The idea is to legally change your name to something like "ZZZ Test", and try to have various government and private organisations enter this in to their databases and computer systems as part of your details.

The hopeful consequence of this is that someday, an IT support person /computer programmer will delete your record(s), thinking it is just test data. This idea comes from my own experiences as a computer programmer - a record in a production system with something like "ZZZ Test" is quite liable to be deleted.

It's kind of then an experiment to see what happens. Various negative and positive effects could be forseen - but a good example is that the tax department might delete your taxation records. Or perhaps the social security department might delete records pertaining to a particular benefit you should be receiving - maybe you could even engineer legal action? I.e. claim that a department's mismanagement of your records caused various greivances...
-- Achenar, Jun 16 2004

The "NO PLATE" story http://www.snopes.c...tos/law/noplate.asp
[hippo, Oct 04 2004, last modified Jan 04 2006]

Isn't moving to Montana a whole lot quicker?
-- DrCurry, Jun 16 2004


I think this is a brilliant idea. Huge + from me.
-- dobtabulous, Jun 16 2004


Cunning.
-- simonj, Jun 16 2004


//Isn't moving to Montana a whole lot quicker?//

...but a lot less entertaining.
-- DrBob, Jun 16 2004


There was a guy who had a dispute with his bank and changed his name to "Yorkshire Bank are all useless bastards" or something like that. He then closed his account with them, so that they had to write a cheque with that on it for him.
-- oneoffdave, Jun 16 2004


Or take on a pseudonym that is part of the name of the institution in question in order to give yourself artificial credibility. Dupe others in to complicity so that it doesn't look like it was your idea.
-- half, Jun 16 2004


An interesting scheme [Achenar], and surely one that would be successful in causing confusion at a minimum. I think the name in itself would ensure the full range of credit checking activities would be performed on you every time you attempt to rent a property, activate a phone, electricity service, etc, etc...
-- Lacus Trasumenus, Jun 16 2004


I like this idea almost as much as the story about some guy in the United Kingdom that changed his name to match his car's registration plates because he couldn't afford personalised plates with his original name on them.
-- Apache, Jun 16 2004


My real name is K 63 TJU.
-- angel, Jun 16 2004


This is great, especially if you can also arrange to get Social Security #123-45-6789!
-- phundug, Jun 16 2004


In a radio contest here some guy had to change his name to Heywood Jablowme. S'truth.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 16 2004


Interesting idea, but there are many judges that would not approve such a name change request. Welcome to the bakery, Achenar. (WTAGIPBAN)
-- krelnik, Jun 16 2004


Admin Admin or Test Test. There are many stories of folks getting personalized license plates with "None", "Unknown" or "Blank" or variations thereof. Apparently they hope(d) to get away with something when a ticketing officer filled out paperwork
-- phoenix, Jun 16 2004


Excellent idea.
News story related to [phoenix]'s anno linked.
-- hippo, Jun 16 2004


"N/A"
-- half, Jun 16 2004


"Hi, my name is KQOTONIG.TMP"

Suggest 'public: evil' as a category.
-- RayfordSteele, Jun 16 2004



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