Hunted (and how to win it)

Are you watching the second season of Hunted on C4? We have had two episodes; the third will air later this week.

The basic premise (if you haven’t seen it) is that it’s a gameshow. The challenge facing the contestants is that they must spend a month moving around the UK, whilst evading capture by a team of experts.

These experts have the full range of State information systems at their disposal: CCTV, ANPR, etc (or simulations thereof).

The experts are able to access these systems in real time, and thus can track the progress of the game show contestants, also in real time.

Supporting the office-bound electronic intelligence/surveillance  experts are a national team of ‘hunters’, who are the arms and legs of the organisation; they will capture the prey. I’ll come back to these resources in a moment.

But that’s it, in a nutshell, that’s Hunted: evade capture. It is not about having a jolly across the UK for a month. If you think it is, you will be caught. It is not spending a month ‘off the grid’. If you think it is, you will be caught. It is not about ‘going on the run’. If you think it is, you will be caught. It’s about evading capture.

The prize is a pot of £100,000.

Th prize fund is divided by the number of winners per series (or, to put it another way, is divided by the number of game show contestants who successfully evade capture).

Hunted is, in its own way, quite an endearing gameshow.

But the contestants in series 2 are making exactly the same mistakes that the contestants in series 1 made. Yet the series 2 contestants would have made special effort to record and watch series 1 many times, yes? Yes. Obv. Else they would be terminally stupid.

So why are the contestants in series 2 falling to their hunters as readily as the contestants in series 1 did?

Because they watched but failed to learn from the mistakes made in series 1? Yes, it’s that simple.

So for the hard of learning, and in case anyone from any future seasons of Hunted should tune in here (because analytics tell me people are still hitting this particular webpage quite hard) before the show is filmed, here’s a few informed thoughts on how to get close to the prize.

And, for the record, I have worked in that nice big building on London’s southbank, and I also worked in that peculiar-shaped building in Cheltenham. And yes, I worked for that funny little place in Chicksands. And for that very special place in Salisbury Plain. So that’s my credentials. Here we go…

Preparation: CyberSecurity
Before you mail in your application, you must burn every shred of your online presence. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Dropbox, YahooMail, GMail (and any other email accounts you might have knocking around), GoogleMaps, Google+, YouTube, WhatsApp, Satnav, Periscope, Netflix, iTunes, Hotmail, Webforums/Chatforums, Online clubs, Online results for sports, Ebay, Amazon, all online accounts with everyone (Ocado, Cineworld, photosharing websites, games websites), even MySpace (some people still use it!). In short, everything that you pick up a smartphone for, everything you touch a keyboard for. Burn it all. Do not plan on getting any of these services back after the game show. If you need any single one of these back, don’t do the game show.

How do you burn them? Access them all via one – just one – device, procured especially for this purpose. Then use a secure password generator, reset your passwords, and then close it all down. Everything. Close them all down. Then destroy that one device and I don’t mean just toss it in a bin.

The show will want an email address for contact. That’s fine. Give them the email of your boyfriend, or girlfriend or some other friend, or get a friend to set up an account for you – in your name – on a domain they own. Do not sign up to a new email account. Every time you email the show your IP address will be captured and yes, they will use it to trace *how* you access the Internet. So if the email address you’re borrowing belongs to someone you live with… Think again.

The show will ask for a phone number. Get someone to buy a used phone on eBay for you, then pay cash for a PAYG SIM, and give the show this number. As soon as the show/filming is lined up to start, trash the phone, do not retain it ‘for emergencies’. Destroy it, then bin the remains.

Tablets. Smartphones. Laptops. PCs. Any device that you have ever signed in to any web-service with. Destroy it. Destroy them all. If you hide them, they’ll be found. When they are found they will be hacked, and no matter how carefully you hide them, they will be found. Destroy them now.

Preparation: Build a network of cut-outs
Use your friends to use their friends to use their friends. Your 2nd/3rd-layer conduits must not be people who you know. Your end-user contacts must be someone you have never met. These cutouts must be people from a different world to the one you inhabit. You must not make direct contact with your end-user contact. You and they should use spook tradecraft to communicate: dead-letter drops are ideal, with simple visual signals to signify when a message or a response has been dropped. Chalkmarks are ideal signals. I’ll say it again for emphasis: do not make contact directly with your end-user contacts. You should not know their name or what they look like. They should be unaware of your appearance and real name. If there are no isolated cut-outs between you, you may as well just invite them in to meet your friends and family and these nice hunters who are going to turn up very shortly. If you ever contact a real friend, by any means at all, you are wasting everybody’s time by entering Hunted, because you will be caught.

Preparation: Identity
Get a dummy address. Use your end-destination contact for this. Build a new persona. Right now. The minute you send your application off, put together a new you. Create some ID. That’s a huge step forward. Get a library card in a nearby town/city to your dummy address (not in the same town/city though). Start to build the new you a track record of information. Buy a TV licence in your new name at the dummy address (pay by instalments so you can bin the cost once you have what you need). Build a profile at your dummy address. Do not bring any of this information in to your home or in to your workplace. Do not write it down. It’s a long haul, but you need to begin collecting, in your new name, at your new address, anything official. Invoices, bills.

