[HN Gopher] A nameless hiker and the case the internet can't crack
___________________________________________________________________
A nameless hiker and the case the internet can't crack
Author : danso
Score : 366 points
Date : 2020-11-03 17:31 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| cocktailpeanuts wrote:
| Maybe he's a time traveler who hasn't been born yet, and that's
| why he's not registered anywhere.
| ThisIsTheWay wrote:
| Wann ist Mostly Harmless?
| geluso wrote:
| It's not about what time. but from what world?
| 0x1F8B wrote:
| > IN APRIL 2017, a man started hiking in a state park just north
| of New York City. He wanted to get away, maybe from something and
| maybe from everything.
|
| > Everyone who goes into the woods is trying to get away from
| something.
|
| > Everyone, at some point, has wanted to put their phone in a
| garbage can and head off with a fake name and a wad of cash.
|
| Since you are here I want to mention how off-putting this
| rhetoric is to me, a person who likes being outdoors, who doesn't
| have problems around spend all day refreshing the NYT or twitter
| or instagram, a person who genuinely likes solitude. It's almost
| as if urbanity is now synonymous with a neurotic steady state of
| over-exposure and any act of finding a moment of peace in the
| outdoors is itself a futile act of desperation -- an attempt to
| flee modernity. It just doesn't ring true to me.
| Sangama34 wrote:
| But if I ever go on a hike that is mostly the reason. As a
| reader it resonated with me.
| koheripbal wrote:
| > I want to mention how off-putting this rhetoric is to me
|
| I'm not sure your emotions are important to others. Maybe it
| would be better to address what you think is the flaw in the
| characterization rather than leading with how it impacts your
| personal emotional state.
| grecy wrote:
| I agree 100%.
|
| I've chosen a life of less work, less stuff and therefore less
| money. I spend a lot of my time alone on big trips around the
| world, and out in the wilderness. I'm immensely more happy than
| I was sitting at a desk watching my life go by without really
| being _alive_.
|
| I get a lot of this attitude about how I must be "running from
| something" or I'm "throwing my life away".
|
| I think it's a symptom of our modern "society" that it needs to
| put down anyone who chooses not to be drowning in it.
|
| Which, of course, makes me want to distance myself from it even
| more.
| spazx wrote:
| Must be easy to feel that way when you can afford to make
| that choice. It's something most of us 9-to-5 drones only
| dream of.
|
| edit: lol wow downvoted? smug much? I never even said I
| disagreed.
| grecy wrote:
| I choose to look at it the other way around and say I can't
| afford NOT to make this choice.
|
| But I don't have a lot of money, in fact my last few years
| of tax returns I've barely earned more than the tax free
| threshold. So it's not about having tons of money to escape
| the 9-to-5, it's about realizing you can find happiness
| with a lot less.
| vmception wrote:
| Nobody would criticize you if nobody could tell that you had
| less money than people making other choices.
|
| Looking like someone that has to stay in hostels, versus
| someone that likes the inherently more social aspect of
| hostels are very different things.
| [deleted]
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| > It's almost as if urbanity is now synonymous with a neurotic
| steady state of over-exposure and any act of finding a moment
| of peace in the outdoors is itself a futile act of desperation
| -- an attempt to flee modernity. It just doesn't ring true to
| me.
|
| It's just the media saying if you don't consume the media
| something is wrong with 'you'. No different than the CCP or any
| propaganda outlet at that point.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| Agreed, I've been working online for 20+ years in the Scottish
| Borders in a town of 15K people, with the forest and fields a
| minute walk away.
|
| > Everyone who goes into the woods is trying to get away from
| something.
|
| Getting _into_ something is maybe more apt. Walking the dog in
| the middle of the countryside is very peaceful and
| regenerative, it grounds you. "Getting away from something"
| makes it sound like the something is the modus operandi when it
| never was. It's almost like it adds more nuance to a man's
| story, you know, the fast living 21st century tech man who has
| an epiphany. Perhaps the 80-hour a week tech worker's walk into
| nature means something more than other people's... or not
| really.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24982298.
| 0x1F8B wrote:
| Why?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Since you are here I want to mention how off-putting this
| rhetoric is to me... It just doesn 't ring true to me_
|
| His story. His words. His choice.
|
| He is under no obligation to cater to every "But what about me?
| I'm different!" navel-gazing edge case in the world.
| grimgrin wrote:
| when you refresh nyt and twitter all day maybe you _are_
| escaping something. i'm escaping chores sometimes lol
|
| maybe when you do like being in nature (this was about not just
| being outdoors, but hiking in the wilderness), you are also
| escaping something
|
| maybe a reader can resonate with a desire for solitude via
| anonymity, re: fake name + wad of cash, w/o it being off-
| putting rhetoric
| bhntr3 wrote:
| I agree. When an author writes "Everyone has ..." we often
| learn more about the author than everyone.
| m463 wrote:
| But "getting away from it all" is such a common phrase I would
| say it _is_ what most people are doing.
|
| It's definitely what I do.
| nxthompson2 wrote:
| I'm the author of the piece. I think the best clues are that the
| mystery hiker told people he was from Louisiana, and that he
| worked in the tech industry in NY. I suspect someone here might
| recognize him. I'm reachable at nxthompson at protonmail.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Has his DNA been checked against people in the various online
| sequencing sites? You might be able to find a relative that
| way. They found a serial killer through that a year or two ago.
| mxxx wrote:
| Read the article dude
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Ahh the article mentions checking the FBI database, and
| ends with the family-tree analysis. I hadn't finished
| reading before I posted, sorry :)
| breck wrote:
| $5,000 and 5 months? Why in the world is the DNA matching going
| so slow?
|
| My cousin mailed fifty bucks and some spit in an envelope on
| Monday and Wednesday I get an email from 23andMe saying "Hey!
| We think this is your cousin's spit!". And neither of us is
| missing!
| pavlus wrote:
| 23andMe don't do full sequencing, they just map small parts
| of DNA which are tied to features they test.
| breck wrote:
| Right but full sequencing doesn't net you much with
| ancestry. Much more important is SNPs on a broad
| population.
|
| Also, even if full sequencing were needed, we're not even
| talking de novo sequencing, full sequencing is routine
| daily work nowadays.
| TwoBit wrote:
| It seems hard to believe that he worked in the tech industry
| but wouldn't be recognized. Perhaps articles like this will be
| seen by ex associates.
| mabbo wrote:
| Just wanted to say that it's a really well written piece.
| Nothing over-dramatized, but the whole story is there.
| phreack wrote:
| I just wanted to thank you for writing an engaging long form
| article that doesn't meander telling parallel stories jumbled
| together. I could draw a straight timeline from the first
| paragraph to the last and that's oddly something I don't see
| too often in this format anymore!
| eganist wrote:
| Perhaps some unexpected context: at least some authors of
| long-form pieces write with the objective of selling the
| rights to their works in mind. The more it _feels_ like a
| screenplay, the more likely it is to attract a buyer who
| feels it has potential as one.
|
| I don't have numbers from you, just that bit of context and
| some supporting quotes off the record.
|
| Qualification: I tech-consult producers and writers on
| screenplays.
| 0x1F8B wrote:
| You probably know this but others might not: there are
| literally agencies that develop ideas through a tight
| lifecycle of inception, moderate form to long form market
| testing in publications like Wired and investment and
| film/podcast/TV development sourcing based on feedback from
| those market tests and brand sponsorship and alignment for
| the launch of the final product.
|
| Here is one agency in particular:
| https://www.epicdigital.com/
| mapgrep wrote:
| It should be good, he's the editor in chief :-)
| jamisteven wrote:
| Question, in the first picture he is wearing a jacket with "BR"
| embroidered on left side, was that ever looked into if its not
| a brand name?
