How far would you go to protect your data?

From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Lily Dromali. It is hard to disappear these days, everything from renting property to working a job to using a credit card leaves a

digital footprint. But just because it's hard to vanish from the virtual world doesn't mean

people aren't trying. Some do it out of necessity to

escape violence or persecution. Others do it out of curiosity, pursuing total

anonymity just to see how far they can take things.

Hal Tridman is a privacy engineer who recently wrote about the Extreme Privacy

Community for the online magazine reboot.

I was really intrigued by the for the online magazine, reboot.

I was really intrigued by this community,

and I was intrigued sort of to dig into the question

of are we the ones who are sticking our heads in the sand and being sort of ignorant of the reality of this situation?

Or are they the ones who are going way over the top with their devotion to disappearing?

Mm-hmm. And as best as you can answer that question, with their devotion to disappearing.

And as best as you can answer that question based on your research, what did you find?

It's as it usually is somewhere in the messy middle.

One of the things that's interesting is about the psychology that drives people

to try and disappear. Like what is it that is really making someone want to get rid of their digital double, stop casting a digital shadow.

And it comes from the sense of individualism, almost a level of paranoia,

and a sense to, this hobby and sort of test it out in the real world, right?

You know, if I were being hunted down by an angry significant other, ex-significant other, or if a government was trying

...