This is one of the most interesting articles I've read in quite some time. The main reason he was caught is not necessarily that he was careless or left clues,

This is one of the most interesting articles I've read in quite some time. The main reason he was caught is not necessarily that he was careless or left clues, he was caught because the whole thing was designed to be a game (experiment?) orchestrated by Wired. Ratliff had hundreds, maybe even thousands of people with incentives ($5000, notoriety, the challenge, etc.) looking for him. I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did given that he was also 'trying' to get caught. However, as other commenters in this thread mention, if he had done this independently and planned a little longer than he did, he most certainly could have vanished for up to a year. Edit: spelling.