These days it is becoming harder and harder to live your life without some kind of interference from the government. Individual sovereignty has become virtually lost. There are, however, some things you can do to fly under the radar of government and become independent. This is a list of tips and tricks for living your life without the burden of government, or to help you if you simply wish to disappear.
This means pay in cash – always (unless you own an anonymous credit card), shred any documentation you do not need (use a decent shredder that turns your paper in to dust – authorities can piece together the basic type of shredded documents). Don’t use your real name if possible, and definitely don’t apply for credit. Your credit report is like a big map pointing right to you.
If you are going to be using the internet in your secret lifestyle, you should do everything you can to secure yourself online. This means using PGP (encryption software) when emailing people (and using an email account that can not be traced to you directly), and, most importantly, it means saying nothing online that you would not be prepared to see on the front page of the newspaper.
Most countries allow you to buy prepaid mobile phones that do not need to be registered to a name or address. Once you get your prepaid sim card, only top it up with cash and do not give anyone the number. Use the number exclusively for making outgoing calls. If you are planning to contact someone that may be looking for you, you should discard the prepaid sim once a month and try to buy prepaid sims online that will let you call from a foreign number.

In order to reduce the chances of someone finding you when you don’t want to be found, you need to stop using things like frequent flier points, ATMs (unless you have an anonymous card – see item 2), cable, video store memberships, etc. For entertainment there is always the internet – and if you are wanting to avoid having an internet account linked to you, just download the latest music and movies from a free internet cafe.

The best way to remain anonymous (and therefore to be ignored by the powers that be) is to live a simple lifestyle. If you lead a flashy lifestyle, live in the best house, drive the latest Bentley, throw world famous parties, people are going to start paying attention and the taxman is going to wonder how you can afford it. In the case of tax evasion, some governments can even order you to give detailed evidence of how you have paid for your high price consumer goods if they are unable to find a taxable source of income in your life. This can then be used as evidence of tax fraud.

For 75,000 Euros, you can become an official diplomatic of one of two stable Southern African (but not South Africa) nations. The result is that you are exempt from tax in your country of residence from all income earned outside of the nation. Your home becomes an officially registered consulate and you receive immunity from the governmental forces. While this won’t help you with anonymity, it does help you with avoidance of the law.

A mail drop enables you to receive mail from anywhere without your real address becoming known. It can act as a complete barrier between you and companies on the internet that you buy goods from, and can help protect you from people who are seeking information on your wealth based on your home’s location and public records. Coupled with a false name and false documentation, you can virtually become a new person.
This is perhaps the best method of becoming a sovereign individual. A perpetual tourist keeps his finances in tax havens and then travels the world spending as much time as is necessary to avoid becoming official resident anywhere. Tourists are often treated better than residents and you can choose to live in nations that are closer to your way of thinking.

Anonymous credit cards are quite easy to come by on the internet. You simply provide upfront funds and an email address and you are emailed your card number and expiry date. When you use the card online you can give any name and address and security code as the clearing house will only take in to account the number and expiry date. This means that you have less security as it is easier for someone to steal your card number and use it – but you have 100% total anonymity. Combined with a mail drop, you can purchase any goods you want and they can never be traced to you.

Believe it nor you can actually legally have a false passport made. They are called camouflage passports and are usually passports from a country that no longer exists, such as the USSR and Rhodesia. Groups who make and supply these passports say: “a camouflage passport is designed to look realistic enough to allow a person to conceal his nationality in event of a hijacking, riot or some similar situation where his identity may single him out as a crime victim”. Additionally, you often also receive (free of charge) an accompanying drivers license and other forms of ID from the same nation as the passport – to help substantiate your false identity. Purchasing information can be found here.
![Cash[1]](http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/cash1-tm.jpg?w=400&h=247)