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Maybe a Banana Republic puffy?
| mrzool wrote:
| What a great read -- thank you!
| kbos87 wrote:
| Not even a passing mention of the privacy questions at stake
| here. I don't fault the police for seeking answers, but every
| self-nominated amateur sleuth isn't due an answer about the
| identity of someone who in all likelihood wanted to live
| privately and never committed a crime.
| znpy wrote:
| Uh, we don't know for sure he didn't ever commit a crime, your
| logic is flawed.
| kortilla wrote:
| The point is there is no evidence of a crime. There is no
| reason for the public to dig into this person's life with
| such fervor.
| chasd00 wrote:
| that's a scary comment. I'll remind you that he's innocent
| until someone proves otherwise.
| shortandsweet wrote:
| What if he has a will and trust that need to be executed?
| pvaldes wrote:
| That could give some peace to their beloved ones, and nothing
| can harm him anymore. It seems that he has tell to be divorced;
| maybe he has children. I think that is a fair move.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| In any context I can think of privacy only exists while someone
| is alive. Once you are dead your life history sort of exists in
| the public domain.
| [deleted]
| thomasqbrady wrote:
| The Screeps detail seems like something that could be fairly
| easily pursued... there can't have been that many players of that
| game to begin with, let alone those that would care so much about
| it that they would journal their thoughts about it. A quick check
| of the GitHub repo doesn't show he contributed code, but might he
| have opened an issue, contributed to docs? Might there be someone
| who was active in the community somehow (maybe showing up on
| leaderboards) until 2017?
| uberman wrote:
| This seems like this would be the way to go. Steam shows less
| than 200 players for March and April of 2017 and if there are
| logs that far back, the Screeps team can likely provide some
| data about users who dropped out in March or April of that year
| as well
| robotresearcher wrote:
| I don't want identifying data leaked by my game hosts.
| jhardy54 wrote:
| Required reading, IMO:
| https://screeps.com/forum/topic/2937/a-strange-request-for-h...
|
| I've spent a few days looking into this and haven't been able
| to find anything. There's also a big thing about "algae pools"
| "stock markets", etc, which didn't seem to be about Screeps.
|
| I tried to find games that had these mechanics, and ended up
| spending a bunch of time looking through Spacestation 13
| forums, but I'm leaning toward these references being about a
| game that he wanted to invent.
| asphyxiac wrote:
| OP, based on the Screeps thread, we have a purported Steam
| profile for MH. Did that yield anything?
|
| Edit: I know that folks thought this was a red herring.
| Checked the steam profile, power player badge was unlocked on
| 10/23 but Recently Played shows nothing (might be privacy
| settings) and last review was 3 years ago. Do badges ever
| auto-unlock, or could this person have shared a steam
| account?
| chaostheory wrote:
| With an all time peak of 357 players playing at a time,
| Screeps is still the best lead especially when you link it
| to a Steam account.
|
| https://steamcharts.com/app/464350
|
| Hopefully, the developer still has logs and data for 2018
| and earlier
| fuzxi wrote:
| >Do badges ever auto-unlock
|
| That specific badge is for game ownership. I believe it's
| possible for games to be added to your account
| automatically in some cases (like an HD version given out
| for free to existing owners) which could unlock the badge
| without user intervention.
|
| >or could this person have shared a steam account?
|
| Definitely possible as well.
| MereInterest wrote:
| A post on this topic is the top post on the screeps subreddit,
| but with no clear answers. Some posters found players who
| stopped playing unexpectedly during the appropriate timeframe,
| along with the group that player collaborated with. However, I
| don't know if there was any follow-up there, or if it was a
| dead end.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/screeps/comments/fnwhvr/who_is_this...
| ColanR wrote:
| If someone wants to check, I'd bet he at least forked or
| starred the github repo. A script to pull the list of those
| people, minus anyone whos been active since april 2017, would
| probably show his account.
| alecbcs wrote:
| Checking for users who forked the repo in 2017 and haven't
| been active since 2017 I got.
|
| - amidman
|
| - eqzus
|
| - Mike Hancoski (follows users from NY, wrote PHP code, his
| personal website domain wasn't renewed and is now available.)
| [deleted]
| grawprog wrote:
| https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-hancoski-b342aa53
|
| This guy looks like a clean shaven version of those
| pictures. Noses look the same. The eyes. No updates to the
| account since 2015.
| tildeath wrote:
| Damn, they really DO look very similar. Mike appears to
| have unattached earlobes, and MH's appear attached,
| however.
| sebmellen wrote:
| Might be worth reaching out to other people working for
| "Xcite Media Group". 23 employees is small enough to know
| if someone went missing.
| lixtra wrote:
| He has an instagram profile with an update nov 2018.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| You might be right
|
| Here they are side by side https://ibb.co/4Zn4qqX
| mynegation wrote:
| Mike Hancoski as of 2018 was living in Denver, posted to
| Instagram and looks different than photos. I think you also
| missed Maxim2030 who is also in the list by momothereal.
| And also manhyper
| alecbcs wrote:
| Ahh thank you I had missed Maxim2030. Looks like manhyper
| updated his fork of screeps on February 11th?
|
| Also saw Mike Hancoski's Instagram but it's odd he hasn't
| posted anything to his LinkedIn since 2014? Maybe worth
| awkwardly reaching out just in case?
| modernerd wrote:
| Maybe he just stopped using LinkedIn? I think these are
| the same Mike:
|
| Work photo (2018): https://thexcitegroup.com/xcite-
| family/mike-hancoski/mike-h/
|
| Facebook (2019): https://www.facebook.com/mike.hancoski
| alecbcs wrote:
| We're hitting the end of the allowed reply indents but I
| think you're right modernerd. Looks like he's likely
| still active online.
| momothereal wrote:
| I wrote a quick script through Github's API, and found 10
| users[1] matching the criteria:
|
| * starred any screeps repo before May 2017, and no other
| screeps repo since then
|
| * no public contributions or events since April 2017
|
| If someone has some time to do further filtering, ensure the
| users have not starred any GitHub repo since May 2017
|
| I didn't go through forks but that would also be an avenue.
