• zach@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 hours ago

    How do you stay “missing” that long without being found? Like if you applied for a job / filed your tax return / got a credit card wouldn’t some system get flagged?

    • rainwall@piefed.social
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      4 hours ago

      You dont do any of that, for one, or you do it under a fake name.

      It was also probally easier 24 years than it is now. No cellphhones, no social media, very basic digital cameras, almost no survelance cameras.

      • ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip
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        2 hours ago

        Cellphones existed in 2002. They weren’t smart phones, but we had mobile cellular devices. And MySpace. That was only a few years out from Twitter and Digg being released.

        • rainwall@piefed.social
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          1 hour ago

          Good catch. I should have said smart phones. Cellphones were around, but think calls/basic texting, no cameras, no internet, no GPS.

          Myspace launched in 2003, so it didnt exist. Friendster technically did, as it looks like it launced in march, 2002. Id still say that no, there was no social media of note in 2002, unless you want to talk about usenet/IRC.

        • raef@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          Friendster. MySpace came a year later. But even if we were talking about the '70s, we could still say cell phones existed