I think he thought he was going to live a Jason Bourne movie. Temporary stay in Hong Kong, followed by "asylum" in a nice Northern European country, albeit without the gun fights and car chases because he had "leverage" in the form of the encrypted caches. Make a living as a "white hat" hacker/activist hacker either as a freelance consultant or aligned with some NGO. His knowledge of the world outside computers seems very crude. For example, he didn't seem to anticipate his passport being revoked and was shocked, shocked, shocked that the government would resort to such measures.