Invisible Privacy | Online Privacy

The “owner” will be invisible because he or she does not exist.

Unless fraud is involved, I believe this practice to be entirely legal. Let’s suppose your name is Anita B. Chavez, Golda A.Goldstein, or Bashiyra Binte Nur Um Lifti. You resolve to start a business via the Internet, and you
decide that, in the particular fi eld you have chosen, a generic-type man’s name would look better.

First, choose a three-word business name with the same initials as yours. Then invent a man’s name with the same initials. For example:

. . . . . Your actual name: Anita B. Chavez
. . . . . Bank account name: A. B. Chavez
. . . . . Business name: Awesome Birthday Cards
. . . . . “Owner” name: Albert B. Caldwell
. . . . . Checks made out to: A.B.C.

The opposite is true, of course, if you are a man who wishes to sell merchandise that will appeal to women. Choose a woman’s name that will seem best to go with the product.

The above information is taken verbatim from SKIP COLLEGE: Go into business for yourself. This e-book has many more tips and tricks for those are--or hope to be--self-employed.

Labels: anonymous bank account, business name, go into business, nom de plume, pen name, skip college

A common complaint from readers of How to Be Invisible is that when they move to a new location, neighbors start asking them their name and where they work.

1. Alter your name to hide your identity

Keep your first name but change your last name just enough so the neighbors cannot Google you. It’s best if the name rhymes so that if a neighbor later learns your true identity, you can explain that he may have misunderstood when you previously gave him your name.

Examples: Change Benson to Jensen, Hernandez to Fernandez, Martin to Barton, Ryan to Brian, Crosby to Cosby, Dawson to Lawson, and O’Reilly to Reilly or Smiley.

If that doesn’t work, perhaps you can use your middle name as your last name. This works well with using a passport as ID because the first and middle names are on the same line, with the last name below. More than once I’ve had persons glance at my passport and think my middle name was my last name.

2. Be vague about where you work to hide your identity.

The best choice here is to indicate you work for yourself in some obscure niche that no one will question further. However, if you leave and return each day at a given time, you may need to give a specific answer. I have a friend who says he works for the IRS. That usually ends any questions about his job.

Labels: hide my identity, hide name, hide your identity, new name, pen name

Suppose it is known that you will be in a big city on a certain date, and that you often stick with a certain hotel chain? How would you like to hide your identity and thus avoid calls from persons such as ex-employees, ex-wives, ex-inlaws, or even private investigators?

In days gone by, you could hide your identity by checking into a hotel under any name you liked, pay cash, and that was it. No longer, of course. All major (and most minor) hotels will not rent you a room without a valid credit card and government-issued ID. So can you still hide your identity in 2009? Yes, you can.

Since I am a privacy consultant, many readers of How to Be Invisible know that I often meet my clients at the Westin in Bellevue, the Encore in Vegas, or the Pan Pacific in Vancouver, BC. Does anyone ever try to call me there?

Perhaps, but I have no way of knowing because callers will be told, "Mr. Luna is not registered here." How can this be?

Like a magician who reveals a magic trick, when I reveal my secret, it will seem to be obvious. Nevertheless, only a few of my clients who've had personal consultations with me use this system. Here is how I hide my identity when staying at a hotel:

I have a single Visa credit card account, originally issued in my own name. However, I later applied for a second card on the same account. Reason: I needed to separate expenses when I traveled in my "professional" name. The second card was issued with no problem. You can do the same. Your reason can be that you use another name as an author, an actor, a musician, or whatever. No one will check.

Then, when you travel, you have a choice. Either travel under your real name but give out the professional name, or vice versa. When checking in, you will be asked for ID. Show your passport. Even when you've made your reservation under the assumed name, my experience has been that all the clerk wants to see is your picture. If a question should ever arise, just explain that the name in your passport identifies you, but the reservation was made in your professional name because your credit card is in that name.