|
| [1] https://gist.github.com/aramperes/2363dc3434de6b494b28b5a
| 658...
| mynegation wrote:
| You can exclude bandsaw1961 based on user pic and
| yacobjardon who was a student at Carleton University and a
| picture on his LinkedIn and career beyond 2017.
| strstr wrote:
| A few of the users have the same in game username, and have
| been online recently.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I don't really trust the steam online thing. I once got a
| notification that my brother was playing a game and he
| was driving a car and his computer was off. No, his
| account wasn't hacked. We spent awhile and noticed that
| it seems to randomly say your online and playing if you
| disconnect for awhile (my account too).
| Copenjin wrote:
| This guy with his Screeps-Main repo is interesting, he also
| removed a txt file with some description of what he wanted
| to do: https://github.com/NihilRex/Screeps-
| Main/commit/e2c34e211226...
|
| The last things he did were in 2017.
|
| Edit: Nope, same user is on the forum,
| https://screeps.com/forum/user/nihilrex
| momothereal wrote:
| As someone else pointed out, it seems this user was
| recently active on Screeps forums, so ruled out.
| Componica wrote:
| Looking at https://imgur.com/a/eTphrRF The code that he
| writes is a blend of languages. The arrow operators -> is
| indicative of C/C++ but C/C++ doesn't use nil or function.
| It's like he thinks in C/C++ first which puts him at about my
| age mid-40s. Anyone younger than 40 would be using dots '.'
| due to Java/Javascript/Python instead of '->'. Does anyone
| else get that vibe?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Some colleges teach courses with C++, and if students or
| young programmers want to get into game development or
| graphics, they're often recommended to pick up C++. Systems
| programming is often taught using C++, if not C.
| gabereiser wrote:
| PHP also uses -> and is still popular with those younger
| than 40. The lack of $ gives it away though. This is a very
| curious case indeed.
| Componica wrote:
| Definitely not drowning in $variables, he's 40 something.
| hultner wrote:
| Wouldn't say that, I'm around 30 and grew up coding C, C++
| and later, in my teens some Perl anf PHP, all these
| languages use the -> syntax and I still used that in my
| notes up until two or three years ago, I also use nil from
| my lisp adventures and prefer snake_caas. The first
| languages have I learned as a young child made an strong
| impression in my mental visualisation of programming
| concepts even of I haven't used them in many years. I found
| notes on my iPhone using the arrow syntax with snake_case
| variables. And from the pictures he looks about my age so
| I'd say 30 is a real possibility as well.
| pulse7 wrote:
| On the 3. page of the scanned notebook [1] he mentions
| Java.
|
| [1]
| https://www.colliersheriff.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=94010
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| Somewhat amusing to see the police highlighting "trust no
| one" as a note on p2p networking.
| _Microft wrote:
| Already submitted not even a day ago. By me - that's why I might
| have noticed ;)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24972365
|
| I'm starting to see a pattern in your submission list btw.
|
| Yours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24941667
|
| Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24931387
|
| Yours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24931534
|
| Same day, but earlier:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24924429
|
| Yours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24652182
|
| A day before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24641097
|
| You're simply reposting things that "sort of but not quite"
| catched on, aren't you?
| kick wrote:
| _Have curious conversation; don 't cross-examine. Please don't
| fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the
| community._
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| If you have concerns over someone's behavior, please just
| message the mods at hn@ycombinator.com. Pushing discussions
| into meta-arguments about reposting poisons threads.
| notsuoh wrote:
| How else would one win the race to get the most Hacker News
| Karma? This person has over 131,000, so they seem to be
| winning. Have you considered also making targeted reposts of
| things like this to get your numbers up?
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that danso has submitted lots of really good
| articles that hadn't appeared on HN before.
|
| More generally, please don't post like this - it crosses into
| personal attack. Even if all the information is public,
| spending time and energy to put it together into a case against
| someone does more harm than good.
| kick wrote:
| It's amazing how rude Facebook, reddit, and in this case, greedy
| companies, can be. If he cared enough about anyone knowing who he
| was, he'd have told someone. This is just blatant disregard for a
| man's privacy.
| PeterisP wrote:
| The laws and principles of privacy protection are generally
| built from the perspective that _people_ have privacy interests
| that need protection, but dead bodies aren 't people anymore
| and have no privacy rights. We do have certain restrictions
| about the deceased, but those are designed to protect the
| interests and privacy of their surviving family, relatives and
| friends, not the deceased themselves.
|
| For example, we can read and even publish the private diaries
| and intimate correspondence of dead people, and the only
| privacy that needs to be accounted for is the interests of
| other parties in that correspondence and the (living) people
| talked about in these messages - but the dead don't care about
| anything any more, or at least that's the general assumption.
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| >we can read and even publish the private diaries and
| intimate correspondence of dead people
|
| the rules around publishing (and reading) private diaries are
| the same for dead people as they are for living people,
| aren't they?
| nitrogen wrote:
| _we can read and even publish the private diaries and
| intimate correspondence of dead people_
|
| Subject to copyright, of course.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I think when one dies, his heirs or estate assume the rights of
| what to keep private or not. In this case, they need to find
| those individuals to notify them.
| gtsteve wrote:
| Maybe he wanted privacy but didn't expect to die. He likely had
| someone in his life who is wondering what happened to him and I
| think it's good that people are trying to give them closure.
| kick wrote:
| Why do those people deserve to know anything? They obviously
| haven't sought it out, and given he hadn't contacted them in
| years, it's completely pointless to assume they were close.
|
| Answer: They don't.
|
| Privacy should be respected, even in death. Especially in a
| case like this.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Having only read this article, is there somewhere else that
| you've read about the case to conclude that he has no
| family or friends who've been looking for him? It could be
| that they've been looking in the wrong place, or are older
| and not on the FB and other fora where this case is being
| discussed to connect the dots. And similarly, how can you
| conclude he hadn't contacted them in years (though it's
| obviously been years at this point), we know nothing of him
| prior to starting the hike in 2017.
| caturopath wrote:
| Trail names are ubiquitous, and generally aren't used for
| pseudonymity to protect one's privacy.
|
| I don't think it's a reasonable presumption based only on the
| fact that he hadn't mentioned his legal/previous name that this
| person did not want to news of his death to reach people from
| elsewhere in his life.
| wpietri wrote:
| Privacy is for the living. The dead are instead owed respect.
| If he had wanted particular things to happen after his death he
| could have written a will. Absent that, I think it's reasonable
| that the people who found him do what they they think most
| respectful.
|
| The duty of respect for the dead also doesn't trump the needs
| of the living. If there are people out there waiting for his
| return, they should be told. I know somebody who's son
| disappeared, presumably in shame, after he failed out of
| college. For years and years it hurt her daily to not know .
| Eventually he got back in touch. If he had died before doing
| that, she would have deserved to know that her wait was over.