Preparation: Lifestyle
Move to cash. Do it now. Get used to a cash economy. It’s a big transition. If you have any credit/debit cards the temptation to use them will be strong and if you do, you will be caught. The show gives you a small amount of cash on a debit card. Get it all out in one go the minute you start your run. Just about every cash machine in the UK is covered by CCTV. Throw the card away as soon as you have withdrawn the money. Learn to live with less. Your ‘absolutely necessary belongings for a month of avoiding capture’ should be the epitome of travelling ultralight. Oh yes, and get fit. Go to the gym. Build resilience.

Preparation: Planning
Have a plan. You obviously need to avoid ANPR and CCTV, but you are also required to move around. Plan this. Plan how you are going to move around, and where you are going to move to next, and next after that, and next after that and so on. Have a plan for the whole month. Be meticulous and detailed. Also, have backout plans, in case your plan goes wrong. You must have alternatives. Again: if you have no plan you will fail. CCTV is almost everywhere, but use a little of the time you have now to see where CCTV isn’t. Use maps. Use common sense. Do reconnaissance if necessary. You will be surprised how much of the UK isn’t covered. Build your plans for the month around these places. Plan to earn a living. You need to eat, but you need to avoid looking like a tramp. You have a very small amount of money, but it is insufficient to live on for a month. Plan how you are going to earn money, and what you are going to do. Plan where you are going to do it. If you do not have a plan for survival you will be caught.

Preparation: Appearance
Plan to change your appearance within 2 hours of hitting the road, before you even get to your first safe house. Have preparations to be able to change your appearance several times during the month. Think long-term, do not think ‘once’. Any appearance changes should be very simple to effect. Change your walk. Skilled spooks can spot you in a crowded train station on CCTV by your walk. The simplest way to throw spooks off this trail is to put a small stone in your sock. Really. Also, don’t look as if you are looking for a pursuer. There is nothing more suspicious than a sweaty person who looks hunted. Let the hunters look as if they are hunting; you just need to keep your head down like anyone else who might be worrying about how they’re going to pay the mortgage next month. In crowds, do not move quicker than the crowds. I’ll say that again. Do not run, not even if you think you have been traced. Innocent people do not run with backpacks (etc) banging around behind them unless they’re running for the 12.53 to Croydon. Don’t catch the 12.53 to Croydon. Fit in. Blend in. Be part of the wallpaper, do not be a discordant pattern. If you are hitch-hiking, do not get out of the car where CCTV is placed. That’s motorway services, filling stations, train stations, underground stations, metro stations.

Evading capture: The basics
Do not enter the game show Hunted with a buddy plan. This is simple logic. You either go solo or you get caught. The choice is yours. Do not have any contact with family or friends. The phones (home phones, work/desk phones, mobile phones) of all of your known associates will be tapped, and calls to them will be traced. This isn’t an ‘if’, a ‘but’, or a ‘maybe’, this is a certainty. That one phone call to a wife, boyfriend, partner, or offspring during their birthday, will cost you £100,000. If you can’t go completely silent and no-contact for a month, do not waste everybody’s time by entering the game show.

Preparation: Confuse the enemy:
For all the stuff the hunters can call on, the cars, the TV/Radio announcements (‘We’re looking for this person…’), the tech, the drones, and the CCTV that the hunters use, there is one chink in their armour that savvy contestants must exploit. The hunters do not have an infinite number of boots on the ground to call on. They need to get out of their HQ, they need to put people on the ground to travel to places and to hunt. Clever huntees would set up decoys in advance of going on the show. Get friends, relatives, close contacts and anyone else you can (even the local AmDram club because believe me, they’d love to get involved in a bit of real-time audience participation!) lined up in advance to disguise *their* appearance, to be vaguely similar to you – the hunted. When the hunters come knocking (as they invariably will, because they need to close down every line of enquiry), the decoys should wait an hour or two and then scurry across the area (looking furtive and secretive, and carefully not showing their faces as they scurry). This simple tactic will dilute the resources that the hunters can call on. It will weaken their search capability, and it will directly extend the length of time that the hunted has on the ground. By the way, feel free to involve the local AmDram society as dummy cutouts (not actual cutouts, that’s too obvious. They’ll rise to the challenge of acting a bit spookish.

Summary:
The TV programme Hunted (and indeed the ‘hunters’) rely on 21st Century technology. In order to defeat them, you have to use mid 20th Century spook-tradecraft. Take the advantages away from the hunters. Render their tech less than effective, make their boots on the ground confused. And if you want to win at Hunted (and why else would you even consider signing up for the game show, if not to win it?), you will need the help and support of a network of blind cutouts in order to succeed. These two spook tools (dead-letter drops and a network of blind cutouts) are unbeatable. British Intelligence ran networks of undercover agents in the most heavily monitored States in Communist Eastern Europe, for decades.

And if you do decide to send in an entry, let me know how it goes for you.