Infoglut

In a creative writing class in college I wrote a short story called Infoglut. To summarize, Infoglut was about a hacker who had been busted and was being tracked by the feds via an ankle bracelet. In the end of the story the hacker had escaped by buying plane tickets on multiple flights out of the country even with the ankle bracelet. There were too many flights to track and so he escaped. He knew that feds could not determine his location once he was out of the country. He escaped, the end.

I was talking to an old boss of mine about personal information and how to avoid Big Brother scenario where the government knows too much about us. He suggested that as more and more information is gathered about us that more and more people will want to opt out. My boss said that there will be business opportunities to protect individuals information but services that will ensure anonymity. These services won't be cheap.

Now there are new technologies available to allow tracking via RFID (radio frequency identification), our personal information stored as biometric information, and smart cards which embedded chips that can store information. GPS devices are already being built into the latest mobile phones.

We then started talking about what can be done to get yourself, "Off the Grid." I think thought about what all of the illegals probably do. Use one of those cellphones that can be purchased with a set amount of minutes. Buy additional minues later. Get rid of all credit cards. Get of all of those reward cards. Use cash as often as possible.

Then I realized I rely too much on the conveniences of using my cellphone, credit card, and the discounts I receive using reward cards.

Is Anonymity impossible?

http://ezinearticles.com/?Catch-Me-If-You-Can---The-Art-Of-Remaining-Anonymous&id=1198718
http://www.rfidnews.org/library/2008/07/14/id-industry-fighting-big-brother-image/