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Old 02-10-2019, 01:17 PM   #21
Andreas
 
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Default Re: Skill for laying low in an urban area

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Originally Posted by Polydamas View Post
What if your new social circle/employer wants you to communicate by phone? Its pretty common for people offering irregular work to have a list of people's phone numbers, and if one does not answer they call the next one. In many cities the "used stuff for sale" and "job postings" have moved to FB, someone without an account has a disadvantage finding work and setting up their cheap apartment. (And yes, you can create new accounts, but FB is very very good at figuring out that two accounts belong to the same person, and you only have to slip once).
You get another prepaid phone?

As for FB figuring it out, that is easy to avoid if you only have to use some such services.
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Old 02-10-2019, 01:20 PM   #22
evileeyore
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Default Re: Skill for laying low in an urban area

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And yes, you can create new accounts, but FB is very very good at figuring out that two accounts belong to the same person...
It's not as easy as they like to claim it is. Number one: Don't log in to your seperate accounts using the same device. Number two: See number one!
Number three: Don't post the same pictures or tag the same articles or follow the same people across your accounts.

Easy-peasy.
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Old 02-10-2019, 02:05 PM   #23
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Default Re: Skill for laying low in an urban area

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It's not as easy as they like to claim it is. Number one: Don't log in to your seperate accounts using the same device. Number two: See number one!
Number three: Don't post the same pictures or tag the same articles or follow the same people across your accounts.

Easy-peasy.
I wish it was that simple, but a lot of bright disciplined people I follow who have very good reasons to keep accounts separate think that FB has figured it out. For example, if they have access to location data on either account they will use that to see if Jane Doe and Janet Donne are often in the same place and awake similar hours, they will also see if Jane and Janet often use the same IP address or visit similar sites with a FB like button. They run facial recognition software on the photos Jane's friends upload and the photos Janet's friends upload, and sometimes they notice a common face in the backgrounds (and yes, many people police when friends can take their photos, but you only have to fail once, say at a crowded social event late at night). And they have hundreds of people who are more devious than I am working full time on tracking users.

I don't think they are all-knowing, but I think that unless you have serious training and skills, you can assume that they can link all your accounts together and that they know something about your real identity. (Sorting out the facts from the bad guesses and the deliberate misinformation is the job of the person tracking the character in the original post, who are probably rolling against Intelligence Analysis or Research).
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Last edited by Polydamas; 02-10-2019 at 02:08 PM.
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Old 02-10-2019, 03:00 PM   #24
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Skill for laying low in an urban area

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What if your new social circle/employer wants you to communicate by phone? .
What new social circle/employer? What is involved in hiding is different from fabricating a whole new identity for yourself.
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Old 02-10-2019, 03:44 PM   #25
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Default Re: Skill for laying low in an urban area

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What new social circle/employer? What is involved in hiding is different from fabricating a whole new identity for yourself.
I think mine and Polydamas' point is that it isn't, really. Unless you somehow have enough cash on hand to survive for as long as you need to hide, which might be years or the rest of your life, then you're going to need enough of a new identity to be able to get a job, a place to live, etc.

At our TL8, in the countries most of us reading are living, people don't just carry that much cash with them and society increasingly assumes that anyone without credit cards, picture ID, bank accounts and credit ratings are either criminals or at least enough of a bad risk so that no one wants them living on their property or working for them.

After all, if you can't charge their card for damages, what will you do if the reason they didn't want to show ID is that they planned to steal everything in the room that wasn't nailed down and trash most of the rest?
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Old 02-10-2019, 03:49 PM   #26
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Default Re: Skill for laying low in an urban area

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You get another prepaid phone?
There are places where you can get prepaid phones without showing ID and filing out documents with all your real information, but increasing numbers of countries are simply banning that, as something they maintain is only used by criminals on the run, drug dealers and terrorists.

Most of Continental Europe already assumes that you'll leave a thick paper and computer trail anywhere you go, no matter what you do. And as far as paper trail goes, that sort of thing goes back to the 19th century.

The right to privacy, in Europe, explicitly does not include the right to travel under any name but your own or to rent apartments or hotel rooms without ID. Yes, you can find places to rent where the owner is indifferent and allows you to get away with filing false paperwork, but that's either random chance, or if you seek it out deliberately, a pretty classic use of Area Knowledge for a place you know or Streetwise for a place you don't already know that well.
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Old 02-10-2019, 04:33 PM   #27
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Default Re: Skill for laying low in an urban area

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At our TL8, in the countries most of us reading are living, people don't just carry that much cash with them and society increasingly assumes that anyone without credit cards, picture ID, bank accounts and credit ratings are either criminals or at least enough of a bad risk so that no one wants them living on their property or working for them.
In the US, if the police find you with significant cash, they may classify it as proceeds of crime and confiscate it.

Of course, Streetwise can find people who will help you make transactions in cash and avoid official record keeping.
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Old 02-10-2019, 05:49 PM   #28
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Default Re: Skill for laying low in an urban area

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If the police are after you, Criminology is useful for knowing what kind of indicators they can track and Intelligence Analysis does the same if you will be tracked by professionals with acess to information sources beyond what the police can legally get in a useful time frame.
I still remember from Furst's The Polish Officer a scene where the hero (a Polish underground agent) consulted a former detective for a How To Be A Fugitive.
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Old 02-10-2019, 07:26 PM   #29
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Default Re: Skill for laying low in an urban area

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I think mine and Polydamas' point is that it isn't, really. Unless you somehow have enough cash on hand to survive for as long as you need to hide, which might be years or the rest of your life, then you're going to need enough of a new identity to be able to get a job, a place to live, etc.
You might have enough cash. No time frame was specified You might support yourself with some kind of crime. You could be a hot young woman and just let men take you home or to hotels. You could join the unkempt ranks of the homeless and dumpster dive for food.
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Old 02-10-2019, 07:39 PM   #30
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Default Re: Skill for laying low in an urban area

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You might have enough cash. No time frame was specified You might support yourself with some kind of crime. You could be a hot young woman and just let men take you home or to hotels. You could join the unkempt ranks of the homeless and dumpster dive for food.
Uh, you realize that my argument was essentially that you needed skills like Streetwise or Urban Survival, while Andreas maintained that no skill is needed and characters without Disadvantages never need to roll anything to disappear in an unfamilar city and stay hidden. You've added Sex Appeal to the list of skills that you can use (good catch), but otherwise you're not apparently disagreeing with me.
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