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Ask HN: Is it still conceivable to remain an anonymous developer nowadays?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it still conceivable to remain an anonymous developer nowadays?

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On top of that, at least in EU, the regulation has gone further, and major shareholders of private companies now need to be identified publicly. I'll caveat this by having only experience of this from my own European country of residence, which had to put this regulation in place due to EEA requirements.

Further, Apple requires registering your certificate under your full name if you are a “singly owned company” at least in the EU

Perhaps not in the US:

https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/91459

Re: Ask HN: Is it still conceivable to remain an anonymous developer nowadays?

#103
post #72

So.. I'd suggest a project of mine. Full disclosure, you require more than one burner device. Ultimately you'll want a VPN you can trust. Also - it depends how much your anonymity is worth to you, and your relative cost. Similarly - to whom do you want to be anonymous? I wanted to create a fully digital individual. My goal was to go from end to end. I bought (in cash) a prepaid credit card. I used said prepaid credit…

Would you be able to name the voip provider?

Re: Ask HN: Is it still conceivable to remain an anonymous developer nowadays?

#106

If you prefer to use a pseudonym, why not just register an LLC? There are services out there that will register your company and be your registered agent in states that do not require your name ever made public (Wyoming for example). These services also provide a mailbox that would work for anything you need. You can then get a business checking account (Mercury works well) with your newly registered business. You ca…

...or strike a deal with existing LLC. This is what my company does. We sign contracts and you re hidden behind offshore corporate veil.

Excellent suggestion, but how do you find an existing LLC that won’t fuck you?

Re: Ask HN: Is it still conceivable to remain an anonymous developer nowadays?

#107
post #95
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people are horrible and when you are well-known, this translates into legions of horrible people who know who you are and see you as something to maybe bother. Anonymity should be the first choice for public-facing work, if you enjoy your life as it is and are not interested in hiring security.

Enough with the drama. The vast majority of people with public facing work (whether code, books, etc.) use their real names and don't need to hire security. That's not to say stuff doesn't sometimes happen but it's not the norm.

Something with significant risk that is reasonably easy to mitigate should just be mitigated. Nobody loses with that, except maybe if they view that as drama.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still conceivable to remain an anonymous developer nowadays?

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...or strike a deal with existing LLC. This is what my company does. We sign contracts and you re hidden behind offshore corporate veil.

Excellent suggestion, but how do you find an existing LLC that won’t fuck you?

Go looking.

What have you tried that didn't work?

Re: Ask HN: Is it still conceivable to remain an anonymous developer nowadays?

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That looks like it requires disclosure of the owners to the US government, not on the public record. If I'm misunderstanding the documents you linked, please let me know.

You're correct. However, anything that can be disclosed to the US government can always be disclosed to the public, whether by law or by leak[1]. I did say the law makes establishing anonymous LLCs difficult. I didn't say establishing them was impossible. [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov...

This should still be fine, especially for LLCs which presumably exist at least conceptually in order to make money. The government has a well-defined, broadly accepted (outside the fringes) interest in knowing who is doing commerce and making money.

Making money completely anonymously, without reporting this to the IRS and state tax authorities, at least in the US as a US citizen, is and should be illegal. But still seems pretty straightforward to stay anonymous on the front end.

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