How to Win Hunted (the Channel 4 TV Show)

A few weeks ago, Hunted returned to our screens. A TV show meant to simulate the life of an escaped felon, it tasks various competitors with outsmarting a team of professional investigators for 28 days in order to win a share of £100,000. It’s basically ‘infosec the game show’, a trial meant to see how well your average Joe could avoid the police and authorities in one of the most heavily monitored countries in the world.

And as you can guess… most people don’t do very well on it. Seriously, the competitors here are terrible at dodging the hunters. They go through heavily monitored areas, they eat in public restaurants… heck, one guy even got caught because he was stupid enough to get a National Rail train to Kings Cross for whatever reason.

Basically, normal people suck at avoiding attention. Which is where I come in.

Why? Because unlike the people on the show, I have some logical ideas for how a contestant could easily avoid both the investigators tracking their every move and the hunters trying to follow them across the country. So, if you want to win the show, here’s my simple advice…

1. Use encrypted messaging apps wherever possible

No, not WhatsApp. Or anything else that’s likely been backdoored by the government. Those give the team behind the show a way to (rightly) claim they could track what you’re saying.

Instead, make use of apps like Signal. These apps rely on strong encryption that even the NSA would struggle to break, and provide a safe way for people in sensitive situations (like journalists and their sources) to communicate in peace.

So, get your contacts to install one of them on their phones, and use the same thing wherever possible, avoiding traditional emails and messaging services altogether.

2. But provide decoy messages in other formats

Since while you’re not using them, you don’t want to make it too obvious to the hunters or investigators that you’re not. So, get ready to phone a bunch of people you’re not going to see at all, and pretend you’re on the way. This will significantly affect the hunters’ resources, since they’ll have to figure out which of the ‘messages’ is legitimate and which is a decoy… with the answer being that literally every one of them is the latter.

And it shouldn’t end with phone calls or text messages either. Oh no, in the show they also intercept physical letters mailed to others too, which leaves a great few possibilities to troll the team there and then. For example, send a few letters to people you’re not going to meet hinting that you’ll be there…

Then include a couple of coded messages in the letters too. Like, three or four messages per letter, with each one using more complicated cryptography techniques. Just like with the normal ones however, all these messages will also be fake, with the instructions being complete red herrings meant to waste your competitor’s time and resources.

3. Use secure computer software too

But hey, let’s say you’ve got the decoy messages (which are a good idea, since the best way to stay hidden is to make it impossible to tell which information is real and which is fake) and want to check your email. What’s the solution there?

Get used to Tor, that’s what. Or more precisely, get used to using Tor alongside a VPN and the Tails operating system.

That’s because standard operating systems and browsers… are not very good at maintaining your privacy. They leak personal information like a sieve, they’re filled with telemetry setups that send your data off to third party servers and generally they make it so anyone with the least bit of computer knowledge can track you very easily.

Tor + Tails does not. The former provides a high security operating system that can be run for a USB stick on any machine, and the latter sends your network requests through multiple other machines worldwide with high level encryption applied to the entire connection. It’s how journalists talk with sources like Edward Snowden, or how various activity on darknet market sites (unfortunately) goes on unhindered.

Use it well, and while the show’s investigators may know you’ve logged in, they certainly won’t know where you’re logged in from or anything else that could otherwise be gleaned from network inspectors or ISP requests.

4. Avoid using bank cards wherever possible

Since the show clearly knows that investigators can track ATM activity in real life, and duplicates that setup in the show itself.

Instead, either:

A: Bring enough money in cold cash to survive for 28 days without ever going to an ATM

B: Or have a friend provide you a pre-paid card bought before the show starts. Or have said friend use said card to withdraw the money beforehand, then give it to you when you see them

That way, you’re pretty self-sufficient.