| ballenf wrote:
| He posed for a number of photographs and videos. He interacted
| with many people. He never expressed the desire to remain
| anonymous that you intuit. If someone wants to slip away
| quietly into the void, there are much better ways to do it than
| this path.
|
| I'd argue it's honoring him and the honorable life he seems to
| have led to pursue this investigation. Not to mention there may
| be a number people who will get peace from the knowledge that a
| friend or family member of theirs has passed. That seems like
| the kind of thing that a kind, caring person would want.
| mjsir911 wrote:
| The article at least hints to the fact that MH was weary
| about digital evidence: "He asked Mostly Harmless if he could
| take a picture. Mostly Harmless hesitated but then agreed"
|
| Are there better ways to slip into the void than going into
| the wilderness without even a phone?
| giarc wrote:
| The "wanted poster" for lack of a better term has about 6-8
| pictures of him from various people. He didn't seem overly
| shy.
| ballenf wrote:
| He didn't go into any wilderness. He traveled one of the
| most popular hiking trails in the country. Went into
| stores. Stayed in campgrounds. Let himself be photographed
| a bunch of times. Why he hesitated that once, I don't know,
| but I seriously doubt anyone would have pressed him if he'd
| just declined.
|
| Better ways? A boat out into the ocean. Hiking out West or
| in Alaska. Or South America. Going deep into an unpopular
| cave. Hiking in a desert.
|
| There are many, many places more "wild" than the popular
| hiking trail in Florida where he passed. If he'd wanted to
| slip away quietly, he seems like he had the means and the
| intelligence to have figured out how to do that
| successfully.
| kick wrote:
| He didn't say his name, though. At _minimum_ it 's a desire
| to stay pseudonymous, and I think it should be respected.
|
| The idea that privacy can be violated like this solely
| because random Facebook users are interested in it and on the
| off-chance that family he hadn't interacted with in years
| might find some abstract comfort despite not being close at
| all is just _incredibly_ bizarre.
| mathstuf wrote:
| I've thru-hiked and "no one" goes by their real names out
| there (for long). It's just not the way trail community
| works. There are many people I met and all we know name-
| wise about each other are our trail names.
|
| I suspect those that didn't want to be on social media at
| all would have declined to be in the GoPro video for a
| longer discussion (as I likely would have, but I wouldn't
| have stopped a passing hiker doing a GoPro recording since
| that's more in the realm of a dashcam kind of thing).
| Fellow hikers tend to be respectful about such things.
| caturopath wrote:
| > At _minimum_ it 's a desire to stay pseudonymous
|
| At minimum, he was using a nickname.
|
| You might think it's likely that he was keeping private his
| non-trail identity, but that is not the minimum
| explanation.
|
| (FWIW, knowing about through-hiker culture, I don't think
| it's even the likely explanation, but that's just my
| opinion.)
| kls wrote:
| I find it somewhat poetic that he was heading for the
| Keys. As this is exactly the person you meet down here,
| many people are known only by their given nickname and
| many times like this gentleman seems to be, have been
| successful and just want to get away from the world. You
| can sit in a bar next to a fishing bum and a billionaire
| and not know who is who. He is exactly the type of person
| the Key's attracts and it is ashame he did not reach his
| goal. Point being I understand the utilization of a given
| nickname, it is almost a second birth name of a new life,
| a new life that they themselves are seeking. Thus the
| name can sometimes become more important than their birth
| name.
| renewiltord wrote:
| He's dead, dude. There is no privacy. Diogenes of Sinope solved
| this already.
| kick wrote:
| There is privacy. Citing a philosopher that made his life
| into a joke doesn't magically make privacy disappear.
| Valgrim wrote:
| Without citing philosophers, how do you reach the
| conclusion that your identity, once dead, (and therefore
| your vital status) is a private information?
| aaron695 wrote:
| His privacy is a really important issue. People have a right to
| disappear. No one has a right to take this away from someone
| else. You own your body.
|
| People seems to excuse themselves trampling on others privacy
| just so they can be part of a podcast. It's lame. Your family
| doesn't own you, you don't own them.
|
| > If he cared enough
|
| This bit is wrong. He might have cared and he seems to have
| gone to great lengths to protect his privacy.
|
| Points of thought
|
| 1) Some people think dead people have zero rights. You are in
| or out on this.
|
| 2) We don't know for sure he wanted to disappear after his
| death.
| tdons wrote:
| The police poster mentioned "was only able to hike 10 miles a
| day".
|
| Makes me think it's health related, 10 mi / day is absolutely
| abysmal for a normal thru hiker. Most aim to do that amount by 10
| in the morning...
| TwoBit wrote:
| Not able, or not interested?
| developer2 wrote:
| I don't understand how the average person cannot comprehend
| this. The point isn't to "hike far, fast"; it's "walk around,
| hang out in nature, maybe wind up somewhere new." Maybe he
| wanted to head out, push as far as he was able and willing,
| and then die. Maybe he was sick and tired of living and
| working in our shitty society. What's so hard to understand
| about that?
|
| The assumption that he must have died purely by accident is
| absurd; or, if not, that he must have been mentally ill. I
| could absolutely see myself doing this in another 5-15 years.
| There's so very little worth living for, but I learned 10
| years ago I'm not willing to off myself in the ways people
| normally do. Heading out into nature and lasting as long as I
| can on my own seems like the workaround to "being ready to
| die", but "not willing to hang, shoot, or poison myself".
|
| No, I don't need help. Tried the suicide route 10 years ago
| (very seriously, not as a call for help), and discovered that
| I'm not quite that fed up with life yet; and when I am,
| that's not how I want to go. This story is exactly the kind
| of method I'd use if the desire to fade from the world
| resurfaces.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I thought the same thing when they mentioned he was emaciated
| with food near by. I would rather die doing something enjoyable
| than sitting at a desk at work, so maybe a terminal diagnosis
| prompted his trek. I would assume they would have found most
| health issues in an autopsy, unless maybe it was something very
| unusual or difficult to identify after decomposition.
| almog wrote:
| > "was only able to hike 10 miles a day"
|
| Where is this quote from? It's not from the linked article.
|
| > "10 mi / day is absolutely abysmal for a normal thru hiker."
|
| To the best of my understanding, unless he flip-flopped, he was
| not a thruhiker as he started in NY. It is not clear either if
| he made his way south in a continuous footpath.
|
| Moreover, even for a thru-hiker, the 10 by 10 gold standard of
| hiking does not apply for the majority of hikers on the A.T. It
| is true it is a gold standard on a well graded trails such as
| the PCT (well... not counting Sierra Nevada and North
| Washington), but it is not uncommon from what I've heard, even
| for thruhikers on the A.T to average 10-12 miles a day.
| Personally out of the triple crown of US hiking trails, I only
| thruhiked the PCT, but hiked other long trails where 15
| miles/day can be a real struggle where as on the PCT I was able
| to do 25/day and sometimes more.
