Off the Graph -- Prepaid Cards

An obvious source of vertices for The Graph is card transactions.  The obvious alternative is to pay cash.  But sometimes you actually end up in situations where you can't pay cash.  I'm trying out using pre-paid visa/mastercard gift cards in those situations.

They act like a real card.  You can load them up to $500 dollars before they become a "financial instrument" and suddenly everyone wants to know who you are and where you live.  Malls like to sell these as "universal gift cards" and you can also pick them up at just about any large-ish drug/convenience/grocery store.  There's even a machine in the San Diego airport that will issue you one for a flat $5 transaction fee.

Fun fact -- the sketchier hotels I've stayed in seem to be switching over to vending machines that only take cards.  Who wants cash sitting around waiting for someone to try to break in?  The idea of using a card for a buck twenty-five purchase is a little odd to me though, considering the cut the processor takes.

And I've been on gigs where the company break-room has an "open canteen" that's a bunch of stuff on shelves and a machine to handle the payment part.  You scan your things, then swipe your card, and it charges you for the stuff.  They do not take cash.

So far, it's been hit-or-miss with these things.  Merchants (or machines) can actually just refuse to take them -- I assume they can tell from the issuer id.  And if you don't want to register your card on the issuer's web site, you're going to have trouble providing the billing zip code when a site or gas pump asks for it.

But they do seem to work in the necessity situations like vending machines and buying drinks on an airplane.  It's fun seeing where they work and where they don't.

Going "Off the Graph"

That's not a typo, I'm curious about getting off the graph, not off the grid.  I love the grid.  It streams movies at me, and lets me get cash from a machine, and lets me send text messages, and lets me look up words I read in my digital book right there on the same tablet.

Königsberg's Troublesome Bridges

It's the graph that spooks me.  It's the connection of every digital transaction (money, tweet, border crossing, phone call) you ever make into one big fat map that suggests ("profiles?") who you are.

You don't have to be paranoid about the NSA watching every single thing you do.  (Ding! Just added a node to their graph.)  You could be paranoid about stores watching your buying habits to target you with marketing.  For instance, as my brother explains, when you purchase felt pads to keep your furniture from scratching the floor, you get added to a marketing list of new homeowners.  It's presumed that your sudden care for floors stems from presently owning them, instead of renting them.

Is it possible to reduce the number of nodes you're adding to your graph, in this day and age?  I'm curious.  Drug dealers have been doing it for ages with "burner phones."  Executives count on the fact that their hotel pay-per-view purchases will be "discreetly charged."  You can't surprise your partner on Valentines' Day if they saw the hotel room deposit on your joint credit card statement.

So.  How far off the graph can a fully functional, modern-day, employed, human get?