There are many tips and tricks to follow if you’re looking to hide your traces online, but no plan is bulletproof. Ultimately, some of the online services you depend on might still be able to collect enough data for you to piece together a profile. But is there a way to completely disappear online, without actually ditching social media or email, and without ruining your Internet browsing experience? One tech site proposes an out of the box solution: hiding in plain site.
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According to Quartz, you’ll have to create an alter ego to pull this off. That means coming up with an online persona to hide the real you from anyone looking to track your Internet behavior, including retailers, advertisers, and others.
That means you’ll have to create a unique email address or addresses that you’ll use to set up social media accounts you want to use, including Facebook, Google, Twitter and even LinkedIn with that secondary identity. Naturally, it goes without saying that if some of these services catch you using a fake name, your account will probably be banned.
When choosing said the fake name, go with a choice that’s “hopelessly familiar,” Quartz says, like “John Miller or Samantha Smith” so that it’s harder for anyone to find you online.
In addition to creating multiple email addresses, you’ll also have to take other security measures. Do not friend your real identity using these services, and do not link your real phone number to any of your online persona accounts.
Furthermore, you should consider browsing in private mode when using these accounts, so you don’t share cookies of the real you with your alter ego.
Location sharing should also be turned off by default on all services, and you can consider using Tor or VPN services to obscure your IP address and location.
For online payments and purchases, you can consider using Bitcoin, and have products shipped to a private mailbox rather than your real address.
