Well, apparently the search is over. The UCLA police department has updated their missing persons bulletin for Agre with the following news: "Philip Agre was located by LA County Sheriff's Department on January 16, 2010 and is in good health and is self sufficient."

Andy Carvin, last Thanksgiving:

Several weeks ago, the family of information studies professor Phil Agre reported him missing, saying that they had not heard from him in over a year.

Charlotte P. Lee, reflecting at the time:

All of us had lost touch with him over the years. How would you know if one of your friends not only lost touch with you, but had also lost touch with almost everyone they know? You wouldn't.

Yesterday, Andy Carvin:

Well, apparently the search is over. The UCLA police department has updated their missing persons bulletin for Agre with the following news: "Philip Agre was located by LA County Sheriff's Department on January 16, 2010 and is in good health and is self sufficient."

See also, at the end of the article:

Those of us guiding the search for Phil have more detailed information about the interaction between the officer and Phil that is not being made public. The information we did receive gave us no evidence that he is actually "safe". Therefore we are continuing to search for him.

Phil Agre, from 2001:

Increasingly freed from geographic constraints and equipped with powerful search tools, we will be able to pick out exactly the people we want to associate with, and we will be able to associate with them whenever we want.

The problem with feudalism, of course, is that most of the relationships aren't good ones, so that everyone is trapped in the relational world they were born with.