Ask HN: How does one create a fake identity?

If you're talking about a real world fake identity (eg. social security, passport, etc) then it seems to come down to falsifying documents or paying off a worker to create the documents for you. This is a lot easier in some countries than others - for example, getting a fake Egyptian passport or Zimbabwe passport is likely to be incredibly easy right now. Once you have the passport, getting a tourist VISA to just about anywhere is generally incredibly easy.

If you're talking online fake identity, way easier. Head over to some local place that has internet access - a coffee shop, etc. Sign up for a facebook account and a google account using a fake name. Well done, you're now a new person.

If you plan to use these fake identities to commit crimes, however, then I wouldn't recommend it. Once law enforcement has a warrant it becomes easy enough to head over to that cafe and tracking someone down is what cops do. But for privacy and posting stuff online? Works 100% as long as you keep your fake traffic completely separate.

When you use fake-quotes like "freedom enhancement techniques" and someone discovers that no three-letter agency or government organization has ever actually said such a thing -- that such a quote isn't exactly grounded in reality (Google only turned up http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/01/31/832543/-President-P..., which was satire), they're inclined to believe "Hey, if they weren't entirely truthful with this aspect of their argument, maybe I shouldn't bother checking out the rest of the stuff they said."

Call it seeing the forest for the strawman; either way, there's enough of an argument to be made by sticking to the facts.

The first thing to do is realize that there are only a few limited situations in which you are ever legally obligated to tell the truth (or to say anything at all).

Allow that to empower you and the truth will literally set you free. Truthfully, you are almost always free to lie. Find those boundaries and tiptoe without crossing them.

I imagine that even if you are able to take advantage of some of the other advice in this thread about gaining actual documents and whatnot, you are more likely to get caught if you aren't willing to stretch the truth or lie.

"Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center."

I really enjoy watching fox news or listening to rush limbaugh and I find that the longer I take it in, the more I learn how to hone this practical skill.

Why are you assuming that the phrase is not a 1337biz creation, because he prefaced it with 'your'? Quotation marks don't always have to equal spoken/written communications.

There is something special about Islamic culture:

From review of linked book:

".....Suppose you wish to send $25,000 from Vancouver, British Columbia, to a friend in Helsinki, Finland. You would hand $25,000 cash to a Vancouver money changer (Hawaladar) in Vancouver, and receive code words (or an agreed signal such as a secret handshake) and a contact address in Helsinki. No actual cash moves out of Canada. Instead, when your friend gives the code to the correspondent hawaladar in helsinki, he will receive the equivalent in euros (less a commission) from money that is already there. To review:

-There are no written documents. The exchanges are based on mutual trust (perhaps for that reason unpopular in the United States?).

-Only local currencies are used. Thus, if you are sending money from the UK to Mexico, you pay in pounds and the receiver in Mexico collects in pesos.

-This exchange cannot be traced because no money crosses a border.

.........................

Wikipedia:

Hawala (Arabic: meaning transfer), also known as hundi, is an informal value transfer system based on the performance and honour of a huge network of money brokers, which are primarily located in the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Indian subcontinent. It is basically a parallel or alternative remittance system that exists or operates outside of, or parallel to traditional banking or financial channels.