And that, folks, is how you can hide your identity when you stay at a hotel.

(Note: I have not checked this out overseas. If any of you European readers have been able to hide your identity while staying at a hotel, please contact me via e-mail or with a post to Canary Islands Press.)

Labels: anonymous travel, disappear, duplicate names, European privacy, hide my identity, hide your identity, hotel privacy, pen name, privacy consultant, privacy consulting, professional name, travel privacy

“It takes years to master any martial art,” says Matt Thomas, the world class martial artist who founded the first Model Mugging program over 34 years ago. “It can, in fact, take several years just to learn a correct karate punch.”

“If you really want to learn the martial arts,” adds Massad Ayoob in The Truth About Self-Protection, “you must understand that it will take hundreds or even thousands of hours of hard work, strenuous calisthenics, bruised and pulled muscles.”

What about weapons such as knives, scissors, or even small handguns? Well, first, you have to have the weapon ready and available when you need it, and you seldom if ever know ahead of time about an impending attack. And, even if you have the weapon ready, unless you can disguise it, you lose the all-important element of surprise—one of the fundamentals of good self-defense. Here are two weapons that do not look like weapons and that can be naturally carried in your hand:

1. SureFire flashlight.
These high-intensity lights are used by elite military units such as the U.S. Navy SEALs, Rangers, Ravens, Recon and Delta. The SureFire E2D LED Defender is less than five inches long, weighs only 3.2 ounces, and can seldom be seen when you carry it in your hand. This powerful little package is designed to inflict serious damage. In addition, if attacked in the dark, you can blind the assailant by aiming the unit directly at his eyes and then triggering the 120-lumen beam by pressing the large button on the end.

2. Mont Blanc 'Meisterstuck' pen.
If you have been trained in the use of a Kubotan, the Mont Blanc Meisterstuck can be a devastating weapon. The pen is heavy, strong, and the pointed end makes it even more dangerous than the blunt end of a Kubotan. Both the pens and the SureFire flashlights can be ordered at Amazon.com. Expect to pay about $140 for the flashlight or $300 for the pen.

Additional information on more self-defense weapons is available in Dirty Tricks.

Labels: flashlight, Kubotan, martial arts, Massad Ayoob, Matt Thomas, Model Mugging, mont blanc, pen name, self defense, SureFire

The problem with prescriptions is that you lose your privacy when the pharmacist enters your name, address and telephone number into a database.

Step one. Tell the doctor to make your prescription out in your first initial and last name. Only once have I had a problem with this. When I got out to my car, I noticed that—despite my instructions—the doctor had nevertheless included my first name. I returned to the office, showed the prescription to the nurse at the counter, and said, “Doctor Jones told me he would make this to J. Luna but I see he forgot, and put in my first name. Please have him write it again to just J. Luna.” She disappeared into the back, and returned within minutes with the new prescription.

Step two: Select a new first name, one that begins with the same initial. For example, if your name is Dale Martin and your prescription reads D. Martin, you can use another name such as Dalton, Davis, Dean, Denton, Dick, Drake, or Dudley.

Step three: Choose a new address, phone number, and a new date of birth to go along with the new name.

Step four: Order your prescription at a pharmacy where you have never been before. For maximum security, prepare a business card on your computer with a foreign address and phone number. One of my consulting clients has business cards made up in a variation of his name, with an address in Spain’s Canary Islands. (The address is legitimate because he has a ghost address that is available on my website.) When a pharmacist sees the address, he or she usually just enters “Spain” and skips the telephone number.

Once you’ve gotten a prescription this way, you have two choices for the next time you need one filled. You can go back to the same place, use the same data (show the label on your previous bottle), and be prepared with an answer to a question such as “Oh, I see you are visiting again from …” Or, you can choose another first name, another date of birth, another address and phone number, and go to a different pharmacy.

Labels: alternate name, foreign address, ghost address, pen name, pharmacy, prescription