|
| Also, it should be noted that he was found dead in Florida,
| which the Applachian Trail doesn't go through. He might have
| attempted the Florida Trail which goes through Big Cypress NP.
| tdons wrote:
| It's in an image so you can't text search :)
|
| https://media.wired.com/photos/5fa04a3d8239757e365803ec/mast.
| ..
|
| Bottom right under 'additional information'.
|
| I had heard that the AT wasn't as well graded, but I wasn't
| aware the difference was this big, thanks!
| almog wrote:
| I see now. I wonder if what Florida police took as 10 miles
| a day was in Florida or on the A.T. It probably makes for a
| big difference as the Florida Trail is much flatter and the
| terrain should be easier though I'm not sure the middle of
| the summer is the best time to hike it, and the heat +
| humidity could have slowed him down in different ways.
|
| As to the A.T. -- I think it's not just the grade that is
| to account for the low mileage but also that the season is
| not as narrow as on the PCT/CDT.
| pvaldes wrote:
| > 10 mi / day is absolutely abysmal for a normal thru hiker
|
| It depends on the weight of what you carry with you.
| fuzxi wrote:
| That's a good point. From the article:
|
| "He did bring a giant backpack, which his fellow hikers
| considered far too heavy for his journey."
| newguysofly wrote:
| Pretty sure I found him in like ten seconds. I just searched
| NAMUS for people matching his characteristics, and I found a
| Joseph Wayne McCartan from Louisiana. MH claimed to be from
| there. They also look strikingly similar. Further, JWC was
| suspected to have been a cancer survivor. This could explain the
| large abdominal scar--and, if the cancer recurred, the wasting.
| Check this reddit post:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/MostlyHarmlessHiker/comments/jnixu7...
| acomjean wrote:
| There is an online "face verification" service from one of the
| major tech cloud providers. They have a demo:
|
| https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-service...
|
| It I put in the two reddit images, and it says they don't
| match, but its not very confident. I've tried with some older
| family photos, on with kids growing up and those matched well,
| (even though 4 years difference). I does seem to work pretty
| well in general.
|
| Verification result: The two faces belong to different people.
| Confidence is 0.09848.
| sebmellen wrote:
| I took a look at the picture of JWC, and I can't quite see the
| resemblance, but maybe I'm missing something. Is there any
| mention of JWC working in tech?
|
| Edit: From the missing persons website:
|
| > _Last seen on shrimping boat in the Texas area in the Gulf of
| Mexico._
|
| Seems somewhat unlikely that's him.
| newguysofly wrote:
| Maybe someone more savvy than me with this could age him ten
| years to get to get a better comparison... As for working in
| tech, yeah you'd think there'd be some record. But then
| again, tech is a great place to work if you want to be
| anonymous. E.g. could have been a contractor.
| sebmellen wrote:
| Fair enough. Quite hard to age him plus the beard.
| notsuoh wrote:
| Reoccurring cancer could also be an explanation for taking the
| step of getting rid of your digital lifelines and walking down
| the Appalachian Trail.
| jakehop wrote:
| I know you're only trying to help, but they look nothing alike.
| And going missing on a shrimp boat leaving Texas, to then hike
| from up north seems too odd for Occam's Razor.
| newguysofly wrote:
| Two points: One, I don't know who you're looking at! They
| look very, very similar to me. Keep in mind, you have to age
| your mental image of JWM about ten years. Second, it's
| absolutely clear that MH wanted to "go missing" / be
| untraceable. If I were to accomplish that, the best way to do
| so would be to fake some sort of accident... like a mishap at
| sea (so that people believe you to be dead). Hence, shrimping
| boat.
| jakehop wrote:
| Quite an odd thing to say. While it can be easy to think
| that someone looks alike due to the "overall appearance" of
| their faces, closer inspection usually sets things apart.
| Their completely different chins are one example.
|
| Secondly, his DNA didn't match the missing person's
| database, which you are getting your "match" from.
|
| There's no reason to be defensive. You've done nothing
| wrong. Wrong starts only if it is impossible for one to
| accept that one's theory might not be correct. That can
| ultimately end in throwing off the real investigation, if
| one were aggressive enough.
| technofiend wrote:
| I was incredibly convinced it was the son of a friend due to
| similar (in my mind) facial features. And even more convinced
| when I found evidence the friend's son had a vegan restaurant
| that closed down around the same time this guy disappeared.
| Then I found the son's github repo with updates from 2020.
| Actually glad to be wrong.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| The Louisiana missing persons repository says that his DNA
| records are available [1]. So they (theoretically) would have
| found a match of his DNA when searching the missing persons
| database.
|
| [1] http://identifyla.lsu.edu/profile.php?id=494
| almog wrote:
| I love how sometimes worlds collide and thruhiking related
| stories make it to HN. It is however sad for it to be in this
| context.
|
| If anyone reading this consider getting into long distance
| hiking, I'd encourage you to do so. While it is always best to
| avoid getting into dangerous situations rather than finding your
| way out of there, getting yourself either:
|
| 1. A subscription based satellite messenger (Garmin Mini is only
| 100g/3.5oz and is backed by Iridium. Globalstar is the other big
| network).
|
| 2. Personal Locator Beacon (COSPAS-SARSAT backed device) that has
| no subscription fee and is backed by better availability
| guarantees (Resqlink is only 4.6 oz) but has no messaging
| capabilities other than an "SOS signal".
|
| If the above story didn't do enough to convince you that such
| device could have been helpful, please do yourself or your loved
| ones a favor and read what had became of Otter when he got
| trapped on the Continental Divide Trail -- "Snowbound", Outside
| Online:
|
| https://www.outsideonline.com/2336896/snowbound
| dmckeon wrote:
| If you travel to places where you might want people searching
| for you from the air to notice you amid many square miles of
| search area, a signal mirror is remarkably effective.
| https://adventure.howstuffworks.com/survival/gear/use-signal...
| almog wrote:
| The key thing about a signalling mirror is that it can be
| useful _if someone is searching for you_ (and provided that
| you have clear sky above you).
|
| PLB or satellite messengers will not only let the first
| responders know where you are (both by transmitting your
| location via satellite distress signal as well as using 121.5
| MHz 'homing signal' in the case of PLBs to help first
| responders find your exact location), but also trigger the
| SAR operation rather than waiting for someone to notice
| you've been gone for too long.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| I travel abroad a lot. I always wear my roadid bracelet. It is
| stylish enough that folks think it is for looks, but cheap
| enough that it won't get stolen off my body (like a wallet
| might).
| [deleted]
| stakkur wrote:
| The notebook is fascinating. The guy's hand-writing code in a
| small notebook.
| pulse7 wrote:
| And he mentions... Java... I hope he will not be downvoted on
| HN because of this...
| Serious_Cheese wrote:
| What's wrong with Java?
