of any frivolous or meritless lawsuits, which can and often do bankrupt innocent parties in the attempt to fight the frivolous and meritless claims.

Some easy ways to do this would be to use anonymous email addresses, register the domain of a website in the name of an offshore LLC which has nominee directors and host that website in a far flung part of the globe.

Conclusion

There are probably thousands of other examples. The point is that these people may not even know the benefit of vanishing, the risks that their exposure may present or How To Vanish. Also, sharing the techniques of How To Vanish with others in your social circle increases the privacy of your entire social network.  Go ahead and email, retweet or share on Facebook this, or any other article that might save people time, money, freedom or safety.  You may even help facilitate Hawala transactions, private communications, location independence and other important privacy practices by doing so.

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