How to create an

untraceable new
identity
By Patrick Howell O'Neill
My machine is inextricably linked to who I am. All
of us are in the same existential mess. Your
identity is now part of your smartphone and laptop.
Like a bunch of bumbling criminals, weve left
countless unique markers and digital fingerprints
all over our computers. Websites weve visited,
usernames weve entered, search terms weve
queried, and files we mistakenly thought were
long-deleted all leave clues for nosy advertisers,
snooping government spooks, and clever hackers.
They can and do use those breadcrumbs to piece
together exactly who we are, from our names to our
toothpaste preferences.

It doesnt have to be this way. You can wear a

digital mask that can confuse and contradict the
massive surveillance and tracking apparatuses
aimed at logging your every click.
Ifhypothetically, of courseI were to set out to
create a new, fake identity using purely legal
means, it wouldnt be easy. But it is doable.

A clean computer

The clues and building blocks of my identity are

all over my hard drive. And that data leaks like
a faucet to nearly every website I visit. If I want
to create a new identity for myself, the first step
is to buy a new computer.

But that machine needs to be clean.

 My alter ego is James
L. Redus.
So Im going to steer clear of Amazon and even
online classified ad sites like Craigslist. All
could reveal links to my real identity. On Amazon,
I would likely have used a credit card. And then
theres the fact that the National Security
Agency can intercept computers ordered online
to install spyware. On Craigslist, I might have
to meet the seller in person. Both are
unacceptable, because once a link between
identities is established, it can almost never be
erased.

Luckily for me, theres a place on the Internet

where my identity can be obfuscated: the Dark Net.

As referenced in season 2 of House of Cards, the

Dark Net is a portion of the Internet accessible
only through the browser Tor, which anonymizes
behavior through layers of encryption. Its black
markets have a reputation for selling exotic
drugs, assault rifles, and troves of illegal
documents. But they actually also deal in a modest
range of legal products as well, including clean
electronics.

Youll need to make sure to bring

some Bitcoin with you, however, because these
markets deal exclusively in the
hard-to-trace cryptocurrency.

Using Bitcoin to purchase a cheap, clean machine

from Dark Net sites is easier than you might think.
The tough part is actually receiving the computer
without ever giving away your name or address. If
you want to go the extra legal mile and actually
build your own computer out of untraceable parts,
the knowledge is all over the Web and the parts
can be had by searching and getting lucky across
all the Dark Net black markets.

The dead drop

Heres the trick. The usual Dark Net purchase is

sent via regular post. I want to negotiate with
my vendor to secure a dead drop in another
location.

In a decidedly old-school twist, a dead drop is

when the vendor leaves the merchandise in a hidden
locationan abandoned home, a hidden tree, or even
buried like treasureso that the seller and buyer
never meet.

On black markets like Russias RAMP, dead drops

in Moscow for the type of products cooked by
Walter White are the norm. Other markets vary. But
as long as Im willing and able to be in a major
city for the drop, I should be able to engineer
the ideal delivery for my new electronics. Ill
have the seller or his errand boy stash the parts
on a dim, dead end block in Boston, Massachusetts,
that I know has no surveillance cameras.

Anonymity software

Once the working computer is in my hands, the job

is far from done. Before it ever connects to the
Internet, Ill need an operating system far more
secure than anything Apple or Microsoft has
produced.

Initially, Ill load up the Amnesic Incognito Live

System (TAILS, tagline: Privacy for anyone
anywhere), a free system designed to protect your
anonymity and never leave a trace. It can be loaded
with just a USB, SD card, or DVD. And it will record
no trace of my activity after shutting down.
Using TAILS, I can make sure all of my Internet
traffic is routed through anonymity
services like Tor or I2P. A virtual private
network can add extra layers of protection as well,
building more and more walls between me and my new
alter ego.

Even the browser is key. Right now, my browser

carries thousands of potentially identifying
markers including screen resolution, plug-ins,
fonts, and cookies. The Electronic Frontier
Foundation has a great tool
called Panopticlick to show just how trackable
any browser is. The more unique, the more easily
trackable. My regular installation of Google
Chrome is completely unique, making it
exceedingly easy to track. On the other hand, a
basic installation of the Tor browser or TAILS
blends into the crowd on purpose.

The Dark Net also offers tons of iPhones and

Androids for sale that can be used coupled with
the Tor-powered Onion-browser for anonymity.

Strong anonymity software like TAILS strongly

resists tracking and surveillance. But it doesnt
make me invulnerable to prying eyes. The biggest
potential threat to your own security sits just
behind the keyboard.

Build a new person

My new machine is finally ready to give birth to

my new identity.

