Right. What people are suggesting in this thread is not really creating a new identity, but rather abandoning one’s true identity and assuming that of another, which requires going off the grid to some degree or another in this day and age, to avoid detection. In order to truly create a new identity–today–really requires the auspices of the federal government, (as with the witness protection program), or an intelligence agency.
However, at one time, the average Joe could create a new identity, and it didn’t require $25,000. This is how it worked:[ol]
[li]Search through the archives of the local newspaper in the “deaths/obituaries” section–during the years when you yourself would have been an infant–until you find a story about the accidental death of an infant that would be your age if he or she had lived.[/li]
[li]Using the information from the article (name of infant, names of parents, date of death), go to the county office of vital records and get the death certificate for the child. [When you request this document, do not offer your real name or real address and of course, pay with cash.][/li]
[li]Using the information from the death certificate (complete names of both parents, date and place of child’s birth), go to the county office of vital records and get the birth certificate of the child. [Again, when you request this document, do not offer your real name or real address, and again, pay with cash.][/li]
[li]Using the birth certificate, go to the Social Security office and get a social security number. [In order for the new identity to be untraceable, it is important to use a private, rented mailbox to receive the Social Security card. Do not provide the proprietor of the mailbox with your real name or address, and pay with cash.][/li]
[li]Once you have the social security card, with that, and the birth certificate, get a state photo ID card. [Again, use the rented mailbox as your address.][/li][/ol]Once you had these three documents, you could start to truly create a new identity: get a job, open a bank account, etc. And it truly was a newly created identity, because–except for the birth certificate–all the documents were new, real, and only used by you.
This process was known as “paper tripping,” (and apparently it was actually used by foreign agents). I wanted to try it out when I was in high school, but by that time, the various agencies involved starting instituting procedures to make it impossible:[ul]
[li]In most counties, you can’t just get anyone’s birth certificate; you have to be that person, or their lawyer, or close family member[/li][li]County offices of vital records started marking the birth certificates of deceased people as such[/li][li]Social security numbers are issued at birth now, so it calls attention when someone older applies for one.[/li][li]Fingerprints are mandatory for most state ID cards, so anyone who already has gotten one will be cross checked.[/li][/ul]
