Most people know me as the author of How to Disappear: Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trails, And Vanish Without A Trace, which was published in 2010.
Today, it is still the go-to book for disappearing in society.
Originally, I was a skip tracer and social engineer who located people and extracted private information.
That work ended around 2000, when privacy laws hardened.
The Whistleblower
There are a few events that led me deep into the how to disappear business and eventually to writing the book.
Initially, it began with meeting a man in a bookstore who was a whistleblower. He had various books on the table in the café about privacy and offshore banking.
It was obvious to me that he was getting out of Dodge and did not want anyone to find him.
We began chatting, and he asked me if I could help him disappear.
The How to Disappear Article
Soon after that conversation, I tried to place an ad on an offshore website for skip tracing.
They felt it went against the grain of what they were promoting, then asked if I could write an article about how to disappear.
Which I did.
Thinking back, it was probably a grammatical mess, but definitely useful and timely.
The article blew up, and people from all over the world began contacting me about disappearing.
Adios skip tracing.
Disappearing was the new business.
How to Disappear Book
The disappearance world opened up this driving passion in me, and I started writing the book.
I self-published it on Amazon, and then an article about how I disappear people came out in The Times in the UK.
Boom.
The book took off.
I began sending copies to publishers, and here we are years later, still going strong.
Reverse Engineering Skip Tracing
Disappearing people came naturally to me.
Being an expert at skip tracing and social engineering, all I had to do was look at my client’s life, information, habits, finances, and such, and prevent a private investigator or other predator from finding what connects the old life to the new one.
Today, that is even more the tactic of disappearing.
I say this because the idea of being disappeared is only as good as the moment it lives in.
The work was about reverse engineering the trace, but also using misinformation and disinformation that led the predator astray to places where my client was not.
With AI, you need to be cautious about using disinformation because AI can better detect whether something is real or fake.
That is not to say there are no tricks today that one can use.
Which I will not discuss, because AI will then figure them out.
For me, disappearing is to become a virtual entity where nothing connects to you physically.
What Disappearing Actually Means
People used to think disappearing was about erasing their digital footprints.
The truth is, that is a talking point, if anything.
One of the issues I had after a while with the media was that all they wanted to talk about was digital footprints.
No.
The truth is that disappearing and privacy are human acts.
It is not the digital footprint that shows up at your door.
It is the unwanted human.
Sure, digital footprints can provide leads, but cookies on your computer or a regurgitated database are not the nails in the coffin.
Most people do not know how to live as a disappeared person.
When people contact me, they are often myopic and want to discuss only the act of disappearing, as if that is the only tool one needs to become hard to find.
Disappearing means separating your old life from your new life and living the life of freedom you choose.
By the way.
Disappearing is not about fake identities or running from the law.
That is being on the run, and that is a whole other process.
Disappearing Is Reinvention
I see the act of disappearing as reinvention, not running away.
Many people find themselves in a position where life is not working, they are facing potential danger, or they simply want a new life where no one can find them.
I have worked with victims of stalking who needed to leave their homes immediately.
My most common client has been the business problem: involved with the wrong people, or needing privacy for other reasons.
Nobody ever imagines their life hitting the gutter.
But if it happens, I am the person to know.
I believe we all have a right to start over.
Especially in a world where forgetting does exist.
Human Privacy
It used to be about how to disappear.
Today, I see it as Human Privacy because it is about you, your life, and not the technology surrounding you.
Technology is part of the problem, but behind it all is a human.
When you wake up in your future place, you need to know how to exist as a human who disappeared.
You are not going to focus only on technology.
You are going to focus on how you can remain hard to find.
The looming threat of AI and finding people will be about patterns.
Your human patterns.
Part of the thought process, philosophy, and strategy will be for you to become conscious of those patterns.
In the future, we do not know how deeply AI will be able to penetrate our lives or whether it will access something capable of recognizing those patterns.
Think of the human mistakes that can lead to your future.
An old mobile number associated with your closed utility account.
A transaction you made on a credit card when you were impaired.
It is the small, simple human mistakes that lead to the unwanted knock on the door.
One forgotten or unthought-of action can be the downfall.
Things to Think About Before You Disappear
Will disappearing make the situation better?
Think long term, not just here and now.
Can you resolve your problem without disappearing?
Do you have enough funds to go?
How will you earn money?
Can you rebuild your life?
Should you contact Frank?
The Books
- How to Disappear
- How to Disappear: AI War Edition
- How to Disappear Journal
- How to Disappear: A Pocket Guide to Thinking, Planning, and Staying Gone
Disappear Privacy
Today, I focus on Disappear Privacy, which is extreme privacy help.
I assist with disappearance planning if someone wants to go.
I create identity separation between business and private life.
I create privacy plans designed to help prevent the unwanted knock on the door.
I also work on difficult privacy cases that do not fit neatly into a category.
If you need help with a privacy issue and are unsure where to turn, contact me and we can discuss it.
FA@FrankAhearn.com