Epiphany - How Fight Club Changed My Life - A Short Story

by Frank Coles

  You can make these yourself from key blanks ordered online although in some areas these can only be bought by registered locksmiths. You can also order pre-cut bump keys. However in some countries they are considered a burglary tool and you could find yourself in trouble if found in possession with intent to use the tool for any kind of naughtiness. But hey you are a thoroughly modern gentleman after all. The thought never even crossed your mind did it?

  How to Hotwire Cars and Motorbikes

    Hotwiring a car other than one you own is a criminal offence and for newer models may not work. These days manufacturers often hide the components or wires and include cut-off switches – which means the engine won’t start even with a key.

  It may also require a chipped key (hint: if there’s an RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip in it, stick it to the steering column before trying the following). But for older models you’re good to go. If you find yourself stranded in a hostile environment like a desert or suburban housing estate you won’t give a damn that it makes you look like a car thief.

  Be warned: the following techniques could cause electric shocks or serious damage to the engine, internal components and your car. Use with caution.

  Screwdriver in the Ignition

  Take a flat-head screwdriver and use it in place of a key.

  Simply insert into the keyhole and turn. It’s not the most flash way to do it but it’ll save you a whole lot of trouble. If it doesn’t work don’t worry, you can use the screwdriver for the next solution.

  The Old-Fashioned Way

  Right, make sure you’re in neutral then get yourself under the steering column and remove the ignition cover – sometimes clipped on, sometimes screwed on. Typically you’ll now see three pairs of wires. Each one corresponds to one turn on the ignition key so the first is the battery-on position, next lights, radio and electrics and the final one the starter motor.

  Unfortunately there’s no standard colour-coding system for these wires so you’ll need to look in the manual to find out which pair is which. However if you’ve lost it or there’s a bunch of hoodies banging on the window you could try the following.

  Find the matching power wires, usually red. Disconnect them, strip the ends and reconnect by twisting them together. Bingo: the dash should light up. Do not touch them to anything metal in the car.

  Now locate the starter wire or wires, often brown.

  WARNING: Do not touch the bare ends of these wires: they carry live current and you may be electrocuted. Now that you know this and have taken full responsibility for whatever happens next, strip the ends of these wires and cross the brown and red together. Just like the desperate hero in the movies. You should see a spark and the engine should start.

  Once the car is running, separate the live wires and cover the bare ends to protect yourself while driving.

  Give the car a few revs to prevent it stalling and your having to repeat this procedure. Now put your foot down and get the hell out of Dodge.

  Motorbikes are even easier. Just take the ignition cover off and twist the battery and ignition wires together (check the manual to find out the exact specs for your machine or opt for red and green if you’re in a jam). Now start the motor and drive like the devil himself was chasing you.

  Watch the videos to go with this chapter: https://bit.ly/x8vecO

  How to Defeat Security Systems

    We've all seen the films where the hero blows some cosmetic powder into an infrared beam or uses a mirror to reflect the light back on itself without breaking the circuit. I mean who doesn’t like watching Catherine Zeta Jones ooze her way through those red light beams in Entrapment? If your significant other is reading this over your shoulder then why pretend? Clearly the answer is both of you. But in the real world of high tech sometimes silent, sometimes scarily loud or police-alerting alarm systems, is there anything likely to work?

  You bet. Our old friend the design flaw is here to help us.

  Alarm systems are just like network controllers, cameras or any other electrical device: many of them have default settings that are easy to exploit such as simple four-digit pass codes or call centre passwords that are nothing more than the owner’s telephone number. As with most hacks a quick scan through the user’s handbook or manual can often provide what you’re looking for.

  Cosmetic powder really doesn’t work simply because the dust particles are heavy enough to trip the alarm. On the other hand the noted security expert Marc Weber Tobias, author of Locks, Safes and Security, demonstrated a real-world example that does work using an off-the-shelf motion detector, the Lasershield by Motorola. To bypass the settings of this wireless system he simply bought a walkie-talkie from the same manufacturer and kept the broadcast key pressed down the entire time he was in the building that used the Lasershield. As they both operate on the same frequency this blocked any alarm signal sent to the base unit from the sensors. It’s just like the hero’s mirror trick only he uses sound rather than light. As a great many wireless sensors can be defeated by radio jamming it’s also one of the best kept secrets in the industry.

  Of course there are all kinds of reasons to hack an alarm system other than sneaky peeking in your neighbour’s back-yard. You can rig these systems to launch freaky phantoms, fog machines and spooky lights for Halloween, or MP3 players, CD systems, PowerPoint presentations, and air horns that sound whenever someone walks past. Basically anything with an on/off switch.

  Yes, but what about technology and the constant forward march of progress I hear you cry? Biometrics (fingerprint sensors) and retinal scanners for example? Well like everything in life there’s always room for improvement. Take the average fingerprint scanner on your laptop; while it might appear safe most manufacturers will tell you somewhere deep within the documentation that it isn’t. Microsoft’s Fingerprint Reader for Windows states, ‘The biometric (fingerprint reader) feature in this device is not a security feature and is intended to be used for convenience only.’

