Fake Your Identity Online

For whatever reason, you may want to protect your real identity when speaking with others online. You could want a second chance at being part of a forum community that you recently had problems with and want to participate with a fresh start; no strings attached. Or, you could just want to try another life on for size.

Do not use this for illegal purposes, harming someone, or imitating other people. This article can be used for harmless purposes, and is intended as such.

Steps

  1. Build an idea of who you want to be. Without proof, you can claim to be virtually anyone. Going off of what you know is a good idea; it's tough to pretend to be a biologist when you know nothing about the field.
  2. List all details that you can think of for this identity. Some things you will want to include are:
    • Name
    • Gender
    • Age
    • Birth date
    • City (including ZIP codes)
    • State
    • Country
    • Appearance (Eye color, hair color, weight, height)
    • Personality traits (likes, dislikes, general attitude)
    • Background information (parents, siblings, pets, relationships, school)
  3. The site http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/ can get you a name, address, city, age, site name, and email address.
  4. Store all of this information where it can be easily accessible by you. A notepad file stored somewhere on your computer is good.
  5. Create a new account that has no ties whatsoever to your real self. Keep in mind that if you're doing this in a community where moderators actively check who you are and you're trying to start over, your real identity may be discovered.
    • Consider just apologizing, and pretending you are a new person; turning over a new leaf, if you will.
  6. Avoid making the same mistakes you did before, if you're trying to start over with a community you messed up with. Always check and double check what you're saying to make sure you're not jeopardizing your identity and that it is on par with who you are claiming to be.
  7. Change how you respond and converse with people while masquerading as your new identity. It doesn't have to be a big change, but enough so that you can be yourself without people knowing who you are. Vocabulary changes, attitudes, and grammar can affect who people see you as. Take these different posts for example; they all say basically the same things, but in different ways:
    • "man dats bunk dude. i mean really dats sum major bull rite there. you wanna know what i think? he should be locked the heck up"
    • "Wow. I can't believe that... That's not right. I think he should be thrown in jail."
    • "Well, I am astonished to hear that. What this man did was unbelievable, and in my opinion, he should be sent to prison."
  8. Tell everyone the same story. This is a vital part of keeping the identity up; if you tell people different things, soon you will forget who heard what story and eventually you will slip up and it will all come out.
  9. Keep track of all information you give out and update it as necessary. Some things you need to keep updated would be age, relationship status, hairstyles, weight, and other things as you see fit.
  10. Make up excuses for why you don't have any pictures. This is necessary, because unless you are willing to use real pictures (which really contradicts the anonymous idea), you won't have any real pictures of your fake self, although you could use pictures of your friend, sister, etc. Simple excuses can be you don't have a camera or a web cam, or your parents won't let you upload pictures of yourself.
  11. Abandon your old account and never use both at the same time pretending to be two different people. You will get mixed up some time and post as the other. Not only that, but your IP will match both the accounts. If the moderators of the forum see this, they could out you or ban you.

Tips

  • Think carefully if you really want to do this. In order to keep your identity safe, you'll have to keep it secret at all times. If you start to make friends, you might be tempted to tell them, and if you tell them, they could tell other people and expose your real self.
  • Base it off of you. If nobody knows that your real self has pets, you could use them for your fake identity. If nobody knows your real school/city/state, then you could use those for your fake identity. Be something you know how to be, but don't be what someone else actually is. That is, don't imitate someone you know.
  • Think of this like role-playing, since it is essentially what you are doing. The only difference is that nobody else is role-playing and you're doing it only with speech, not action.
  • Try this on a new website you have never been on before trying it at a community you've been involved with in the past. It may help prepare you for dealing with pretending to be someone else.
  • Many of these steps help you build a ‘webonym', basically a pseudonym for the Web. Some additional hints to make it more believable:
  • I indicate birth in a different country (your great grandfather’s town) - hard to check records out side of US and they don’t expect you to have an SS number. Nobody asks for Visa information
  • Use different browsers on your computer - If you do most of your work in Firefox, use your webonym on Chrome or Safari. That way you don’t have to worry about who you are logged in as.
  • Do take some pictures, but not too close to home, or use old vacation pictures. Important use MicroSoft Photo Editor, Preview, or anything from Adobe to copy and paste the important part o four picture into a ‘New picture’, make sure the metadata (GPS, camera info, et cetera is not included). Set up an account with your webonym on Flickr, Picasa, 500pix or anybody and create some backstory for your webonym.
  • Use the same pictures, sparingly on FB, Tumblr, etc.
  • Figure out how to edit an old picture of yourself, a friend, deceased person, etc. There is plenty of software to change hair color, make it older or younger, remove or add blemishes, and either flatten or elongate the picture 5-10%. Get a group picture from {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} away…. anything

Warnings

  • You might get mixed up and say different things to different people, who can compare stories and figure out the truth if you're not careful.
  • This is essentially lying. Make sure you're okay with lying to other people before trying this. Consider your own morals.
  • If you get discovered, you've probably blown all future chances you had at reconciling with the community. They'll be on the lookout now for you in the future and probably won't want to talk to you.
  • You run the risk of having moderators that check for double accounts and may reveal who you are.

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