| jariel wrote:
| Young men don't die for 'no reason'. It's odd that they couldn't
| find some cause of death, I assumed that in 2020 we'd be able to
| make a rough estimate. If there's no obvious foul play then
| statistically the obvious one would be suicide, but that should
| narrow only to a few specific things. How many ways are there for
| one to 'just die' while lying in a tent.
| victor9000 wrote:
| The article says he weighed 86 lbs, so it sounds like he died
| of starvation or malnutrition.
| ColanR wrote:
| Which again is strange, since he was found with $3500 on him.
| manicorganic wrote:
| And there was food nearby.
|
| On the other hand, on the show Alone a few seasons back the
| medical staff had to pull someone who had weeks worth of
| smoked fish saved up yet was risking serious organ damaging
| due to malnutrition. Even though he had plenty of food he
| was simply rationing too strictly and had lost over 20% of
| his bodyweight in a matter of weeks. Point being, it's
| possible to put oneself in danger despite having the
| resources to avoid the risks.
| milesvp wrote:
| Alone was fascinating to binge on netflix. The winner of
| the season I watched had a whole elk to eat and was still
| losing dangerous amounts of weight over the course of the
| season. I would have never guessed that he would have
| struggled so much with such bounty.
| Herodotus38 wrote:
| https://www.colliersheriff.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=94010
|
| I wonder if he was fasting or starving himself and ran into
| unexpected trouble. For example pg 17 has some detailed
| nutritional data on something, maybe an idea for a protein
| bar?.
| Certified wrote:
| It looks like he was developing some sort of nutritional
| "wafer." I remember when Rob Rhinehart was in the early
| days of developing soylent, he commented that some of the
| raw nutritional powders he was sourcing for the mixture
| could be quite harmful if taken in the wrong dosage.
| Maybe he made himself sick with a bad batch of wafers?
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Foraging in the wild for food or water can have deadly
| consequences. For example, McCandless ate the wrong kind of
| berries.[0] Or the time when three campers scooped up more than
| just water in their coffee pot.[1] And don't underestimate the
| effects of Giardia.[2] That ubiquitous parasite could easily
| weaken and lead to the demise of a solo-hiker.
|
| [0]https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-chris-
| mccand... [1]http://www.realclear.com/discovery/2014/06/27/tiny
| _newt_pois...
| [2]https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/giardia/index.html
| pulse7 wrote:
| He had foot and $3500 in the tent...
| jack_riminton wrote:
| He's getting back to nature, people don't just eat wild
| food when their other food runs out
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Aneurisms, strokes, toxins (spider/snake bites). The first is
| pretty quick, but the latter two could leave someone
| sufficiently weak or incapacitated to move and care for
| themselves, but still survive long enough to become emaciated.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It would take a fairly long time for even a 130 person to get
| into the 80s. If you can't move or care for yourself, you'd
| be dead in that tent in less than 3 days.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| True. I saw another poster commenting on a case where a
| person was being too strict in rationing their (plentiful)
| food. Which perhaps makes more sense here. If he'd already
| lost a lot of weight and stamina as a result of that,
| could've laid down and died shortly after.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Rationing could be an issue, if he had reason to ration.
| Maybe if he got lost deeper within the park and was on
| his way out. Depends on how much food he had with him,
| when he was previously buying supplies, etc.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Florida is like the US's Australia. There are so many things
| that can kill you including a number of poisonous species of
| spiders and snakes. It's not a good place to hike alone.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| All of this would show up in an autopsy. Snake bites would
| leave visible puncture wounds. There are for all practical
| purposes no deadly spiders native to the US. Tissue necrosis
| from a brown recluse would be visible, and a black widow
| would leave neurotoxic signs that a decent autopsy would have
| found, as well as possibly the toxin itself. (Hardly anybody
| dies from those two spider bites, and those two are the only
| medically significant spiders in the US.)
| giantg2 wrote:
| Depends on the state of decomposition as to what they would
| find in the autopsy, but I would generally agree that
| invenomation is unlikely as it wouldn't explain the
| emaciation (they could be coincidental). Found in a tent in
| FL... I don't want to imagine that smell. It's also
| possible they found anomalies or issues but were not able
| to tie them to the death (I imagine the autopsy is
| confidential).
| notacoward wrote:
| > All of this would show up in an autopsy
|
| Not necessarily. The toxin could have been ingested,
| especially if it was something man-made rather than
| natural. Many would have left recognizable signs, but
| others you'd have to know what signs to look for and/or do
| a specific test. Whatever it is might even have cleared his
| system (it takes a while to become that emaciated) but not
| before doing some kind of neurological/motor damage.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| How long would they remain detectable by an autopsy in a
| county that didn't even want to spend $5k on DNA testing?
| How long was the body decaying before discovered. I do
| agree about the necrotizing venoms. But consider a black
| widow. You could be incapacitated, rendered helpless for a
| day or so, and become sufficiently dehydrated to be
| essentially delirious after recovering from the bite
| proper. That would leave you in a state that, without
| assistance, you'd not die from the bite, but from
| starvation/dehydration several days later. How long is the
| toxin in the body?
| asphyxiac wrote:
| Aneurism would show up in the autopsy, right? And snake bite
| in the toxo report?
|
| Not sure about stroke.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Well, I'm not a doctor or medical professional of any sort
| so I honestly don't know. I was just presenting things that
| could lead to an apparently healthy young-ish man suddenly
| dropping dead for no apparent reason.
|
| I didn't pick them totally randomly, though. I had a
| rationale: He seemed emaciated, which suggests something
| left him immobile for an extended period since he had food
| at hand. This made me think of strokes and snake/spider
| bites. The former could leave you permanently immobile, but
| alive. Without assistance he'd have died within a few days.
| The latter, depending on the sort, could leave you immobile
| and in great pain for a day or so, with a chance to recover
| and survive. But if he'd already become sufficiently
| dehydrated he may not have had the energy or wherewithal to
| care for himself.
|
| There are other conditions which could lead to a similar
| outcome. Heat exhaustion, for instance, may not kill
| outright. But could leave you in a state where you need
| assistance and can't recover on your own.
|
| Whether they'd show up on an autopsy, I don't know. But
| also per the article it was a while before he was found. So
| given a sufficient level of decay, it's possible these
| conditions wouldn't show up or would be sufficiently hard
| to detect (remember, the sheriff's didn't even want to pay
| $5k for the DNA testing, he wasn't a crime victim so their
| budget wasn't paying for a lot of analysis).
| andromeduck wrote:
| It's rare but it does happen. Sometimes the heart can just stop
| beating such as in SADS.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_arrhythmic_death_syndro...
| https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17522-sudden-...
| bastawhiz wrote:
| I'm not sure the article said...is it known how long he was
| dead for before the body was discovered? After enough time has
| passed, it becomes impossible to reliably determine whether
| certain factors played a role in the death. Underlying health
| issues and infection can be hidden by decomposition.
| TranquilAvocado wrote:
| I don't think it was in the article, but I read somewhere
| that they believe, based upon the little external
| decomposition, that the body was found perhaps a day after he
| passed.
