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Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

skeptictank.org

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Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#81

Post by rev_bird »

mirimir wrote: post #47
samstave wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus Christ I'm tired If this, get off your high horse and have the guts to have "a reasonable discussion" on a topic that doesn't fit within your comfort zone. You are a coward for posting your snide comment on an attempt to look intellectually superior. The state of the police in the US is a disease... Defend that if you're so inclined. Your snipey comment to try to quell discourse is abhorrent, and shows you're i…

You posted an ad hominem attack on police in America. That doesn't even belong on reddit, although it's more common there. That said, police in America are stuck dealing with the consequences of many short-sighted policy decisions. They are not properly trained for social work, mental health services, and so on.

> They are not properly trained for social work, mental health services, and so on.

Seems like another one of those short-sighted policy decisions here...

Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#82

Post by DanBC »

happyscrappy wrote: post #78
DanBC wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

half of the people shot and killed by police are vulnerable people with a mental illness. It's a reasonable point made in an unhelpful inflammatory way. In 30th June 2015 WP had this article (reporting that about a quarter of the people shot and killed by US police that year had a mental illness. The police had often been called out by relatives who wanted help, but who didn't want their loved one shot and killed). H…

Suicide by cop is a thing and if you aggressively go after officers it is safe to say you may have a mental illness.

Suicide by cop is a thing ... in the US.

People aggressively go after cops in other countries and don't get shot.

It's poor training and low skills that cause US police to kill so many people.

Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#83

Post by rmxt »

happyscrappy wrote: post #78
DanBC wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

half of the people shot and killed by police are vulnerable people with a mental illness. It's a reasonable point made in an unhelpful inflammatory way. In 30th June 2015 WP had this article (reporting that about a quarter of the people shot and killed by US police that year had a mental illness. The police had often been called out by relatives who wanted help, but who didn't want their loved one shot and killed). H…

Suicide by cop is a thing and if you aggressively go after officers it is safe to say you may have a mental illness.

Your tone suggests that police officers have less agency/responsibility in such a scenario than the people with mental illnesses themselves. Is that actually what you are suggesting?

Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#84

Post by xacaxulu »

I would start from the other side and start learning about how surveillance works, and the numerous forms of SigInt/HumInt that can grab you anywhere. If you want to disappear but you still want to use credit cards, a smart phone, drive around in a car or login to regular websites (social media for sure) from the same computer, I question your dedication :-)

Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#85

Post by peckrob »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #54
peckrob wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just thinking that while reading this and enjoyed it for much the same reason. Everything about this page - the loose writing style, the borderline paranoia (although, given the subject, perhaps not without reason) and the antiquated - but perfectly readable - layout. It just screams early Internet. You can even pull up the source code and tell that, more than likely, it's hand edited. It's like stepping back i…

Ok you had me until 9600. If you said 28800 well.. :)

We went straight from 9600 baud to an ISDN line about 1997 or so. Completely missed the 28.8 and 56k era. :)

Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#86

Post by at-fates-hands »

DanBC wrote: post #82
happyscrappy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suicide by cop is a thing and if you aggressively go after officers it is safe to say you may have a mental illness.

Suicide by cop is a thing ... in the US. People aggressively go after cops in other countries and don't get shot. It's poor training and low skills that cause US police to kill so many people.

>> It's poor training and low skills that cause US police to kill so many people.

This is a total over generalization. Mainly because the numbers of people shot by police do not include the context of the shooting.

Questions like:

- Did the person charge at a police officer?

- Did the person brandish a weapon like a knife or gun and threaten the officer?

- Did the person physically attack the officer?

- Did the person refuse to put down a weapon after being asked several times?

Are not included in a statistical breakdown of police shootings. As such, the number people trot out there simply have no context to show in many cases the officer is justified in using deadly force - where it comes down to it's either the cop dying or the person they're trying to arrest dying. This is probably the one thing that irks the shit of me more than anything. The data about police shootings is unreliable at best, completely inaccurate at worst:

Officials with the Justice Department keep no comprehensive database or record of police shootings, instead allowing the nation’s more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies to self-report officer-involved shootings as part of the FBI’s annual data on “justifiable homicides” by law enforcement.

“The FBI’s justifiable homicides and the estimates from (arrest-related deaths) both have significant limitations in terms of coverage and reliability that are primarily due to agency participation and measurement issues,” said Michael Planty, one of the Justice Department’s chief statisticians, in an email.

Even less data exists for officer-involved shootings that do not result in fatalities.

“We do not have information at the national level for police shootings that result in non-fatal injury or no injury to a civilian,” Planty said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/0...

Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#87

Post by LesZedCB »

WillyNourson wrote: post #69

I love this thing because if you remove the first four points, it's just a good how-to about life in general. Actually if you follow these rules you may never have to vanish : #Discard your old life. #Limit the resolve and resources of your opposition. #Run from your opposition (and your old life.) #Hide from your opposition. Make new friends. Acquire a (new) identity. (Legal papers: Birth record, Social Security #)…

That's definitely a little idealistic on several levels. First because of this* quote, which describes the reality we live in. Secondly, that assumes that living a life that adheres to the law is totally fair an just. History is full of acts of civil disobedience which in some cases could require people to disappear.

* "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience

Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#88

Post by dagw »

DanBC wrote: post #82
happyscrappy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suicide by cop is a thing and if you aggressively go after officers it is safe to say you may have a mental illness.

Suicide by cop is a thing ... in the US. People aggressively go after cops in other countries and don't get shot. It's poor training and low skills that cause US police to kill so many people.

It's poor training and low skills that cause US police to kill so many people.

No it's not poor training, it's just fundamentally different training. The US train their police force that it's OK to draw their weapons and potentially use deadly force in far more situations than the police in for example Europe.

Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#89

Post by 811639047892938 »

The interesting thing about the article is that it gives you all these instructions in a completely confident tone, as if they are PROVEN, the guy waves his hands at the start by saying "I lived on the fringes of society for years before going straight" as if he was Walter White, when in reality he was probably just a guy who didn't file his taxes and did acid.

You can tell what a charlatan he is when he has the (totally authorative sounding) advice about pouring sugar into someone's gas tank, with an explanation of how and why it works, and instructions on the correct amount of sugar to add, but then he edits the document later to mention that the sugar doesn't work at all (which for some reason he includes as a 6 paragraph addition, instead of just deleting the 1 paragraph about sugar in the gas tank).

Also I find it amazingly hilarious that in the edit for the sugar trick, he just goes "Uhh I guess you should just set the car on fire", and then you're supposed to take advice on the safe way to do that from the guy who doesn't even know that the 24-hour missing persons thing was real, and spouted that sugar in the gas tank trick without any backup, and who basically seems to get all his theories from Hollywood or idle bar talk.

Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#90

Post by 811639047892938 »

This guy also thinks that if you have enough time to set someone's car on fire (to prevent them chasing you), you should set it on fire and draw their immediate attention, instead of just slipping away and getting a huge headstart in the middle of the night or whatever.
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