5. Consider making use of disguises

Since while it sounds corny as hell, their quality has improved significantly in the last couple of decades or so. Seriously, check out this story if you don’t believe me:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/11/04/canada.disguised.passenger/index.html?hpt=C1

Basically, a 20 something Asian guy nearly managed to enter Canada from Hong Kong by disguising himself as a white pensioner via a near photo realistic disguise he bought off the internet. He only got caught because he forgot to disguise his hands, and (for some reason) changed back to normal in the plane toilets shortly before it was due to land.

And it’s not the only example of how crazy some of these disguises can be. There was a case where a 30 year of Polish guy used one to pass himself off as a black man, to the point the police arrested the wrong guy for his crimes:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/08/business/la-fi-mask-20101209

As well as a few cases online where people have used similar costumes for pranks and practical jokes. If you’ve got the time and money, buy one, change into it at a very convenient time and then just chill out in the middle of town right under everyone’s noses.

6. Send in the fake tip offs

Later during the show, the team put out fictional ‘appeals’ on Facebook for witnesses who’ve seen the ‘fugitives’, with a reward offered to anyone who can offer enough information for a capture. They’re a pretty standard trick, though they certainly make things harder by offering average Joe a reason to snitch on you for a bit of extra dosh.

However, they’re also a goldmine for pranksters and contestants too. Why? Because they’re damn going to have to investigate some of these sightings, and they have no easy way of knowing who’s a real witness and who’s a contestant trying to send them barking up the wrong tree.

So, take full advantage of it. Get your specially set Tails operating system and a VPN, make a few fake accounts and send in various tips from places you have no plans to ever actually visit. You’ll waste a hell of a lot of time, and make it confusing for those tracking you to figure out just who’s real and who isn’t.

Heck, go even further still. I mean, you’ve got friends and family, right?

Yeah, I thought so. Well, get them to flood social media sites with fake sightings and information. Like, actually flood them to the point the real ones are almost buried under an avalanche of hoaxes. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, LinkedIn… get them to use anything they have an account on to post fake information about your whereabouts. Their attempts at getting the public to turn you in will completely fall to bits as a result.

7. Remember that the rules are actually entirely workable

Even if they seem insane, since a good player would either be working within them anyway as simple common sense or could work around them pretty easily. Here’s what I mean:

Teams must move every 48 hours: Potentially a bit awkward, though if you’re not living at a friend’s house for 28 days, likely beneficial for you overall.

Teams cannot return to the same place twice. (Emiley: “You can’t go back to the same place twice.”): If you’re returning to the same place multiple times, you’re probably not going to stay under the radar too well. Don’t continue the day job while competing okay?

Teams cannot be helped by the same person twice: See above

Teams cannot take out more than $100 from an ATM at one time, and cannot visit an ATM more than once in a day: Who needs it?

No one can give the teams money: Annoying, but nothing says you can’t give yourself resources. Or stash ’em for later.

8. Don’t act too suspicious

As if you’ve got something to hide. You do in this case, but ideally you want to appear to others like you’re perfectly normal rather than some wannabe ninja/superspy.

So, forget the sneaking around random fields or what not, try and act like you’re a normal guy/girl going through their daily routine. Or a tourist exploring the UK like a tourist would.

9. Don’t do anything utterly stupid

Finally, some obvious advice that most contestants forget:

Many, many parts of normal life can allow you to be tracked, and this is especially true of things like public transport.

As a result, you should avoid doing any of the following things:

1. Using an Oyster or travel card registered to your name
2. Taking public transport (especially while not in disguise)
3. Going out to fancy dinners/lunches/events/whatever else
4. Talking about your (real) personal life with strangers
5. Using the internet from any normal computer with an unencrypted connection
6. Sending text messages or phone calls with real information about what you’re planning to do next
7. Going through any of your ‘regular’ routine at all.
8. Exploring/visiting any places you visit every day
9. Running a concert via Facebook Live where you serenade a picture of the lead investigators head on a stick. Yes, that happened.

And many more things that’ll bring the wrong kind of attention. Do that, and you have a damn good chance of winning this show, and proving that survival in the UK without always being monitored is perfectly possible.

Good luck!