  So how do we get past this device without hacking off the owner’s finger? There are several ways to do this. The advanced geek route uses a combination of a USB sniffer and custom message player along with a scanned copy of your own fingerprint; drop it in the unencrypted folder that contains the original unencrypted fingerprint scans and away you go. For a less tech-heavy approach try using fingerprint scans lifted from cups, keyboards or whatever you can find and then reprinting or moulding them on to ballistics gel, latex, Blu-Tack or even jelly babies. Lick your finger, apply, swipe. All have been shown to work by various hacker groups online.

  But my favourite has to be a simple photocopy of someone’s fingerprint as used on a security door lock for the Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters show. As most fingerprint sensors use off-the-shelf components from a surprisingly small range of manufacturers, you can bet that a flaw you find in system X will often apply in manufacturer Y’s version too. Failing this if there’s a human interface involved (a security guard) then send in your best looking female friend with a bunch of doughnuts and feverishly fluttering eyelids for a bit of base-level social engineering, usually the most simple workround of all.

  How to Get a Gun in any City in the World in the Next Few Hours

    Suppose you’ve just run over your mother-in-law’s prize alpaca; it’s too far gone and you know you need to put it out of its misery and stop that all-too-human-like screaming.

  What are you gonna do? Call the vet? He’ll spill the beans for sure. And then it’s a family stand-off for years to come.

  Clearly the only way out is to make like Tony Soprano and do what needs to be done.

  Depending on where you are in the world you might have to cut a few corners to find the necessary tools for the job. If you’re in legislation heavy UK then your first stop will of course be friends in the know, failing that the local gun club. Hang around for a couple of hours and ‘have a word’ with any likely looking characters
who might be able to hook you up. Worst-case scenario head for the roughest pub you can find; you know the kind of place where you fear for your life as soon as you walk through the door. Now make like Samuel L. Jackson in a Tarantino movie: just be cool and ask around. The barman is a good place to start.

  Inevitably he’ll point you in the direction of the scariest guy in the place. But hey family harmony is worth the trouble right?

  In some countries it is ridiculously easy to get tooled up. The USA as you would expect gives the necessaries away free with bank accounts as Michael Moore showed in his documentary Bowling for Columbine. Most recently Max Motors in Butler, Missouri, offered a free ultra-lightweight Kel-Tec .380 handgun or gas card with each new car. Sales quadrupled with most new owners opting for cheap armament over cheap fuel.

  Of course if you’re in the so-called developing world cut-price arms are everywhere. Take Cambodia aka War Disney where at the Kambol Shooting Range you can blow up a cow with a bazooka or RPG for around £200–£300.

  The bulk of that price tag is the cost of the cow not the weapon. Think you might be able to do a little back-door negotiation there? It’s the kind of place where you can also throw a hand grenade into a flock of chickens – for fun. I’d say that’s a big yes and even though these practices remain illegal in Cambodia it’s the healthy stream of bloodthirsty backpackers that makes it all possible.

  If the thought of minced alpaca seems a little excessive remember that wherever you are in the world all you have to do is just be cool and ask around. There’s always going to be someone who can help you with your mother in law problems. Hell if she lives in Missouri she might even lend you the freebie that came with her new SUV.

  How to Disappear Without Trace

    In February 1995 Richey Edwards, the guitarist and lyricist of the band the Manic Street Preachers, disappeared but not without a trace. His car had been left in a notorious suicide spot next to the Severn Bridge on the border between England and Wales. The Severn River has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world and, if he had jumped in, it’s likely that anything left after he hit the water would have been dragged out to the Irish Sea or Atlantic Ocean and never seen again.

  However in the weeks before his car was found he’d been taking the maximum daily amount of cash out of his account and it was reported that he’d read books on how to disappear. Although his family declared him legally dead in 2008 the jury’s still out on this one. I researched a project on his disappearance in 1999, ever since then I always like to think that he’s reinvented himself and is living a low key but happy life somewhere sexy and sub-tropical.

  There are many reasons why you might want to disappear. Some of the most common are escaping abuse, avoiding creditors or an unhappy life, to business people who fear kidnapping or celebrities who can’t stand the limelight any more. There are also more extreme cases such as that of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic who changed his identity, occupation and appearance to escape prosecution for war crimes.

  Then there’s John Darwin who famously made anyone who’d ever considered disappearing groan with disappointment when a photo of him and his wife buying a place in Panama surfaced five years after his fake death.

  If you are considering your own vanishing act then there are a few basics you need to know beforehand.

  You can live either off-grid or on-grid but both require you to separate everything you do in your new life from everything you did in the old. Both methods follow very similar steps; the trick is to create a firewall between you and you old life either through legal structures or new ID.