| ThePadawan wrote:
| "Young men dying for no reason" is not totally uncommon. See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myocarditis#Epidemiology.
| ngokevin wrote:
| Sounds like it'll be a future Serial podcast or something.
| sudosteph wrote:
| Well, this was quite the rabbit hole for me. Great article, btw.
|
| Here's my best candidate from some internet sleuthing:
| https://imgur.com/EMPKO2V . I do definitely see some resemblance,
| but interested if others do too.
|
| I have a possible name, but no evidence that anyone with that
| name has been reported missing. The only contact point I found is
| a twitter profile that I think could be a brother, but I'm not
| about to message that person and open that door b/c I could be
| way off track.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Check against the photo with the shorter beard. Is more easy to
| verify.
| paxys wrote:
| I wonder how long it will be before someone truly cannot be
| anonymous in this country (or the world). Whenever I come across
| a book/movie about someone traveling to the future and trying to
| blend in, my immediate thought is that they will instantly be
| flagged as suspicious by a hundred different automated systems
| (where is your advertising profile, credit history, location
| history, iris scan, microchip??)
|
| There probably are already enough biometrics, digital records
| etc. today that can accomplish this given the right incentives
| for everyone involved.
| wolco2 wrote:
| It is much easier in third world countries to hide children /
| existance. This will make them attractive.
|
| In the future you describe you would have a hacked or stolen
| id.
| paxys wrote:
| Maybe today, but a lot of these third world countries are
| very rapidly developing a surveillance culture as well.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| Minority Report proposed a solution to the automated public
| retinal scans...
| znpy wrote:
| I haven't watched the movie, I'll give it an eye! Or two!
| /s
| ColanR wrote:
| > hacked or stolen id
|
| Even that would be tough, since I'd guess facial recognition
| would detect that.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| There are a lot of women in China who don't officially exist.
| They are significantly marginalized because they can't use
| government services or easily get an online identity.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I wonder how long it will be before someone truly cannot be
| anonymous in this country (or the world)_
|
| This is why my favorite Max Headroom character was Blank Reg:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_(TV_series)#Blank...
|
| I have several relatives who live off the grid in remote
| places. They're not survivalists or militia folk or anything
| like that. They just like to maximize their privacy.
|
| The keys to survival appear to be: Generate your own power (so
| you aren't beholden to a utility company), have a well drilled
| for water, have a boss who will cash your paycheck for you on
| payday, and live near a town where paying by cash isn't
| considered strange.
|
| They still pay taxes, though, so they can't be totally
| anonymous.
|
| One goes a step farther. He builds his own motorcycles to get
| around. According to him, the law in his state says that if
| your conveyance is home-built to a certain percentage (51%,
| maybe?), then you don't have to register it with the state. I
| have no idea if that's true, but to my knowledge he hasn't had
| any trouble with it in the 20 years I've known him.
| dheera wrote:
| I'm slightly less concerned about being anonymous from the
| government and far more concerned about being anonymous from
| _businesses_.
|
| How is it that every time I move, they still figure out where I
| live and continue to send me junk mail? I'm extremely concerned
| about the ease of arbitrary businesses finding out where some
| person lives. I want this to be unethical to the point that
| whoever leaked my address without my consent to be arrested and
| fined.
| sologoub wrote:
| Assuming you are in US. If you fill out change of address
| form, then USPS tells them:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2013/07/08/how-
| the-p...
|
| The direct mail business has this "public records" part
| figured out pretty well and they gather the data from
| anywhere they can. Wouldn't be surprised if utility bills
| factor in as well.
| dheera wrote:
| I don't fill that out anymore for exactly this reason.
| kodah wrote:
| You're getting downvoted and I'm not sure why, but I'd like a
| moment to share my story and why I believe in what you
| believe:
|
| My mom called me the other week and told me that a recruiter
| was looking for me. She gave me their name and number, but I
| was stumped. How the hell did: 1. They know that was my
| mother 2. How did they know her number 3. How did they know
| she would be able to reach me?
|
| I've subsequently determined that my ICE information was
| leaked somehow. This is the _only_ piece of information,
| other than life insurance, where my mother and I would be
| positioned as related. I do not have a Facebook, Twitter, or
| Reddit. I have this profile, which is my average online
| profile, and I have a professional one. Neither has ties back
| to my family, much less phone numbers. We also live in
| totally different states and they were calling her about a
| job for me in my current state and city.
|
| I would say it is already unethical to dox someone, just if
| you do it in the name of sales or "connecting people"
| Americans somehow sweep it under the rug.
|
| This is just a matter of correcting societal expectations.
| samatman wrote:
| That's a distinct possibility, but the odds that you've
| sent mail to your mother's house is high.
|
| Doesn't have to be in your name, either. Your billing
| address, her shipping address? That can be packaged and
| sold to a third party.
|
| It doesn't take much information to infer relationships,
| and we constantly leak information which is aggregated and
| sold. Facebook and friends are playing on easy mode, the
| markets for this kind of data predate social media and the
| professionals are very, very good at it.
| kodah wrote:
| I agree. I leave latitude in my mind that my conclusions
| are wrong and that this happened in other ways. Either
| way, it's not good. I wish it hadn't happened and as much
| as I'd like to say it didn't bother me much here I am
| posting on HN about it.
| llsf wrote:
| Same thing happened to me, but it was not to sell me
| something. It was nefarious enough that I cannot talk about
| it, without creating even more damages. Social engineering
| can still go all the way, where irremediable damage can be
| done. Then good luck to get justice!
| roywiggins wrote:
| USPS sells change-of-address data.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2013/07/08/how-
| the-p...
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| I found this out when I moved recently and I find it
| incredibly stupid. I'm now simultaneously annoyed that my
| new address seems to still receive mail for the last 3
| tenants, but I also didn't do a change of address so
| whoever ends up renting my old apartment is going to be
| annoyed with me.
| dheera wrote:
| Yeah, I hate those assholes for that, that's why I don't
| tell the USPS anymore when I move.
|
| Whenever I give my address to a business for shipping, DMV,
| voter registration, etc. I also tack on a code to my
| address so that if they leak it as-is, they'll have blood
| on their hands, and I can publicly shame them for it. But
| that hasn't yet seemed to successfully track down the
| source.
| znpy wrote:
| > Whenever I give my address to a business for shipping,
| DMV, voter registration, etc. I also tack on a code to my
| address
|
| Could you elaborate on that?
| dheera wrote:
| Let's say your address was
|
| 256 Main St. Apt 10, Some City, CA, USA
|
| I usually provide my address as
|
| 256 Main St. Unit 10-BCRK, Some City, CA, USA
|
| I generate a unique code for each entity that I am
| required to provide my address to.
|
| I usually change "Apt" to "Unit" to stump the automatic
| address-correcting APIs that will convert "Apt 10-BCRK"
| to "Apt 10". I found that changing "Apt" to "Unit"
| usually stumps them.