Mel: Being both a fundamentalist Islamic terrorist *and* a raging pedophile, I find this list to be *most* helpful in helping kill as many infidels and molest as many children as is humanly possible. I didn't even know it was *possible* to kill this many infidels and molest this many kids! And, thank Allah, had it not been for Jfrater and the Listverse, I might never have gotten away with it all! Thank you, Jamie, and may Allah have mercy on your damned heathen soul!
“Flying under the radar”?
I would think making your airplane go really, really low would be the obvious answer…
Cool. Now I can get away with all of my random criminal activity.
Nice list! These are some interesting ideas, but it just seems like too much effort! XD
what about a cheesy mustache and a hat for all of those security cameras
Great list, though I would of called it “10 Ways to Disappear” instead of how to fly under the radar. The title makes me think of stealth flying.
Another list to add to the ‘perfect crime’, ‘survive in prison’, ‘kill with bare hands’ etc type I see ! haha This one’s a great one, really interesting. I didn’t realise there was that much you could do to keep such a low profile.
T: that would be number 11
Pete: Flying under the radar is a colloquial term for being invisible to those around you
Thank you for this list! I shall now move to the U.S. and become a notorious domestic terrorist!
This list just screams “made for britney spears”. And also, now i can commit the perfect crime AND not get caught, and if need be, survive in prison, all thanks to listverse.
dangorironhide: yeah – I did think of that though I put this one in travel not crime. I am keen to a list relating to spying too – I need to do some research first.
Shabab: let’s hope this list will make the need for the prison survival list redundant
great guide for terrorists and pedophiles!
Hope you’re not planning on disappearing on us, Jamie. Great list.
Ah, a throwback! Excellent, Jfrater, most excellent.
I would like to know where to get a false passport please.
Rocky: just adding the link at the bottom
Interesting combination of comments so far
SlickWilly: As a fundamental Islamic terrorist, you of all people should know that Jamie is an infidel, not a heathen.
Oh – and for the record, I wrote the list with individual sovereignty in mind – not criminal behavior!
i get curious looks when someone glances at my screen at work. i am quite sure they think i am a criminal. wonder if listverse is going to make me lose my job!
Feel I wasted my time reading this…
What about covering your face with your hands? No one can see you if you can’t see them…
Sucks to be you, then, osj.
although I feel that Big Brother is ever encroaching upon our personal liberties, aside from becoming a perpetual tourist, none of these are worth the time or effort for me. with some employers now having employees “clock-in” by using their fingerprints, cameras inside of road signs and at every stoplight, cameras inside every store… and with people thinking that GPS is the greatest thing since individually wrapped cheese slices.. it is just damn near impossible to truly remain undetected in your life.
to live somewhat undetected today, one has to forgo a bank account, never own a house, buy a vehicle cash (no financing!), work for yourself out of your basement with an on-line business, never get sick, don’t ever get fingerprinted…or arrested, or go in public, or ever get a driver’s license…
*sigh* you can’t even buy anything from Home Depot without giving your phone number, Petco offers discounts if you have a Petco card, etc. etc. It’s just business’ way to ‘predict’ our spending habits… are we so predictable? are we really?
makes me sick. are things any better in Australia? or New Zealand? I’ve been batting the idea of moving away from the U.S. and heading to Australia. My surfer boyfriend will love it, I could work for the RSPCA, and, if I live in the right area, actually live with a real Dingo! (I have Australia Cattle Dogs) it seems you Aussies work less and have more than many of us blue-collar Americans…
yeah… that could work… but the damn quarantine period and restrictions for domestic pets is quite stringent…I once helped a man to export his 2 huge St. Bernards to Australia… and it cost him over 5,000$ to do so!so maybe I have to wait…
ringtailroxy
cute list…but dude, ATM machine (#7)? SUCH a pet peeve of mine!!
Lucky: fixed
I know how it feels. It annoys me when people say “the hoi polloi” as well.
Um… interesting?
Cool list. The perpetual tourist route definitely sounds appealing.
Growing up in a low income family in the U.S. a lot of these are things that were necesary for my family in my yojnger years (paying cash, no bank acct or credit cards and even getting a passport was unthinkable).
Wanna stay undetected? Stay home.
Haha, I kid. Pretty interesting list! Just too much effort for my taste.