  Preparation:

  • Create your new life first – give yourself months rather than days.

  • Tell no one of your plans.

  • Use pay-as-you-go phones and international calling cards for all communications relating to your new life.

  • Use internet cafés, libraries and other public computers to conduct any research.

  • Use cash; don’t leave a credit card, checking or Paypal trail.

 

  Manufacture Your New Identity

   A simple legal way to create new ID without a huge paper trail is to nominate a new name through a statutory declaration with a lawyer (people who have sex changes, actors and immigrants who anglicise their names do this all the time) or through what is called ‘common usage’. For example my first name is Francis but I rarely use that for anything other than official government documents. I can legally use Frank for everything I do as long as I’m not planning to defraud anyone.

  The darker path involves stealing ID from cot deaths, infants who died around the same time you were born (check obituaries then apply for their birth certificate and take it from there); buying passports from developing countries in return for investment money; or persuading someone who you know will never leave the country to allow you to use their passport to establish a parallel identity.

  In Other People’s Money the inventive real-life fraudster Elliot Castro successfully hijacked or created several new identities to tap their lines of credit and siphon off funds to his own Swiss bank accounts.

  Whichever route you choose once you have a new ID you need to build up a layer of believability: so a home address, bank account, medical card, social security number, passport, Blockbuster card, library card, bills and so on. You might not be able to get all of them but get as many as you can.

  You can then establish an International Business Corporation (IBC) in a territory with no mutual legal assistance treaty with your home country. No shareholders or directors are listed, which means you can then use your corporate ID to run your new life.

  This allows you to use:

  • ‘Black’ credit cards – that list no transactions.

  • Sign up for email, fax and secretarial services.

  • Have a phone anywhere in the world.

  • Own property.

  Once you’re gone:

  • Always keep a low profile.

  • If you must contact family or friends use calling cards or pay-as-you-go phones in an area that doesn’t relate to you then throw them away.

  • Don’t go home ever.

  • Don’t use anything from your old life such as credit cards, email accounts, social networking sites or, like John Darwin, your old library.

  Why is all this complexity necessary? Well because there are people out there paid to find you like American skip tracer Frank M. Ahearne. In his revealing article ‘Learning How to Disappear’ he says that for guys like him ‘it’s a game we get paid to play. We can make as many mistakes as we want; the one you make is the one that most likely leads us to you.’ So if you fake your own death there are insurance investigators to watch out for and if you run out on significant debts the creditors can be unrelenting. Kiwi Owen Bruce Taylor found this out when the police pulled him in after he had been living for four years with a new identity after running out on NZ$3 million in debts. The detective agency tracking the New Zealander found him 950 miles away from home in Queenstown. By then he was the director of a local company and well established.

  However take heart: there are plenty out there who do get away with it. You generally only hear about the ones that don’t. Take Ivan Manson who disappeared successfully in 1975 and only reappeared twenty years later in Queensland, Australia, when a post-mortem revealed his true identity after a fatal car accident.

  Steve O’Keefe, co-author of How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, demonstrated how easy it is to build a new identity by making mail-order purchases in his dog’s name. He always paid cash, which means his pooch now has one of the best credit ratings in Washington State and regularly receives pre-approved credit card applications.

  I still have one of my own faux identities from when I first started playing with this whole idea a few years ago. With no credit history at all and nothing more than an address I managed to convince
one British credit firm to offer a Mr F. Spunkmonkey a credit card. Maybe they thought this was a quaint ethnic name.

  Remember: the rules change regularly so keep your research up to date. When you are set up give me a call on a disposable phone and I’ll come and join you for a caipirinha somewhere sunny. Until then enjoy the beach.

  How to Hide a Dead Body

    So whaddya mean you’ve never killed anyone? What about the alpaca? You missed? You hit your mother-in-law?

  Damn. Well look on the bright side. At least you won’t have to give her the gun back.

  If we are going to look seriously at how to dispose of a dead body then clearly we need to start with those two infallible sources of information, the movies and the internet.

 

  Mafia-style

  Anyone who’s anyone knows that once you’ve whacked a guy you’ve got to remove the hands and face if you’re of Russian extraction or fingers and teeth if you’re Italian – that’s if you don’t want the body to be identified. You’ll also need somewhere quiet and easy to clean like a tarp or bathroom and plenty of sharp tools capable of cutting through bone. Oh, and a strong stomach. The unrecognisable body can then be dumped anywhere you like. If you’re a perfectionist then you could of course dismember it into small pieces and deposit it in bins or dog bowls around town.

  If you’re in a rush then a heavy weight (think front axle) tied to the body and deep water should do the trick. If time is on your side you could drive around town with the body in an ice-cream van’s freezer to throw off the time of death on the coroner’s report – just like real-life Mafia hit man Richard ‘The Iceman’ Kuklinski. By the time the body defrosts you should have come up with a plausible alibi for the fake time of death.