In the comments, someone asked why I used a credit card at all, instead of cash?
I relied, “Convenience” and “Rewards”.
The subsequent comment mentioned “privacy.”.
“Paying cash makes it more difficult for the Government to track you”
Well, folks, you gave that up when you chose to carry that cell phone with you everywhere you went. You buy things at places that have video surveillance, so if anyone cares to look for you, they can find you using Facial Recognition. You have that “Magic ElfBox” that gives anyone that has the pull to find out your location, and in stores, it is even used to track you within the store. If someone cares enough, they can even listen to your conversations with other people, not just your texts and phone calls……
And if you drive a car that has any of the electronic conveniences that come in nearly all autos today like OnStar, or Internet in the car (even if you never sign up for the service) then those that might care enough can track you that way as well. And, again, listen to what you say in the car too. If you have an electronic toll tag, then you are trackable via that device. In many (most, actually) parts of the country, there are license plate readers that scan traffic all the time….In larger cities there are BLOCKS where the entire street has video surveillance…
You really can’t hide. You can, of course, drive a car made before 1990, or use a bicycle, and not have a phone, and wear a mask all the time. Pay cash for everything. never go anywhere far from home…..
Anything else, you can be tracked. if, of course, someone wants to and has the resources out government has.
If they care enough to check any of the above, that is….Your daily normal purchases don’t matter that much, if they powers that be choose to track you. And I don’t use the cards for anything besides normal purchases …gas, groceries, clothing, restaurants, etc. I just try to be unremarkable…..Nothing to see here, folks….
Since I can’t easily hide, I don’t try…. I spend my money as I see fit, never (mostly) hiding the fact. I also get the convenience of not having to carry large sums of cash on a daily basis, and of having records of my purchases with the credit cards.
This way, however, should I choose to leave my cell phone at home and pay cash and travel using a friends car, it’s even harder to find me, ’cause that behavior is unusual….And someone has to REALLY be looking….
I’m not that important to think that anyone is watching my every movement, mind you. That takes a lot of time and people. But when it matters, I can make it harder….
But I refuse to hide my everyday life. Why stand out? Just be one of the crowd.
You can’t really hide unless you live on a farm in Kansas or a cabin in the rockies or a hut in Maine, far from every other human….And even then, there are satellites if anyone cares to watch you. And, of course, the person posting that uses the internet, so….
It’s possible to go way down the rabbit hole here, but you’ve touched on a key point here. We have so much data collected on our lives now that the absence of data is almost as damning as the data itself.
Simple stuff like turning your cell phone off then later back on again during a certain time period could get you unwanted attention. Do it during two or three such periods and a data cruncher might decide its worth digging deeper into your personal habits.
Same for credit cards, rfid tollway passes, social media, almost anything from which a database can be made. Is it proof? No, but it can point clever people toward where the truth is.
There really isn’t much of a chance of being ‘off the radar’ nowadays. Just have to keep your nose clean I guess.
a grayman can hide in plain sight. what is a grayman?? someone who is so like every other man, so unremarkable, so common and everyday that no one notices him. he is the mail man, the ups driver, the jogger that passes your house everyday at the same time wearing the same close and doing the same thing, and you never really look at him or really see him. can you describe YOUR mail man??
if you want to disappear don't try to become invisible, try to blend in to the maximum extent possible, and become the grayman.