Ask HN: What's the best way to have a business anonymously? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to have a business anonymously?

#21

Post by tendto » Mon, May 15, 2023, 7:08 PM UTC

bruce511 wrote: post #17

tendto wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want privacy. Privacy isn't a crime. It's possibly a foundation to freedom of speech. Also thinking of building a private/anonymous messaging service. By this I also mean I want to not know anything about the customer. I want privacy for me and for the customer.

I agree privacy is not a crime. However criminals like privacy, because it defects accountability. Hence, in the public eye, things that are highly private tend to attract criminal behaviour. This can have the effect of guilt-by-association. By contrast people do business either people they like. With people they trust. And both qualities require some level of not-anonymous. Of course i do incidental business with an…

Do you really think criminals won't build private communication systems on their own anyway?

I'm less interested in the public eye and more interested in the private substance.

If I had the option, I'd rather do business with a machine instead of a person or business, if the protocol for doing business can be proven to not need trust. This appears possible only with machines.

It's possible for a messaging service to feature anonymity and privacy and prove the messaging protocol to be trustless.

Whether you want all messaging services to be public and run by known people or not is irrelevant. Anonymous, private messaging is possible, growing and possibly inevitable.

Choosing to have more power in your words with your good-name behind them is exactly this: a choice. Not an obligation.

If you're complicit to a crime, the method of communication being encrypted or not doesn't absolve you from the crime.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to have a business anonymously?

#22

Post by bruce511 » Tue, May 16, 2023, 4:21 AM UTC

tendto wrote: post #21

bruce511 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree privacy is not a crime. However criminals like privacy, because it defects accountability. Hence, in the public eye, things that are highly private tend to attract criminal behaviour. This can have the effect of guilt-by-association. By contrast people do business either people they like. With people they trust. And both qualities require some level of not-anonymous. Of course i do incidental business with an…

Do you really think criminals won't build private communication systems on their own anyway? I'm less interested in the public eye and more interested in the private substance. If I had the option, I'd rather do business with a machine instead of a person or business, if the protocol for doing business can be proven to not need trust. This appears possible only with machines. It's possible for a messaging service to…

I don't disagree with your points. However should your system attract criminals then I eould not use it myself.

Partly because then the chance I'm talking to a criminal goes up, and partly because of reputational damage to me.

In other words, you are focusing on the service itself, and the appeal to non-criminals. I'm focusing on (my projection of) your user base, and my desire to be associated with them.

Good luck with your endeavour.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best way to have a business anonymously?

#23

Post by tendto » Tue, May 16, 2023, 11:37 AM UTC

bruce511 wrote: post #22

tendto wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think criminals won't build private communication systems on their own anyway? I'm less interested in the public eye and more interested in the private substance. If I had the option, I'd rather do business with a machine instead of a person or business, if the protocol for doing business can be proven to not need trust. This appears possible only with machines. It's possible for a messaging service to…

I don't disagree with your points. However should your system attract criminals then I eould not use it myself. Partly because then the chance I'm talking to a criminal goes up, and partly because of reputational damage to me. In other words, you are focusing on the service itself, and the appeal to non-criminals. I'm focusing on (my projection of) your user base, and my desire to be associated with them. Good luck w…

Thank you for the thoughtful response. If your most gratuitously positive interpretation is that an anonymous and private messaging system will be used only anonymously with no other feature whatsoever, and that people who know each other won't identify themselves to each other as they do in real life should they choose to, and that the majority of the user base will be criminals, and that this business you know little of is a criminal enterprise, then this system isn't for you.