I’m going to buy a diplomacy, declare my apartment a consulate, and appoint my cat as my right hand man. That’s about the coolest thing I’ve ever heard.
For most of us, this list is way too late.
I have internet trails going back to 1996.
Plus a real job, with direct deposit, etc.
Ahh well….
LOL- this happens to coincide with the book I’m writing…
ringtailroxy wrote:
“*sigh* you can’t even buy anything from Home Depot without giving your phone number”
Whenever a store asks for my phone number I give them the local area code and then 867-53zero9.
If you say zero instead of o, they never catch on, at least no one has so far.
Ginger Lee:
I hope that you will use a pseudnym, and an account in Andorra or Dubai to bank your royalties.
Ginger Lee: what is the book?
stevenh: I have internet trails too – I would have to get a new identity entirely
My brother actually lived under the Radar quite successfully. He never paid taxes, etc… but lived a nice life as a world traveler. He played fair, but didn’t like the idea of “the man” or becoming a number. He lived that lifestyle until the end. I admired his stance, though I could never pull it off, and even at the end, when he contracted cancer, he didn’t apply for any assistance or aid. His reasoning was that he led a solo existance and would go out the way he came in.
He was quite an interesting fellow.
This post is perfect for Harlequins and Travelers to fly below the Brethren’s radar.
i just build a fort in my living room with blankets and chairs. can’t find me there.
reminds me of an iron maiden song, ya know?
BishopWhiteT: Maybe it’s because I’m a Brit, but I don’t get it…
pookyB: Which song?
dangorironhide:
It’s not a Brit vs. American thing so much as a generational thing. “867-5309″ is the famous phone number in the refrain of “Jenny” by Tommy Tutone… a huge hit in the early 80s. As in:
Jenny Jenny, who can I turn to?
867-53-OH-9…
Randall: Aah, thanks! I’ve heard of that before actually haha
you don’t have to give your phone number to any store that asks for it.
it’s just to get on their mailing list, and if your number is unlisted it won’t even work.
bath and body works/victoria’s secret does it.
so does babies r us.
just say no!
awesome list, by the way
If this list means flying under the radar of the government then I am screwed for I must be flying far above the radar. Well, except for #6. It seems like I can barely afford to eat sometimes let alone think about lots of luxurious things.
Thanks for the list.
It not so much “how to cover up criminal behavior” but more so “how to avoid becoming a victim of the criminal behavior of your own government”
Individual sovereignty is something that Americans have forgotten about.
Too many have been willing to trade in their hard fought liberties for a cozy feeling of pseudo safety.
Its actually sickening.
Some of you may welcome Orwell’s vision of the future but I for one will fight with every ounce of energy I have to prevent the tyranny that is looming on the horizon.
While safety and security may be important, they have never been, nor will they ever be as important as freedom and liberty.
Don’t let the cost of freedom cost you your freedom.
Again, thanks for the list.
very fascinating and informative list.
jfrater, do YOU
jeff: (just to play devil’s advocate) if the government is the one that makes the rules, how can thier behavior be criminal?
Disc,
Our current administration didn’t write the Constitution, or Bill of Rights, but for some reason they cannot seem to abide by it.
jeff: but they control what is right and wrong legally, even to the point of being able to change what was our foundation. if they want to do something, they have the power and right to do so, right?
Very informative, and good to know should I hit the lam.
Jfrater- Re, #3, how does one cross international borders without a valid passport? I suggest changing #3 to, no international travel.
vesselman: very easily – live in Europe – passports are not required between many of the EU nations now.
vesselman: number 3 is more for tax benefits than hiding really.
Thanks!
Disc,
Trying to change the foundation (AKA constitutional amendments) is of course their right.
There is a big difference however between using legal means (2/3 majority vote) as opposed to ignoring the LAW.
They are not attempting to amend the constitution, they are choosing to ignore it.
That is the difference, and that in itself makes all the difference.
Those fake passports are cool but they cost a fortune! They want 500 euros for them.
Forgive me if you’ve already seen this wheeze:
Orwell’s tapping the inside of his coffin lid and yelling, “It’s a cautionary tale, you dolts–not a motivational speech!
Being a perpetual tourist would be awesome, unfortunately you need to be ludicrously wealthy in order to maintain such a lifestyle. Maybe the next list should be “top 10 ways to get rich.”
Nice, that body that’s buried is starting to draw attention, now with these tips, They’ll never know…
Wow you really can learn everything/anything on the internet.