When it comes to constructing a new human being,

there are many options on the table. On the illegal
side, the Dark Net offers a wide range of fake
documents. Passports, visas, birth certificates,
drivers licenses, and bank statementsits all
just a few clicks away on sites, though
once-dominant sites like HackBB, where
a European visa used to cost just $50, have
shuttered in recent years.

But theres a lot you can do legally as well.

The site Fake Name Generator can instantly offer

the building blocks of that new life, spitting out
randomly generated names and personal info.
Seconds after setting my preferences to American
male, I had a new man on my hands.

My alter ego is James L. Redus of 179 Duke Lane,

Parsippany, NJ 07054. Redus is 6 feet 2 inches
tall and weighs 178 pounds, a general
approximation of my own biometrics. He has a phone
number, email address, birthday, MasterCard,
social security number, school and work history,
car, blood type, and favorite color (blue). Of
course, none of the info checks out, but thats
hardly the point.

I can set up my own secure email

at Enigmabox or Inventati. Alternatively, to
continue to blend into the crowd, I can register
for a Gmail account using a secure Tor connection.
To send encrypted messages, I would use Pretty
Good Privacy (PGP). However, PGP messages act as
a red flag to organizations like the NSA. They may
not be able to crack the message yet, but they will
save the message for later purely because of how
it is encrypted.

Youll need to mask a lot more than your name and

address to hide your identity, however.

Stylometry

When Edward Snowden first began talking to

journalists, he knew hed eventually be exposed.
But as long as he was able to stay hidden long
enough to pass along thousands of leaked documents
and escape the United States, he considered it a
fair trade. Among his many concerns was that the
NSA would know who he was by the way he wrote.
Snowden knew they had the technology to trace his
writing style directly back to him, and that that
kind of analysis could undermine the whole effort.

Stylometry is the act of essentially

fingerprinting writing stylesas well as,
potentially, music and artso that even anonymous
writing can be correlated to a single individual
based on previous documents they had written.

The old assumption was that writing styles change

over time, but thats not exactly true. Its like
a fingerprint, said Drexel University Privacy,
Security, and Automation Laboratory (PSAL)
developers Michael Brennan, Sadia Afroz, and
Rachel Greenstadt, creators of the
anti-stylometry software Anonymouth. You cant
really change it.

This isnt just an NSA capability. Intelligence

agencies around the globe analyze these patterns.
Private security firms sell the technology to
anyone with sufficient cash.

To avoid being stylometrically tracked, a new

generation of document anonymization tools can
obfuscate my writeprint to build yet another
wall between me and James L. Redus.

Anonymouth, designed by Brennan, Afroz, and

Greenstadt, is one of the leaders in the field.
Anonymouth looks at common attributes tracked by
stylometric programsvocabulary, sentence
structure, paragraph layout, etc.and tries to
substitute out what it can while still retaining
meaning.
Using Anonymouth, I can write and engage in online
communities under my new identity, but with less
worry that Im giving myself away by my words.

Mask your money

Finally, theres the key issue of currency. Cash

is king when it comes to untraceable transactions,
but Bitcoin has a wide range of uses.

To anonymously buy
bitcoins, LocalBitcoins.com was the
favored choice for many of Silk Roads
former patrons. Of course, some of them got caught.
Worse, large transactions on Local Bitcoins have
been targeted by police, resulting in the
first-ever Bitcoin money
laundering prosecutions.

To avoid unwanted attention, Ill keep individual

transactions below $500 worth of Bitcoin. This is
about setting up an identity, after allnot a
business.

The key to maintaining all these walls is that I

abide by one important rule: One alias, one device.
Using alter egos on different machines
contaminates the identities, creating
indelible links that can be ultimately used to
connect me and Redus.

Like a bunch of
bumbling criminals,
weve left countless
unique markers and
 digital fingerprints
all over our
computers.
Ive just created a new person with a thick
technological wall between my own identity and his.
I can use Redus to use the Internet without
raising unwanted attention about who I am.

However, the battle isnt over, because the battle

never actually ends. Ill have to continuously
take care to never connect myself and
Redus technologically or socially. Creating
Redus was actually the easy part.

Now that hes alive and surfing the Internet, new

technological vulnerabilities will threaten his
anonymity.

More than that, my own behavior can trigger my

downfall. Logging into the wrong social media
account, connecting to the wrong Wi-Fi network,
accessing the wrong website, giving away
identifying details in a conversation, or
downloading the wrong software can draw a small
link between Redus and myself.

One little slip is all it takes.

With time, the odds that James L. Redus will

survive become increasingly slim. His days are
numbered. But when hes gone, I can always just
make someone new to replace him.

A version of this story originally appeared on

the Daily Dot on March 4, 2016.
Photo by Mr.Thomas/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0) | Remix
by Jason Reed