Shedding Your Identity in the Digital Age

is the title of a new article in the December 2009 issue of Wired Magazine. For one month, Evan Ratliff shed his digital identity and tried to disappear. Wired offered $5000 to the first person who could locate him, say the password “fluke” and take his picture within the one month contest period. The premise of the contest was simple: “how hard is it to vanish in the digital age? The article chronicles his adventures on the run, and the phenomena it created on Twitter. Using the hashtag #vanish, contest participants were “tweeting” up to 600 tweets a day as they shared clues and personal information about Evan Ratliff (such as his middle name, a common question of private investigators).

I recommended you pick up the print edition of the article while still available, as it is better than the online version. Otherwise, check out the online version here.

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