Saul Goodman - Get Off the Grid! - Saul Goodman's Guide to Staying Off the Radar

Anyone who is looking to exit their identity can learn a little something from the world of the well-prepared, especially if you’re that unfortunate civilian facing some kind of sudden-onset personal disaster.

Kitty.Not a cat, though they’re perfectly nice little balls of fur and fangs. Something we already talked about—money, honey. There’s a consistent theme for you: save the hell up. See if you can set aside a ten-spot a day for the next two months, and boom, you’ve got $600 you can grab in an emergency.

Bug-out Bag.If you’re going to buy just one thing, buy this—or put one together on your own. Select a big box store and go to the department where they sell the fun stuff like desert camo underwear, for folks who like to run around in the desert… in their underwear, I guess. Many sell a go-bag. It’s a backpack or duffel, and it comes prefilled with an awesome assortment of crap sure to appeal to your inner Boy or Girl Scout. Stuff like a battery- and solar-operated flashlight, waterproof matches, a hand-crank radio, a knife, duct tape, first aid kit, and some dry food designed to be edible even after a nuclear blast.

A premade go-bag might cost up to $500 depending on where you get it and how extensive it is. If you want to assemble your own, analyze what comes in the prepackaged go-bags and see what’s missing. Maybe you’ll want to make sure you’ve packed your own camouflage-colored underwear.

Dirt-Simple Disguise.Barring some really hard-to-hide feature like a vestigial twin, I’m pretty sure most people don’t realize just how quickly and easily they can disguise themselves well enough to evade surveillance.

Your gender doesn’t matter: nothing like putting on a simple ball cap and a pair of shades to suddenly and simply obscure your identity. Keep those on hand; they make light, collapsible ball caps now that fit easily in a jacket pocket. Or, just wear a hoodie with the hood pulled up, if the weather is right. Another tip I’ve read about is reversible clothing. There’s a limit to how much of that you can find, and you might consider learning some tailoring skills to make your own, but it could be incredibly useful to double your wardrobe.

If you’re in the unfortunate position of having to rough it because your need to drop off the grid was too immediate to lay down the groundwork for a new identity, you are probably going to need some of the following skills, which are sometimes called Urban Survival Skills .

Dumpster Diving.Yeah, I’ve already touched on this. No, I’m not fond of it at all, but let’s face it—people throw out a lot of stuff, and some of it is actually useful. More than that, just as I mentioned early on, there is information in that there garbage. Let’s say you’ve had to make your emergency bug-out and fled your abode, and for some reason it only then occurs to you that you might need a temporary new identity. Probably gonna find all you need right there in your new best friend’s trash. Maybe double-stock that bug-out backpack with as much long-lasting food as you can, so you won’t be forced to snack like a well-dressed raccoon.

Straight-up Burglary.I’m not advocating stealing for the sake of stealing. But let’s face it, there are specific situations where it may even be judicious to briefly bust in and make yourself at home in a residence that is not your own. Rather than instruct you in the actual art of burglary—which is very straightforward unless you want to get sophisticated and learn lock picking, etc.—I’ll just note for the record that there have been a few folks who have made an art of this and lived off the grid for years doing it.

Caveat: these folks had to confine themselves to living in the woods, so maybe only consider this if you are comfortable with the fresh air, the forest, and the bears.

First there was the North Pond Hermit, also known as “Chris.” He managed to live for three decades off the grid in the woods of Central Maine, an area that is all green, glorious, moose dropping-filled woods. But Chris managed, even in Maine’s nasty winters, by being a perfectly practical burglar. He never even built a campfire. About forty times a year, give or take, from 1986 to 2013, Chris would burglarize residences—mostly vacation cabins—for supplies. He was no master criminal. He took food, the necessary kitchen implements needed to prepare it, and fuel in the form of propane. He might also grab a book or two just because you can only commune with the ghosts of the New England timberland for so long before they have to return to their home inside Stephen King’s head. He took clothes, too—but just what he needed. Chris was so deft about all this that some people didn’t even realize he’d burgled them at all.

Second guy who managed to make it off the grid and stay wasn’t quite as benign as gentle Chris. Troy—again, first name only—survived a solid decade well out of society’s hair in the Utah mountains. Again, a seriously forbidding environment, if you’re looking for a pattern to these semi-successful stories of staying out of sight. Go somewhere nobody wants to look for you.

Troy said “see ya” to society some time in 2004. He was on parole at the time. From that moment until his capture in 2014, Troy remained coy with the rest of humanity, stating that it wasn’t that he didn’t like people, he just didn’t want to be near them. Troy managed by kind of colonizing remote vacation cabins. He’d live in them. Sometimes he did just like Chris and took only what he needed to survive. You know, essentials like whiskey. Other times, Troy shot up the residences and left vaguely threatening notes. Rangers and cops finally tracked him down, then snuck up on him quietly, clad in snow shoes.

Once again, don’t try this at home. More specifically, at other peoples’ homes. It’s illegal, and sadly there’s one fewer great lawyer out there these days to represent you if you get caught.

Hacking for Fun and Profit.No, you are not going to learn the inner secrets of hacking from the former Saul Goodman. Just as I didn’t hip you to the how-tos of burglary, I sure can’t tell you how to steal passwords by casually browsing books at a library while eyeballing someone using a computer at a desk nearby, or that there is easily available software right there on the Internet that will grab all the keystrokes off a public computer, including any number of passwords and bank accounts. I will say that lessons for absolute beginners in the basics of unauthorized computer use are all over the place, including the World Wide Web. So a smidge of knowledge about computer-based chicanery could be a useful tool to have in your kit.

At bare minimum, you could use the password-eyeballing trick to do what’s otherwise a real no-no when you’re on the run, and get on the Internet to figure out what’s up in your old life. If the cops are hitting up your friends on social media with questions, distributing photos of your face, that kind of thing.

By the way, since we all have handheld supercomputers in our pockets these days, it’s worth pointing out that they’re totally hackable, too.

A phone like that is a double-edged sword. For the grid-skipper fleeing troubles aplenty, a tutorial on how to get into a “borrowed” smart phone is pure gold. However, owning a phone like that can be a lot of trouble, too. In a little bit we’ll get into the phone issue in more depth, because these fine little companions we keep in our pockets to see weather conditions and pornography on tiny screens could end up hanging the desperate traveler out to dry.

We’ve traveled down the muddy, rutted road of the rapid bug-out as much as we have time for right now. What it comes down to is planning. Even if everything I’m putting down is for entertainment purposes only, don’t take it for granted that one day you may need some of this advice.