For no particular reason (other than that typical "falling down a rabbit hole" thing the Internet brings us), I found myself looking for an old friend, a couple of days ago.
This is the Age of the Internet, and we all know that "everybody" uses email, and "everybody" is on Facebook or somewhere online.
Invisibility in the Information Age
Heart of a Gerber Daisy
Surprisingly, my friend was not "visible," at all.
Whereas I did find her the information was limited to one single name listing on the web site of her employer (with no contact information or email address) and once very brief video clip on a TV news channel web site where she was briefly interviewed after she and her husband's house had flooded during heavy rains.
No other mentions whatsoever, including through a couple of "legal" services I'm subscribed to. No Facebook, no photos, no videos, no references, no anything.
It made me pause and think about the whole "privacy" issue, and how we often talk about the ways our modern technology, social media and cameras everywhere rob us of our privacy.
People Who Don't WANT to be Found Remain Hidden
I was reminded of a friend of mine who's adopted and wanted to find her birth parents.
Thistle in the afternoon sun
Several years of searching by investigation professionals yielded pretty much nothing but dead ends and blind alleys. Even the investigator eventually came back with the conclusion these people did not want to be found.
That was-- in the end-- the only "tell." Their absence was so perfectly complete that it could only exist as a result of someone very deliberately not wanting to be found and taking active steps to always cover any and all trails that might lead their way.
As I reflected on this... I concluded that just like there are people who believe "We have ways of finding people you cannot even imagine," there is an opposite side to that coin called "we have ways of hiding and covering our tracks you cannot even imagine."
I suppose I share these words-- in part-- as encouragement to those who want to truly move "off the grid."
What do YOU think? You know anyone who-- quite literally-- "isn't" on the Internet? Completely unreferenced, in every conceivable way? Ever try to find a friend you know is alive and well, yet there are zero references to them, even with extensive searching? Are YOU somebody who largely tries to stay "off the grid?" Do you think it still IS possible to keep a measure of privacy? Share your experience-- leave a comment-- start the conversation!
(As per usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
I have a very common name. I have done extensive searching for myself and found nothing except a few false trails I've created. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I find that disinformation is more useful in certain circumstances than a simple cold trail.
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Very true... with the friend who could not find her birth parents after adoption, it was eventually concluded that someone (now dead) had actually been bribed to falsify information on the adoption records, birth certificate and elsewhere. An effort had been made to create an unsurpassable "non-trail."
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DNA databases get more numerous and larger all the time. She can't get rid of her DNA, neither can her parents.
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Indeed. With someone younger it would probably have been different; with someone in their late 40's looking for parents probably nearing 70, a whole different set of records were kept.
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There are various databases around, not all of them are available to be searched.
For instance, I think that all foreigners entering The U.K. have their DNA taken. I'm unsure where else this is done, yet. New uses are being found daily. Medical, criminal, and immigration enforcement among them.
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Actually... my dear friend @denmarkguy, I know that you know pretty well, that around these days, there is no possible way to simply disappear or gain any state of complete vanishing from the claws & paws of internet if at some point in time before you dared to put a single foot onto the realms of civilization.
Virtually, no one can and won't be able to wear not even the most minimal cloaking cape of absolute and infallible Invisibility in this highly/widely wired world. Not even Ted Kaczynski succeeded with that.
To find abundant data about someone on internet, it only takes using a fatter & bigger oxygen tank to dive a little bit deeper online. Never forget that the well Known Internet is barely, scarcely.. simply the very top tip of the iceberg. :)
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Without doubt, there is more information on the "deepnet" than immediately meets the eye. The interesting thing, though,,, is that the "difficult to find" ones tend to be the "mousy and very average" people who own almost nothing and have never been in trouble with the law or any authorities, who don't own property or a car, and who are "room mates" but their name is never the person renting; who call people only from a so-called "go phone" and so on. They pay any bills they may have by sending money orders in letters, not by going online... and so on.
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Exactly!! those also. the very cautious and self-aware who wish stay such as they are without much fuss. The best approach to stay well away from contamination of any kind.
¿Who said Amish? ;)
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The flip side is kind of funny. I have a YouTube channel and I post links basically everywhere imaginable, yet no one watches... Invisible in plain sight lol!
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Yeah, there's actually an interesting rub there... if someone is "blatantly commercial" in their efforts, they often seem to get "buried." And yet... typically the very organizations burying the information stand to benefit from the commercial success....
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Very nice flip side of the coin on privacy. I find it encouraging to know that if you don't want a presence on the internet it can be done.
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I am guessing it works if you take certain very active steps of avoidance.
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I have a friend like that:) She hates progress, as it seems to me, and she don't have any profiles in social networks. But facebook anyway sometimes offers me to add her as a "future friend", because of android based phone connected to gmail
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Holy smokes, I didn't know there was a "future friend" option! Talk about predictive marketing!
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It says something like "add a friend that is not yet on facebook":) Sounds mysteryous, haha:)
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Right? Spooky! :)
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I know my friend I couldn't find doesn't have a smartphone... she may still be using her old flipphone, so there are no apps on it.
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It might be that they could not be found in the internet but I dont think it was intentional. Even in this era of technology, there are still those who avoid internet for some reasons. It could be that they're not acquainted to it or simply, they just dont like it. Maybe they wanted to preserve the good culture they learned before this current era.
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My friend has pretty much "no use" for the web, although she streams movies on NetFlix... not sure exactly how that works, but she's still invisible.
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Maybe he'd done something that makes him invisible. I wonder how he does it.
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