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I spent a week using an alternative identity and it's 1 flaw away from the perfect security tool
Sorry folks, it's not Rob Dunne, TechRadar VPN Editor, writing this. No, it's 87-year-old New York resident Brendan Lloyd Lewis. Or is it?
For the past week, I have aged a whopping 64 years and crossed time zones all with the aim of improving my online security. Using Surfshark's Alternative ID tool, I've streamed, gamed, and browsed, all from the comfort of my elder alter-ego, and, frankly, it's been fascinating.
A legitimate alter ego?
If you didn’t know already, now you do – it’s Data Privacy Week (January 27 to 31)! The brainchild of the National Cybersecurity Alliance, it aims to arm you with everything you need to spot and avoid the biggest risks to your data privacy and “Take control of your data”.
The concept of Alternative ID is simple. Take a user's genuine information, most importantly their email address and phone number, link these details to a new decoy email address and phone number, and go about your day as usual.
Some of these concepts aren't exactly new. The idea of an email address that receives the messages before forwarding them to another address has been around almost as long as emails themselves, so what is all the fuss about?
A rise in data breaches in recent years has meant that, for many, the ability to hide their personal details online is more important than ever. Surfshark's Alternative ID feature adds another layer to this long-known solution of email aliasing by partnering it with Surfshark's top security capabilities.
Does anyone need to know who I am?
So, equipped with my new, American persona, I went about some of my usual activities. I'd recently nearly lost my entire online identity, so a few sites needed a new, more secure account. While not a long-term solution, the new email was merely an alias after all, it at least added another layer of security to my inbox.
Signing up for sites using my new email address was simple enough, and this, thankfully, was a theme throughout.
Joining the newsletter for fellow news outlet Tom's Guide proved easy enough for my new email address. No massive delays, no trawling my spam, nothing. This was the same for creating new accounts across the likes of EA, Ubisoft, and other gaming platforms.
Using these platforms throughout the week was seamless. There were no bottlenecks, not even annoying two-step verification emails, and no sites questioned the details of my new persona when signing up or updating details.
While I've by no means converted entirely to my life as Brendan, it did raise a surprising level of consideration, should this be how I do everything from here on out?
The gripes of limitation
The issue is my location. Both in terms of feature availability and new-persona capabilities, the UK simply isn't an option with Surfshark's Alternate ID yet. This alone meant I couldn't truly test the limits of the service, I couldn't try using my address and, most annoyingly, I couldn't truly test Surfshark's new Alternative Number addition either. So, if you thought I just fancied being American, sorry. I simply didn't have the choice of staying closer to home quite yet.
In most senses, this isn't an issue per se. The tools you get, no matter your location, provide a secure way to go about most online activities. Given how many services require signup, having up to 3 alias emails set up within Alternative ID enables no end of ways to avoid giving over your actual details.
Surfshark has already eluded to the possibility of making these tools available to new shores in the future, so watch this space.
Killing Brendan
Sometimes though, waiting isn't good enough, and luckily Alternative ID has a solution – killing Brendan (or whoever your alternative identity turns out to be).
The benefit of Alternative ID is that, by combining multiple alias emails and having full control of them, if one email address becomes compromised, you can simply delete it. No worrying about other accounts, no wider security fears, just transfer accounts onto a new alias email and delete the impacted address. Simple!
Given that my testing lasted just over a week, I'd have been seriously unlucky to have been victim to yet another data breach, though I wouldn't put it past me. Luckily, during the short-lived life of Brendan Lewis, it became apparent just how easy it'd be to jump between identities, or merely email addresses, to retain the full scope of my online security.
Strange though it may seem, killing off my pensioner second life made my decision to stick with these tools all the easier. I've had one too many email addresses become compromised and one too many passwords become breached. Frankly, enough was enough.
The real win with this experiment, though, was the extra perks. No, not all the best things in life are free. In this instance, Alternative ID is only available in the form I used with a Surfshark plan – which starts from $2.19 per month. However, if keeping your online traffic safe is a priority, this is a minuscule price to pay in return.
Don't get me wrong, it's not perfect – take the gaping password manager-shaped hole, for example. But pairing a VPN and an Alternate ID is a great start. If you're in a region where it works, I'd highly recommend trying Surfshark's Alternate Number also to truly complete your new persona experience, though I should say this is an added cost.