|
| The idea is that if I see another business use "BCRK" to
| send me junk mail, or list my address on those idiot
| people search sites, I will write a blog and publicly
| shame the first business for giving it out.
|
| Package delivery drivers happily ignore the "BCRK" part
| and my packages still arrive as usual.
|
| When giving out billing address for credit card
| authorization, I find usually I can skip the apartment
| number field and the card still authorizes just fine, so
| I also don't need to tell online retailers the same
| 4-letter code that my bank has listed for my address.
| momokoko wrote:
| Protip: Only do the temporary change. It still lasts like 6
| months so it would cover practically everything. You could
| potentially miss something later but for me it's a solid
| trade.
| dheera wrote:
| For the most part I figure if something is really
| important enough people will figure out a way to reach
| me. My e-mail address is pretty easy to find and any
| business I have subscribed to services from has that. I
| consider it the official way to contact me. I already
| deprecated snail mail and phone as official ways to reach
| me.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| Seems like a case of hasn't cracked yet, not can't crack.
| thom wrote:
| Reminds me of the old adage that if you want to find out how to
| do something in Linux, it's quicker to make a post saying
| "Linux can't do X!" and watch the rebuttals roll in than ask
| the question "How do I do X?"
| 1-more wrote:
| haha very particular form of Cunningham's Law! Thank's I'd
| never heard that one before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa
| rd_Cunningham#Cunningham's_L...
| [deleted]
| forinti wrote:
| I guess the chances have gone way up now that there's a picture
| of him on Wired given that he said he had worked in IT.
| pixl97 wrote:
| DNA is our best bet, but as we see it's the missing part of the
| story.
|
| With this said, it makes for a decent fictional writing prompt.
|
| It's 2045, the cold case on Mostly Harmless has been reopened
| after 24 years. Advances in DNA matching technology beyond what
| we imagined possible in 2020 have occurred. Detective Williams
| submits the preserved DNA to the US National DNA Registry
| (DNAR). Within minutes an exceptionally high probability
| grandparent match is returned. The record had been added just 8
| days previous, but was a sealed record. Inquisitive about the
| circumstances that would lead to the improbable events that a
| match existed, was only in the system for 8 days, and was
| sealed he put in a formal request for unsealing to DNAR. DNARs
| response was "Pursuant to USNADR Act 11A all juvenile records
| are sealed until the date of the records documented 18th
| birthday. A warrant must be issued by a judge for unsealing.
| Per subsection 15 of the act on permissible information
| release, the requested records year of birth is: 2045."
| microtherion wrote:
| > It makes for a decent fictional writing prompt.
|
| Or maybe make it a prompt for GPT3. People impute all kinds
| of smarts to it, let's see whether it can deduct MH's
| identity.
| jariel wrote:
| "DNA is our best bet"
|
| No, social networks are. More than likely there are people
| who absolutely know who he is, they just need to see the
| photo.
|
| DNA databases are not necessarily comprehensive, if there
| aren't people in his lineage who are both registered and who
| know about/of him, then it won't work.
| wolco2 wrote:
| Put his dna into 23andme and a detailed family chart will
| emerge.
|
| This is the future of crime fighting, or if someone has
| lost memories.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Sounds like a future rife for violation of people's
| rights in my opinion.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| It's possible that his family recognized him and just
| hasn't bothered to say anything publicly. Maybe he burned
| bridges in his previous life and folks would rather let it
| go than deal with interviews, etc.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| Could it be a Canadian that drove to NY and then hiked west?
|
| That's a pretty common thing to do.
|
| I have a bunch of friends from college that are bouncing around
| the globe travelling on foot, picking fruits and doing farm-work
| when they run out of funds.
|
| Or are the databases / missing persons agencies communicating
| with each others?
| gabereiser wrote:
| Clues here are: he's from Louisiana, worked in NY in tech,
| liked screeps. Coder from the looks of his notes. Mid 30s to
| late 40s.
| [deleted]
| hated wrote:
| Those first two are claims not facts.
| sebmellen wrote:
| Perhaps his suspected Louisiana ancestry is Cajun/Acadian,
| and he is actually from Quebec?
| gabereiser wrote:
| correct, it's from his own words. Nothing listed was
| _fact_.
| [deleted]
| jennyyang wrote:
| Here is a link to his notebook that they found on him:
|
| https://www.colliersheriff.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=94010
| jpsalm wrote:
| Kind of a stretch but the crossover between jaded dev/tech
| people and EVE Online players is high:
|
| Mostly Harmless is an old, now defunct, EVE corp. Might be
| someone who ran in that that might recognize him.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/cd7ku3/disbanded_allia...
| warrenmiller wrote:
| It's the description of Earth in the Hitchhiker's Guide to
| the Galaxy. That's where that's from
| jpsalm wrote:
| Just reading through the notes and there are lots of EVE
| terms in there. They look like they're talking about
| something else, a new game maybe, but I wouldn't discount
| it just yet.
|
| (Miners, haulers, nanite )
| gabereiser wrote:
| Mostly Harmless is also a difficulty level... I wouldn't dig
| too deeply into the name so much as the choice.
| jpsalm wrote:
| Yea it's a bit of a stretch. I haven't played EVE in ten
| years though and it was the first thing that popped into my
| mind.
|
| Looks like this was back in 2011 or so:
| http://www.verite.space/maps/influence/20110115.png (NW
| corner)
| bigtones wrote:
| From reading the notebook he may be a game developer. Quite a
| few of the pages look like notes from algorithms on rendering a
| game, maybe an FPS or RTS game, and he talks about outputting
| to the console and sprites.
| dzdt wrote:
| Yes, though I would say amateur game developer. Like the kid
| who always wanted to build a game but never did, got a "real
| job" doing some kind of much more boring programming.
|
| There is one point where he is musing about mapping commands
| to hex values within a single byte which makes me think he
| started programming in the 8bit era.
| Cook4986 wrote:
| Full-text transcription of individual notebook pages (annotated
| images + .json + .txt) generated with a combination of
| Handprint (https://github.com/caltechlibrary/handprint) and
| Microsoft's Read API:
| https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hkpqsnk858pzu7f/AADnCzr7tabArQ_xq...
| CortexM4 wrote:
| This tool is good. We could also use Google Lens to extract
| text from the document, I tried on a few pages it captures a
| some more text than Handprint.
| lunch wrote:
| Many of these pages look to me like he was designing a game.
|
| - p2p, client-server notes
|
| - Class definitions and implementation notes
|
| - Source code doing position calculations
| sgroppino wrote:
| Could it be the same person?
| https://steamcommunity.com/id/n0s0ck He has a comment on http
| s://steamcommunity.com/app/464350/discussions/0/35165980...
| spicyramen wrote:
| Great story, perfectly written, I read it all.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Micrurus?
| pvaldes wrote:
| mmmhnot... too fast.
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