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BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 weeks agoIt was easy to fake an identity back then. Nothing was computerized or tracked. Just get a birth certificate from a baby who died around the time of your birth, and you could get a Social Security card, a Driver’s License, and a whole new identity.
homes@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
Nothing about that was easy. It may not have been as difficult as it is now, but it still wasn’t “easy”.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
It wasn’t that hard. Spend a couple hours in the children’s section of a cemetery in some midsize Midwest city, and you’d have a list of names of babies, who most likely died right in that very county. Request a copy of a birth certificate from the local county offices. Use that to apply for a Social Security Card, and use that and the birth certificate to get a driver’s license.
Most of it has to be done through the mail, so it will take a while, but that’s the worst of it.
Can’t do that today, though. They’ve locked down birth certificates pretty well, it would be hard to get your mitts on one. These days they tend to just steal someone else’s identity, and live parallel lives with someone else.
homes@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
You just described to me how it’s extremely difficult and requires a lot of effort.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Yeah, that was life before the Internet. You actually had to do stuff. You couldn’t just click a few keys, and get what you want.
Still, to create an entirely new identity, and disappear? Today, you couldn’t do it all. A little legwork and a few months of waiting for mail isn’t that much to ask.