Dropping Off The Grid: A Growing Movement In America Part I

Now is your chance to flee society. Drop off the grid. Pull a Thoreau. Be you a survivalist, an environmentalist or a cheapskate-ist, you can join the growing movement of Americans embracing off-grid living. Dropping Off The Grid: A Growing Movement In America Part I

“There’s a desire to step out of the rat race, and in America, that goes very deep in the national psyche,” says Nick Rosen, author of “Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America” and editor of www.off-grid.net . “You know, the pioneering spirit and sturdy self-reliance — these things which define the American character.”

For some off-griders, it’s a matter of having little or no impact on the environment — literally living off the power grid. This lifestyle has been championed by celebrities Daryl Hannah and Ed Begley Jr. Then there are those who no longer want to be a blip on the societal radar.

“Off-grid living is a spectrum that unites greens and survivalists,” says Rosen, referring to those who choose to escape city life because they either don’t trust the government or don’t want it meddling in their affairs.

Whether you’re a Civil libertarian or just want to be private, you can relax and worry less about the intrusive State with its Big Brother databases, at least in the UK. Civil servants running the new systems are so incompetent (e.g. the Ministry of Defence stolen laptop) that the biggest fear is them losing your data. But private industry is another matter. From Facebook to Microsoft, They are watching You. Now the US Senate is considering a “do not track” command that could be issued by individual internet users.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee held a hearing Wednesday to debate what – if any – privacy protections Internet users should be given. Most of the senators on hand agreed that consumers know little about who or what is tracking their browsing behavior.

The UK government is burning $500m a year to build a national ID database that will duplicate the passport system and only cover those of us law abiding enough to register under our real names. Corporate databases will create their own parallel versions, or license government data for their own security checks.

But you can take a few steps to protect your privacy. Follow these simple tips, and Big Brother will be no bother:

1. Get an Anonymous or Encrypted Cellphone

Go to a town you have never visited before, to an area with no CCTV cameras and pay a homeless person to buy a pay-as-you-go mobile phone for you. That way no shop will have your image on its CCTV. You will also have an anonymous mobile.

In order to keep your anonymity, top it up in a shop with no CCTV outside. Or dispense with the phone altogether and return to the humble payphone, now the preserve of tourists and the super-poor.

Even if you stick to your traceable phone, leave it switched off whenever possible to avoid having your movements tracked. Many phones are still traceable, with the exception of encrypted cellphones, so you need to take the battery out to be certain. If you have a Bluetooth phone, keep the service switched off because this is now being tested for advertising and other marketing activities.

2. Hide Your Email

If you use one of the free, web-based services like Gmail, your communications are being stored to build up a picture of your interests. Instead, you can use a service called Hushmail to send encrypted emails. Or work out a private code with friends you want to communicate with.

You do not need an email address of your own. One hacker I spoke to sends emails from cybercafes via The Observer website, using the service which allows anyone to send any article to a friend. He embeds his message into the covering note which goes with the article.

Others with their own computer use the free XeroBank browser (in preference to Explorer or Firefox), which includes several privacy-enhancing add-ons and sends all data through a network ‘cloud’ which hides most of the data you normally give away as you use a computer, but at the cost of reduced speed.

3. Protect Your Computer Files

There is sophisticated software that deletes all traces of your activities from your computer. Assuming you don’t have access to this, it is still worth remembering the data about you contained inside each file. Many digital photos, for example, contain within them the serial number of the camera that took them. Word documents contain the name of the author as well as traces of previous drafts.

4. Stay Off Spam Mailing Lists

Each time you submit your email address to register for a new website, create a special address, either on a free webmail service or on your own email server so you have control over it. Then, if the company later sells your email address or loses it through poor security, you will know exactly who to blame. And you will be able to close the account or block all email to that particular address. Again, Hushmail is useful for this. You can set it up to create these aliases for you.

5. Stop Supermarkets Snooping on Your Shopping

Swap your supermarket loyalty card with a friend or acquaintance every few months, after having cashed in any points you have accumulated (treat Oyster and other local transport cards the same way). You lose no benefits and it prevents tracking of specific purchasing patterns (or journeys) tied to your name and address. Use cash more often – save your credit card for emergencies.

6. Mess Up Utility Companies’ Marketing Plans

Live off-grid, unplugged from the system with solar panels and rainwater harvesting. There are thousands of people living without mains power, water or sewerage, all over the UK and the US, in isolated cottages, behind hedgerows in caravans or in groups of yurts in country fields. And this is not just a movement for tree huggers and climate campers. Many live on boats in towns and cities, and if you live in a flat or house, you can still unplug.

Get a laptop with wireless capability. There are plenty of hot spots where you can check your email or browse for free.

Thunderbird Mail transfer agent is available free from the same folks that brought you Firefox. The Enigmail plug-in allows encrypted email and file transfer with up to a 4096 bit key. I’ve tested it with Windows, Mac and UNIX for interoperability. Combined with a Gmail account that be configured for TLS (Similar to HTTPS) connections, it makes for a fairly secure package and it’s all free. It won’t stop NSA from reading your mail but will for most everyone else.

How does one just disappear off the face of the earth? Is it as simple as moving away to another country? First you have to understand who you are running from. If you are running from an abusive partner, know that they have limited resources and might have a problem if you move out of state or out of the country. If you are running from the FBI for example, understand that these people have unlimited resources and will do everything in your power to hunt you down even if you move to another country.

Before going underground, you have to do a few things in order to throw your opposition away from your trail. You have to destroy the “old” you and build a new you. Destroy all photographs you can get possession of. Some of your friends or relatives might be hesitant to give you their photographs but let them understand that the people chasing you might go after them, too, because of their connection to you. They will threaten your loved ones with physical or other forms of abuse if they refuse to hand over photographs. If it is not possible; destroy all the most recent pictures of yourself and leave the old ones. Of course you don’t want your face plastered all over the state but if it is an artist’s rendition or just an old photo, chances are high that people won’t recognize you.

Destroy or throw away all your credit cards and ATM cards. Government authorities can pinpoint your location within seconds if you use your magnetic cards. Before going underground, be sure to withdraw all your money from the bank and max out all your credit cards with the things you’ll need or you can resell for cash. Do not bring your car with you. That will be the first thing that the opposition will look for. Leave your car in place where car thieves will be and let them strip your car clean to remove any trace of it. If you need transportation, there are a lot of places where you can simply give money and get a new car without any identification required. Just make sure you aren’t buying a stolen car or the car itself doesn’t violate any safety rules. The last thing you want as you are making your escape is to be pulled over for a simple safety violation.

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Dropping Off The Grid: A Growing Movement In America Part II:

Dropping Off The Grid: A Growing Movement In America Part III:

Dropping Off The Grid: A Growing Movement In America Part IV: