20 ms·

Show HN: I made a site that shows jobs where you can work pseudonymously

306 points by 0xPersona 4y ago

persiankat 4y ago
how does this work within the us where employers need to have your tax identification?
- papito 4y ago
  Typical Web 3.0 bullshit. Bold claims of freedom and fairness, but you dig deeper, and it's garbage all the way down. It's libertarian anarchy "paradise".
rpmisms 4y ago
This is awesome. I would be much more comfortable working on my political side projects if employment was pseudonymous.
- 0xPersona 4y ago
  Thank you! Yeah I think pseudonymous work is really liberating in that sense. It could allow people to be more authentic, without worrying about their livelihoods being put at risk.
soulofmischief 4y ago
This is a wonderful idea, but the first listing I clicked claimed being anon-friendly while also asking for a mandatory resume. I assumed these would mostly be merit-based positions, how do these two concepts harmonize? I have gotten anon roles before and they did not require a resume. Also, it would be useful to filter by part-time/full-time/contract positions.
- 0xPersona 4y ago
  Hey! Thank you for the kind words. Really means a lot. You raise a valid point. I suppose you could submit a resume associated with your pseudonymous identity. I have two resumes personally, one for my legal identity, and one for work that I do under my pseudonymous identity. It does present a challenge though. It's not easy to separate the two and either one alone may not provide a holistic and accurate view of you as a candidate. Without speculating and relying too much on buzzwords, I wonder if you could use Zero Knowledge Proofs to prove that you have certain credentials or experience, without necessarily having to share your legal/irl identity. I don't have all the answers myself but I do have many questions, hence why I built this! And thanks for the feedback about filtering, you're right. Will ship that asap :) Could I ask if you were hired as a full time employee or as a contractor? Trying to figure out how organizations may handle the legalities/taxes for full time employees.
  - cupofpython 4y ago
    What's the point in hiding your name if you submit a job history which narrows the scope of your anonymity? how do you verify the contents of said resume without having enough information to identify them? I could just take anyone's github profile and say that it's me and you would have no idea.
0des 4y ago
theyre all cryptoasset related jobs :/ bummer
- 0xPersona 4y ago
  Do you know of any non-crypto anon friendly jobs? I'd be happy to list them! These are just the jobs I've personally been able to find thus far.
dboreham 4y ago
Nowhere sane?
swatcoder 4y ago
Aren't employers in most jurisdictions required to verify work eligibility and report income? Does "pseudonymously" just mean that they these employers commit to supporting your alternative identity when engaging with the public, the way publishers might handle a pen name? Or is this something different? I'm probably not the only person who will wonder about this, so it might help to put the answer as text on the site. (Maybe it's explained in the video, but a 30 minute video is a big ask)
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  I would suspect you would not be considered an employee but a contractor. I am not sure how they much they're required to report about their vendors.
  - swatcoder 4y ago
    In the US and comparable jurisdictions, the concept of employee and contractor are not interchangeable and imply differences in things like autonomy and expectations. This is as much to make sure that workers have appropriate protections and that contractors have appropriate freedom as it is about tax reporting or whatever. Far more likely is that these companies aren't well-footed legally and don't realize that they'll only be able to stay under the radar while small. Which is common, but puts a cap on how high-profile they can grow. They'll need to sort things out before they can scale or get involved in regulated industries.
    - jokethrowaway 4y ago
      It's highly debatable and jurisdiction dependant. Plenty of contractors are basically employees paying less taxes and not having holidays. (not that I'm complaining, I'm glad there is a legal way to minimise how much the government steals from me) States are a bit trickier because healthcare is so ridiculously overpriced and therefore people value health insurance provided by an employer. I never even bothered to sign up for the private health insurance I had in the UK and just either user the crappy public one or paid out of pocket, finding the best doctor for the job (instead of what my insurance would have offered).
duxup 4y ago
>using your legal identity at work is unnecessary, and puts your safety, security, and privacy, at risk. It is? I want this? I tried watching a bit of the video but it kinda lost me with the bitcoin stuff as I don't really think of bitcoin and my relationship with my employer ... have anything to do with each other.
- 0xPersona 4y ago
  Admittedly, that sentence might be a tad hyperbolic right now, but I do think increasingly it will be the case. I do think there's no inherit reason why we need to know peoples' legal/irl identities in order to assert that they're suitable for a job. I can even imagine using Zero Knowledge Proofs to prove that candidates reside in certain territories, if that's a requirement that your job might have.
  - boredumb 4y ago
    While I partly agree on asserting they're suitable for a job, actually employing them is entirely different. If someone has access to proprietary information/IP/Assets/etc, I don't want a pseudonym and a bitcoin transaction receipt when any of those go missing or an employee used my infrastructure to commit crimes and the feds are now asking me questions and my only answer is 0xPersona that I met on anon.com whom I pay with crypto.
    - 0xPersona 4y ago
      Absolutely! I would just posit that the organizations listed on the site seem to be handling this somehow (for now). I myself would be really curious as to how.
      - swatcoder 4y ago
        As a general tip: Trusting that someone doing something markedly unusual is "handling it somehow" is a great way to get some ugly surprises later. Companies do things wrong all the time and in many cases you can find yourself liable for their mistakes/abuses in some way or another. Sometimes at great cost. Obviously, you need to trust every employer/client to some degree, but you'll benefit yourself by developing a sense for what smells fishy. Unregistered, anonymous work in a world of borders, worker protections, and taxes smells like the dumpster behind a Red Lobster. You don't have to rule out an opportunity that interests you, but do be careful!
dml2135 4y ago
How do these companies address tax reporting requirements?
- duxup 4y ago
  Looking at the jobs I wonder if many just aren't reporting... others seem to promise a lot that would make being pseudonymous impossible.
- tut-urut-utut 4y ago
  There are legislations and use cases where contractors themselves are responsible for reporting their taxes.
  - 0xPersona 4y ago
    I think this is probably the way most are going about it right now. Though it is one of the questions I'm most eager to get an answer for. And I have been reaching out :)
- 0xPersona 4y ago
  Hey! Good question. I wish I could give you a better answer but the truth is I don't know (yet). That's one of the reasons I built this. I want to learn how organizations deal with things like that, and share that knowledge so we can create best practices. I promise that soon as I know the answer, I'll circle back!
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
    Make the max job size $600 and the contracting company technically won’t need to send a 1099…
    - reustle 4y ago
      If they’re in the US*
  - lajamerr 4y ago
Mo3 4y ago
... yeah not going to happen. There's benefits to non-anonymous employment and the benefits of pseudonymous employment seem to mostly apply to illegal or grey area ventures. If you work as a blockchain engineer these days I can definitely see why you would want to remain anonymous.
Darmody 4y ago
Sounds like a good idea if you want to launder money. Anyway, I don't think that's legal anywhere in Europe.
biztos 4y ago
I am generally in favor of more privacy, but it’s hard picture the real-world use of this for anything other than overlapping jobs (“J2”) and evading sanctions. What else is it for?
- yunwal 4y ago
  I could see it being useful for jobs that make you a political target maybe? Security contracting, intelligence, or journalism?
  - 0xPersona 4y ago
    Or even working in countries with generally higher crime or weaker rule of law. I spent years living in a country where even saying/posting something seemingly innocuous could put your life at risk.
vasco 4y ago
> soon most work will be done pseudonymously Eyebrow raised very high 81 days this article was discussed in HN: https://www.sofuckingagile.com/blog/mourning-loss-as-a-remote-team https://www.sofuckingagile.com/blog/mourning-loss-as-a-remot... In it, among other things, we learn a team member who was not even anonymous passed away, and the company only found out when the person's wife created a support ticket because they didn't know basic facts about them. If after reading that article, you walk away thinking it's a great setup, I'm thinking you're likely very different from anyone I've ever met.
- maxbond 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing stranger, that was a powerful piece.
- samstave 4y ago
  Doesnt this model only appeal to the use in "one-time, short-term, mostly-illegal" constructs? "Hey Mr. RockStar Dev, I want you to make me an app to rip of [THING]" "Sure, my @wallet is here and my skillset is listed here"
  - rgbrgb 4y ago
    I'd guess that interaction is very common and not illegal anywhere I'm aware of.
    - nightpool 4y ago
      In most jurisdictions, it is illegal to contract with someone for goods or services over a certain amount if you don't have their tax information. Otherwise, tax avoidance would be trivial. In the US specifically, you're required to file Form 1099 for any contracts over $600, which requires the other party's SSN, EIN, or another foreign tax identifier.
      - jrumbut 4y ago
        Some of the companies with job postings on that site seem to be headed by people in the US. I'm not a lawyer but I think they're taking a serious risk.
zichy 4y ago
Every single job posting is from a weird crypto bullshit company. Great.
- 0xPersona 4y ago
  I wouldn't describe any of the organizations listed as "bullshit". Weird, maybe. But they actually do really interesting and valuable work!
  - jfk13 4y ago
    > interesting and valuable work I suspect we may not share the same idea of what's "valuable".
- jrsj 4y ago
  Alternatively they could be from non-crypto tech startups, 90% of which are working on stuff that is just as bullshit and never would have been funded in the first place if not for post 2008 monetary policy. Crypto isn’t special in being bullshit, this whole industry is full of a lot of bullshit.
  - zichy 4y ago
    The fact that there are many bullshit companies out there does not change the fact that all web3/blockchain companies are bullshit.
    - jrsj 4y ago
      Depends on how you define “bullshit” I guess but from my perspective there’s at least profits being made and money being exchanged. That’s less bullshit then a company that just takes VC money, hires people, and ultimately implodes without actually delivering any value. And even if you look purely at social utility, if all this shit does is provide a test bed for ideas that end up utilized in future central bank digital currencies then they’ll probably have been worth it.
  - moneywoes 4y ago
xwdv 4y ago
It is very dangerous for a blockchain engineer to reveal their line of work.
- JusticeJuice 4y ago
  Isn't that a little concerning?
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    It seems less concerning and more BS. I have no idea who would target blockchain engineers or why. I do understand why "we are fighting the system, this is dangerous" would be a selling point used by employers.
    - jrsj 4y ago
      threatening someone who has the ability to intentionally introduce a vulnerability into even a relatively small cryptocurrency probably has the potential to be insanely profitable, and the odds of it even being investigated are far lower than any other form of fraud (for now). There’s plenty of good reasons to go after some specific blockchain engineers who could do this, but otherwise yeah it seems kind of silly and over dramatic.
      - HWR_14 4y ago
        If the oversight on your project is so weak that an engineer can add code that steals money without being noticed, all you do is change who profits from the inevitable theft. In fact, if you allow the code to be delivered anonymously, you practically guarantee that smart people will add the vulnerability and steal the money.
        jrsj 4y ago
        I think stronger oversight and less trust is sort of implicit in a pseudo-anonymous model. An attack like I described doesn’t require something as obvious as “code that steals money” either, it could be something much more innocuous that even afterwards appears to have been a mistake. Almost any type of bug combined with a well timed leveraged short position could result in big profits.
mellosouls 4y ago
I don't know generally the use case for this though I remember seeing the most brilliant person I've ever encountered (a forum long ago) enquiring if a job enabled people to work anonymously; he was very cautious with his identity. I do think it makes sense in this day and age - with pseudonymous discourse long established online - for people to be able to work anonymously within reason (constrained by accountability and transparency when applicable). The site is interesting but perhaps a little gung-ho with some of its statements.
- duxup 4y ago
  I wonder how that works as far as risk goes. The employers asking for folks to work anonymous, could it be that there's a lot more risk with them for other issues compared any non anonymous employers? I know a dude who is a big believer that every employer is trying to scam him / squeeze out ever last drop of productivity / life out of him. So he plays the same game trying to squeeze out every last bit of money / bouncing from employer to employer looking for the next extra dollar. There's no relationship there with him, his employer, most of his coworkers. He's managed to jump from big corp (the natural place you find looking to maximize income) to big corp and run into a lot more bad situations than I ever have ...
- 0xPersona 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing! I do think adoption could be driven by talent. I could imagine the best candidates preferring pseudonymous work, causing employers to accommodate in order to remain competitive. I think your point about pseudonymous discourse being long established online is a good one! Most of us are already pseudonymous to some degree e.g. our usernames on Twitter, HN, Github, etc.
TekMol 4y ago
Here is a question I have often wondered about: Say I am running a business in Europe. And one day I need to translate some text from German to English. I go to Google and enter "German to English translation service". Up comes a website that says "We translate one page of text for ₿0.000048". The website does not tell you where it is operated or who operates it. They state that where they are, they are not obliged to tell you where they are. Just send the coins (via Lightning Network) and your text will be translated. Would I be allowed to use that service? Can I deduct the expense from my taxes?
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Anti money laundering would get in the way, right?
- DangerousPie 4y ago
  Do they provide an invoice that fulfils the accounting requirements of your country? I suspect not, so you wouldn’t be able to deduct it.
  - TekMol 4y ago
    Is that true? The you cannot deduct expenses in absense of an invoice? Any links to back that up? What I find around the net seems to point in the opposite direction. For example the German "Eigenbeleg": https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenbeleg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenbeleg The Wikipedia page says that to deduct expenses from earnings, the expense has to be "belegt" which means "documented". But it seems the documentation does not have to be done by the seller. It seems it can also also be done by the buyer.
    - 7steps2much 4y ago
      I am not sure if it is still handled that way, but in my experience these are not supposed to be used to create new receipts, but to replace receipts that were lost or document things that occured but couldn't be put on receipts for whatever reason. While it might be possible to use them this way they might be scrutinized and the additional work of justifying them might not be worth using a service that doesn't provide receipts. Also, there is this section: > Soll die Ausgabe vom Finanzamt anerkannt werden, muss dies ein Ausnahmefall bleiben. Meaning, roughly "Even if accepted by the authorities, it is to be treated as an exception" So i assume that they would not be a fan of you trying to use this too liberally within your accounting.
barneygale 4y ago
They're all cryptocurrency jobs? Figures.
- yunwal 4y ago
  While I'm not a huge fan of this idea or cryptocurrency in general, "illegitimate" industries are often the spawning point for good new ideas (see: porn industry).
  - barneygale 4y ago
    Could you elaborate on the porn industry example?
    - yunwal 4y ago
      Late response, but the porn industry served as an initial launching pad for a number of groundbreaking technological advancements. Examples include super 8 film, vhs, online payments, closed captioning, and various smaller achievements related to video streaming, for example the ability to see a still by hovering over the timeline on a video.
jrsj 4y ago
Most of this stuff is in crypto/smart contract/DeFi space…which is currently imploding. That being said I do like the idea of anon friendly work. Not even for the anonymity, but for being full async. I’ve tried looking for opportunities for work outside of my 9-5 in the past and it surprised me how difficult it was to find anything. Ultimately I gave up and cut some expenses instead.
- nightpool 4y ago
  Most salaried 9-5 jobs have conflict of interest clauses that prevent you from concurrently working for other employers without agreement from your first employer anyway (From a legal standpoint, this is generally regarded as part of the difference between salaried and hourly labor)
  - ollien 4y ago
    I'm an hourly software engineer and fairly certain I'm forbidden from the same.
  - jrsj 4y ago
    Fuck em, that will never hold up in court and they won’t even waste their time suing over it anyways.
pphysch 4y ago
Looking forward to giving audit-level access to my systems to a anon "Senior Security Auditor".
- 0xPersona 4y ago
  You'd be surprised! Some of the best smart contract security folks in the space are pseudonymous and I imagine many organizations would work with them without needing to know their legal identity. One of those people is samczsun[1] who, amongst other things, famously prevented a potential ~$350m hack. [1] https://www.paradigm.xyz/team/samczsun/posts https://www.paradigm.xyz/team/samczsun/posts
francisofascii 4y ago
Anyone know if security firms already do this by default? For example, if you work for the NSA, do your co-workers even know what your real name is?
- 0xPersona 4y ago
  Good question! I'd love to know the answer to this, too.
- happyopossum 4y ago
  That's going to depend more on what your role and assignment is than just the fact that you work for the NSA. In general though, working for the NSA isn't an anonymous act.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Sample size of one. Bay back when I had an offer from a three-letter agency, I wouldn't have been pseudonymous but I would have been officially working for some other government organization. I also had to book my own travel and they paid my expenses in cash on the spot.
outside1234 4y ago
Seems pretty illegal in most countries
Animats 4y ago
You get paid anonymously, in your choice of LUNA or APE.
waspight 4y ago
So what is doxxing anyway? Is the concern that anyone googling you will find you phone number or address? Why is that so bad in general? As long as you are not in some unique position like a famous person or something.
- ljp_206 4y ago
  I would be happy to start from a definition of doxxing and explain why it is not a good thing, but I am curious as to why you might not find the prospect of your address and phone number being revealed disturbing. Very boring, non-unique people get death threats all the time online. Even though the rate of online threats turning to violence against random users is demonstrably low, would you not be troubled to know your location was known to unknown potential harassers? Even disregarding physical assault, a potential attacker could make life online very difficult if they understood a few things about one's identity. I also ask this as someone who is skeptical of the prospect of anonymous employment, so I acknowledge there is certainly a spectrum of perspective on this issue. "As long as you are not in some unique position..." is reasoning that is very close to "as long as you have nothing to hide..."
  - tgv 4y ago
    The first line on that page is literally "don't doxx yourself for work". You are only informing your employer of a few vital stats. The employer keeps that information private. There's no death threat involved.
    - 0xPersona 4y ago
      Well it's not just your employer who knows your legal identity at work. It's potentially the entire organization, and more.
- morpheuskafka 4y ago
  I think the vast majority of people greatly overestimate how difficult it would be to find someone's address. If you either own property or vote in the US, its usually trivial to find you via the county GIS/tax database and the state voter records. At least it is here in NC. If you rent and don't vote, it's a bit harder, but still lots of data brokers and other sources to look to.
mind-blight 4y ago
In most countries, there are a ton of legal protections and mandated benefits for workers. In the US, unemployment, workers comp, and social security stand out as the big ones. Beyond just tax, it's important that the government knows where you work so that you can effectively file complaints or for benefits of you happen to be working for an abusive employer, get laid off, or want to get paid during retirement
InefficientRed 4y ago
> using your legal identity at work is unnecessary, and puts your safety, security, and privacy, at risk. How is it even possible to employ someone in the US without knowing their legal identity?
- abdel_nasser 4y ago
jkaplan 4y ago
It’s interesting to see all these ideas built around the idea that “more anonymity is better.” I think the opposite is usually (not always) true, and that many of the issues we see in today’s internet stem from the fact that we have completely lost a human connection to the people on the other end of our interactions. (You can even go further and connect this to the larger loss-of-community trends across modern society.) Developing a real relationship with someone increases empathy and trust; it leads to healthier, clearer, and more productive communication; and it generally is good for everyone’s mental health and happiness. Personally, I want a less anonymous and more communal internet (and society).
- somenameforme 4y ago
  You can observe plenty of people acting like the worst imaginable human being on Facebook or Twitter - all under their own name. I think you're spot on about the issue, but I'd argue the reason is simply scale. When you have only 5 people in your vicinity you're going to form deep relationships with them, whether or not you want to - or whether or not you like them. It will simply happen due to the fact you're going to be around these people day in, day out. 500? Well that gets more difficult. It'll require some degree of mutual effort to form relationships, but it's still very doable especially as you'll be still somewhat regularly bumping into the same people. 5,000,000? You will, in all probability, never see the same person twice. And even if you do, you probably won't remember them among the jungle of faces. You will never form any sort of a relationship unless you aggressively go out of your way to do so. And whoa, who's this random guy trying to be so aggressively buddy buddy with me? This dude is weird. Let me smile, nod, and find the nearest exit. And in the internet, you're around hundreds of millions to billions.
  - jkaplan 4y ago
    Oh for sure! I’m not saying using real names automatically creates real relationships and trust, just that it helps. I just generally want to see the internet moving toward deeper, more meaningful interactions, which, like you say, is a big challenge, and almost certainly means some form of making things “smaller.” But making things more anonymous strikes me as the wrong direction.
dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
Interesting to note: HN sometimes upvotes articles just because they want to shit on an idea. I'm not disagreeing here actually, the statement: > don't doxx yourself for work could (was?) generated by a Markov chain.
olalonde 4y ago
Might want to look at adult industry jobs, a lot of them offer remote work with minimal identity verification. Ironically, that's how I got my first development job when I was still in high school (the employer didn't know nor ask my age). It would have been a lot more difficult to get a similar job at a "regular" employer who knew my age.
- 0xPersona 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing! I didn't know that. That's actually very interesting.
  - TameAntelope 4y ago
    Just FYI this will get you into a decent amount of hot water, and the company into a lot of hot water, for all kinds of labor law and IRS reasons.
- seanhunter 4y ago
  Seems to me that _of all employers_ it would be most important for the adult industry to verify people’s age.
happyopossum 4y ago
This sounds like a great way to work multiple jobs at once, under the table, then stiff your employers. Oh, and all without you as an employee having any of the employment protections and benefits provided by your government. I just don't see this taking off in any significant way for legitimate work.
gorbachev 4y ago
The first time one of these companies hire someone from Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba or any of the other countries under sanctions practically everywhere and et hit by multi-million dollar penalties and severe restrictions on how they can operate in the future, this thing will stop being a thing. How would they even know, if a competitor got hired to work for them? This might possibly be a good thing for workers, but there's so much risk involved for the employer, any competent legal expert would strongly advice against it.
- seanhunter 4y ago
  Yup. Feels like if this ever started to suceed in gathering traction, OFAC would shut it down.
- InefficientRed 4y ago
  Might not even get there. It's almost all defi which is imploding ATM. All of the LooksRare job postings 404. The rest have application instructions which amount to "engage with our social media", which makes me wonder if the jobs ever existed or if it's exclusively a way to generate leads and the appearance of buy-in. The beauty of anon hiring is that we'll never know.
  - katz7nfnfnfnfn 4y ago
  - 0xPersona 4y ago
    Hey, thanks for commenting! Are the LooksRare job postings responding with a 404? Their application involves sending an email, when you click "apply" it launches your email client. It's working for me. Am I missing something? Thank you :)
    - InefficientRed 4y ago
      The site lists links to tweets from the company, which point to their website, which 404: https://twitter.com/LooksRare/status/1521564976112369664 https://twitter.com/LooksRare/status/1521564976112369664 etc. which point to these links (all 404): https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/frontend-engineer https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/frontend-engineer https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/backend-engineer https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/backend-engineer https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/backend-engineer-indexer https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/backend-engineer-ind... https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/ux-specialist https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/ux-specialist
GTP 4y ago
I'm a bit scared to ask but... How do you stipulate a contract if you're pseudonymous? Or maybe you are supposed to work without a contract and accept monthly payments using a cryptocurrency?
iLoveOncall 4y ago
That sounds like rugpulls waiting to happen.
belial1971 4y ago
How do they pay the check? https://intelibilia.substack.com/p/18-crypto-wages-day https://intelibilia.substack.com/p/18-crypto-wages-day
- banteg 4y ago
  we just stream stablecoins every second https://llamapay.io https://llamapay.io
cs137 4y ago
This sounds like a good thing, but I'm not sure it is. Capital wins under the current system because the bad guys control your reputation and career, but capital will win under a pseudonymous work system too because careers will cease to exist (or, in any case, will be difficult to assemble) and the commoditization of labor will be complete. I'm a very "out" antifascist, and I've lost jobs due to my public not-liking-fascists, so I'm sympathetic to people who'd benefit from pseudonymous work, but fiverrization is not the way forward. The solution is to have aggressive right-to-forget, anti-blacklisting, and anti-discrimination laws, and not only to enforce them vigorously but to go forward on the presumption of employee innocence (that is, innocent until proven guilty).
- edmcnulty101 4y ago
  Another solution is UBI.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > I'm a very "out" antifascist, and I've lost jobs due to my public not-liking-fascists That kind of statement makes me curious. What kind of behavior do you exhibit that has cost you jobs?
  - titanomachy 4y ago
    I'm also interested. If I'm running a company that has to do business with ordinary people, I want to avoid hiring someone who vocally and publicly espouses radical political views that many people would react to negatively. Even if they are "pseudonymous", since it could still become known later on that they are associated with the company. Different people define "fascism" so differently that being "antifascist" could mean anything from protesting against the KKK, to actively working to bring down the capitalist world order (which happens to be the framework in which most companies have to operate.) If I have radical political views, that's the part of my life that I'm keeping pseudonymous.
    - cs137 4y ago
      > being "antifascist" could mean anything from protesting against the KKK, to actively working to bring down the capitalist world order (which happens to be the framework in which most companies have to operate.) I'd say I'm between the two. I'm a radical by US false-consciousness standards, but a moderate by sane-people standards. I do want to bring down the capitalist world order, but I'm not going to behave unethically, break laws blithely, or fuck over an employer who treats me well in service to that goal. In general, I'm against violence unless absolutely nothing else will work (and I don't think we're at that point yet, although we may get there). Violent revolutions tend to see a transfer of control from the originial vanguard (who were willing to use violence to achieve a goal, but who didn't seek out the opportunity to use it) to mindless thugs who just want to be paid to hurt people.
giaour 4y ago
Most work today requires some level of exposure to sensitive data of some kind, be it related to business strategy, company financials, or customer data. You're not getting access to that as some anonymous internet rando.
dev-3892 4y ago
I'm not sure how I guarantee that I'm not getting exploited if I'm working without my employer knowing who I am. How do I have a reasonable expectation of legal protection in this scenario?
jjcon 4y ago
Anyone else find it odd that the two jobs that list salaries are in the junior dev/first job range?
warkdarrior 4y ago
So employees can work pseudonymously, but employers have to disclose their identity? Why not make it fully pseudonymous for both sides?
- 0xPersona 4y ago
  Employers don't have to disclose their identity, it's up to them! Many of the founders of these organizations are pseudonymous themselves.
londons_explore 4y ago
In most places, being employed anonymously is illegal for both the individual and the company. I could imagine that even if you were paying taxes, you might be prosecuted simply because you could not prove to a tax authority that the other party had paid their taxes. Apart from that, you're probably going to miss out on a lot of government and private schemes that require proof of employment - mortgages and credit being a big one.
deleted 4y ago
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phailhaus 4y ago
A common refrain is that "crypto is speedrunning the history of finance." I think this is destined for the same outcome: we're going to hear stories coming out of pseudonymous work that remind us why the rules are in place today. For example: can't file lawsuits against your employer for labor violations if you're trying to stay anonymous! So they really don't have a great incentive to treat you well.
- warkdarrior 4y ago
  How would you prove to a court that you are an employee of that company??
tiffanyh 4y ago
How does this work given that the company needs to record who they are making payment too (even if it's just a W-2 contractor). (I'm speaking from a US lens here)
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
Lots of other comments around the dubious legality of this, at least in the US. I'd like to comment, though, on the fact that the majority of these jobs are in the crypto/defi space. I'm also not alone in commenting on this, and this fact alone is obviously not surprising, but I'd like to point out that the central idea of crypto that you can somehow "escape the government's control of finance" by using crypto is as much of a fever dream as that you can feasibly work anonymously for a company. At the end of the day, the vast majority of people need the services of society and government to function. Crypto advocates have long crowed "look how great it is that we have gotten monetary supply out of the control of government", but you only need to look at the current environment to see how ridiculous this is. At the end of the day people expect to be able to exchange money for goods, and not go to jail for doing so, and that is something government's aren't willing to give up, regardless of the medium of exchange. As it related to this case, the biggest question folks have is "what benefit to I get for working for a company pseudonymously". On reflection it's largely downside for the vast majority of people unless you are an anti-government absolutist, or are working in something like the drug trade or a hit man that is shady to begin with.
- titanomachy 4y ago
  "Largely downside unless you are an anti-government absolutist..." Or, the public persona associated with your real identity is so visibly antisocial/radioactive that nobody would hire you if they knew who you were.
jmspring 4y ago
"using your legal identity at work is unnecessary" Uh, employers in the US are required to verify employment eligibility. One submits an i9 form. For contractors / etc, you still need to submit information for 1099. What am I missing here - if considering the US?
TulliusCicero 4y ago
On a related note, anyone know if there's a site that shows you (decent) part-time coding jobs?
jamal-kumar 4y ago
Don't exploit brokers like Zerodium already operate under these kinds of parameters?
throwaway892238 4y ago
> using your legal identity at work is unnecessary, and puts your safety, security, and privacy, at risk. Yes. And that's a good thing. You are at risk of being fired if you are a white supremacist neo-nazi gay-bashing woman-hating trans-denying animal-abusing child-molesting felonious douchebag in your private life. And you're more likely to be caught doing insider trading or some other illegal/anti-competitive act. An identity is part of regulating a culture and maintaining the law. The risk is a feature, not a bug. The really funny thing is that this whole website is now an easy way to find people who are looking to be pseudonymous and any employers that are skirting laws. Should've kept it on the dark web.
woodruffw 4y ago
I don't think most of this is legal, at least in the United States. In the US, your employer is required to collect certain basic facts about you for tax and compliance purposes: your legal name and your legal status are the most basic ones, followed by your working location/residence (for local tax purposes). An employer who fails to collect and retain this information is effectively indistinguishable from a sweatshop owner. On the other hand, "pseudonymously" might really just mean that the company collects that information, and doesn't forcefully disclose any of it to your coworkers. Which seems...not particularly abnormal? I've worked with over a dozen people over the years whose "official" name, residence, &c. was never disclosed to me.
sbarbarian 4y ago
I can see wanting to keep my job secret from my peers, but not from my employer. How can you build trust with whomever you're working with? I can't imagine feeling comfortable sending anything in writing in a work environment to a colleague who has no reputational accountability (both within / outside the firm).
whynotkeithberg 4y ago
Holy shit and I won't even attempt to say this with any tact or grace... You're quite a few years to late to take advantage of the talent you did without any actual plan to pay them for their work. The greater fool concept only works for so long.
katz_ 4y ago
_8j50 4y ago
How can you be pseudonymous if you work in person like this post: https://anonfriendly.com/jobs/62a278494d70510878922082 https://anonfriendly.com/jobs/62a278494d70510878922082 It will be very weird if people call me badrabbit in person.
- giaour 4y ago
  You must also report to work daily in a rabbit mask. Welcome to the future.
mistrial9 4y ago
I am amazed at the arm-chair lawyers here who leap at the opportunity to tear holes and make veiled accusations about something so completely basic as "ability to work for pay." Do people not understand that cash work is as old as boats? Do you really want government record keeping in every day and night of your personal life? You want that so badly that you will leap to the front of the forum with your Legal Questions ? Yes, health care and stability and proper tax payments are the mark of civilized life. And guess what First Worlders ? more people around you are falling into despair than you realize, because they wont say it.
Jistern 4y ago
I have actually used pseudonymity for some time. It works. It's not perfect, but I find it to be very useful. I fell into it out of necessity because formal legal contracts are often not feasible to enforce when you are paying some guy, who lives halfway around the world, a few hundred or a few thousand dollars. As long as everyone pays their taxes, in some cases this can be a very reasonable method of working with contractors. However, this approach tends to make dispute resolution in a court of law unfeasible. Specifically, for software development I use obfuscation instead of the threat of adjudication to protect myself. Essentially I indicate to the contractor, "Here, build this thing for me. I'm not going to tell you how I'm going to use it. Also, I'm not giving you my real name; I don't need your real name. I'll pay you weekly or even daily so that you don't need to worry much about being unpaid." This is an ancient concept, but the internet makes it much more efficient. There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach but, frankly, it is, wellll, ummmm, kind of weird and very unfriendly because each party is implicitly and constantly indicating, "I don't trust you" to one another. On the plus side, ending relationships is typically extremely quick and easy. "What's that? You refuse to do what I want? I see. Goodbye and good luck." No muss, no fuss, no drama, and no fear of reprisals. I detest arguing with, for example, recalcitrant or incompetent contractors. From my perspective, the ending “relationships part” is super-duper great. I detest becoming enmeshed in sticky personal disputes with contractors whom I have engaged. I need contractors to provide me with deliverables. I strive to prevent them from discussing their personal lives with me. Why? I have found that once contractors start discussing their personal lives with me, they will invariably use my knowledge of their problems as means to justify their excuses for failing to deliver on time and/or on budget. Regardless of their reasons, if they are unable to deliver high quality work on time and on budget, then I need to find another contractor who will.
thephyber 4y ago
I’m not sure I would hire anyone pseudonymously except for work that could be done on, say, Upwork or MechTurk (small assignments that don’t require sensitive access). I would look at the US CISA guidance[1] on North Korean hacker MOs and consider the possibility that the person you hire might be using the opportunity to drain your company of finances, IP, or to sabotage your infrastructure. They may not work for North Korea, but consider the possibility they might abuse your trust in a similar way. [1] https://cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/alerts/aa20-106a https://cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/alerts/aa20-106a
andsoitis 4y ago
> don't doxx yourself for work. That’s a pretty cynical and paranoid outlook on life.
RockRobotRock 4y ago
What if you want a job that isn't defi/crypto silliness?

306 points by 0xPersona 4y ago

persiankat 4y ago

how does this work within the us where employers need to have your tax identification?

papito 4y ago
Typical Web 3.0 bullshit. Bold claims of freedom and fairness, but you dig deeper, and it's garbage all the way down. It's libertarian anarchy "paradise".

rpmisms 4y ago

This is awesome. I would be much more comfortable working on my political side projects if employment was pseudonymous.

0xPersona 4y ago
Thank you! Yeah I think pseudonymous work is really liberating in that sense. It could allow people to be more authentic, without worrying about their livelihoods being put at risk.

soulofmischief 4y ago

This is a wonderful idea, but the first listing I clicked claimed being anon-friendly while also asking for a mandatory resume. I assumed these would mostly be merit-based positions, how do these two concepts harmonize? I have gotten anon roles before and they did not require a resume. Also, it would be useful to filter by part-time/full-time/contract positions.

0xPersona 4y ago
Hey! Thank you for the kind words. Really means a lot. You raise a valid point. I suppose you could submit a resume associated with your pseudonymous identity. I have two resumes personally, one for my legal identity, and one for work that I do under my pseudonymous identity. It does present a challenge though. It's not easy to separate the two and either one alone may not provide a holistic and accurate view of you as a candidate. Without speculating and relying too much on buzzwords, I wonder if you could use Zero Knowledge Proofs to prove that you have certain credentials or experience, without necessarily having to share your legal/irl identity. I don't have all the answers myself but I do have many questions, hence why I built this! And thanks for the feedback about filtering, you're right. Will ship that asap :) Could I ask if you were hired as a full time employee or as a contractor? Trying to figure out how organizations may handle the legalities/taxes for full time employees.
- cupofpython 4y ago
  What's the point in hiding your name if you submit a job history which narrows the scope of your anonymity? how do you verify the contents of said resume without having enough information to identify them? I could just take anyone's github profile and say that it's me and you would have no idea.

0des 4y ago

theyre all cryptoasset related jobs :/ bummer

0xPersona 4y ago
Do you know of any non-crypto anon friendly jobs? I'd be happy to list them! These are just the jobs I've personally been able to find thus far.

dboreham 4y ago

Nowhere sane?

swatcoder 4y ago

Aren't employers in most jurisdictions required to verify work eligibility and report income? Does "pseudonymously" just mean that they these employers commit to supporting your alternative identity when engaging with the public, the way publishers might handle a pen name? Or is this something different? I'm probably not the only person who will wonder about this, so it might help to put the answer as text on the site. (Maybe it's explained in the video, but a 30 minute video is a big ask)

that_guy_iain 4y ago
I would suspect you would not be considered an employee but a contractor. I am not sure how they much they're required to report about their vendors.
- swatcoder 4y ago
  In the US and comparable jurisdictions, the concept of employee and contractor are not interchangeable and imply differences in things like autonomy and expectations. This is as much to make sure that workers have appropriate protections and that contractors have appropriate freedom as it is about tax reporting or whatever. Far more likely is that these companies aren't well-footed legally and don't realize that they'll only be able to stay under the radar while small. Which is common, but puts a cap on how high-profile they can grow. They'll need to sort things out before they can scale or get involved in regulated industries.
  - jokethrowaway 4y ago
    It's highly debatable and jurisdiction dependant. Plenty of contractors are basically employees paying less taxes and not having holidays. (not that I'm complaining, I'm glad there is a legal way to minimise how much the government steals from me) States are a bit trickier because healthcare is so ridiculously overpriced and therefore people value health insurance provided by an employer. I never even bothered to sign up for the private health insurance I had in the UK and just either user the crappy public one or paid out of pocket, finding the best doctor for the job (instead of what my insurance would have offered).

duxup 4y ago

>using your legal identity at work is unnecessary, and puts your safety, security, and privacy, at risk. It is? I want this? I tried watching a bit of the video but it kinda lost me with the bitcoin stuff as I don't really think of bitcoin and my relationship with my employer ... have anything to do with each other.

0xPersona 4y ago
Admittedly, that sentence might be a tad hyperbolic right now, but I do think increasingly it will be the case. I do think there's no inherit reason why we need to know peoples' legal/irl identities in order to assert that they're suitable for a job. I can even imagine using Zero Knowledge Proofs to prove that candidates reside in certain territories, if that's a requirement that your job might have.
- boredumb 4y ago
  While I partly agree on asserting they're suitable for a job, actually employing them is entirely different. If someone has access to proprietary information/IP/Assets/etc, I don't want a pseudonym and a bitcoin transaction receipt when any of those go missing or an employee used my infrastructure to commit crimes and the feds are now asking me questions and my only answer is 0xPersona that I met on anon.com whom I pay with crypto.
  - 0xPersona 4y ago
    Absolutely! I would just posit that the organizations listed on the site seem to be handling this somehow (for now). I myself would be really curious as to how.
    - swatcoder 4y ago
      As a general tip: Trusting that someone doing something markedly unusual is "handling it somehow" is a great way to get some ugly surprises later. Companies do things wrong all the time and in many cases you can find yourself liable for their mistakes/abuses in some way or another. Sometimes at great cost. Obviously, you need to trust every employer/client to some degree, but you'll benefit yourself by developing a sense for what smells fishy. Unregistered, anonymous work in a world of borders, worker protections, and taxes smells like the dumpster behind a Red Lobster. You don't have to rule out an opportunity that interests you, but do be careful!

dml2135 4y ago

How do these companies address tax reporting requirements?

duxup 4y ago
Looking at the jobs I wonder if many just aren't reporting... others seem to promise a lot that would make being pseudonymous impossible.
tut-urut-utut 4y ago
There are legislations and use cases where contractors themselves are responsible for reporting their taxes.
- 0xPersona 4y ago
  I think this is probably the way most are going about it right now. Though it is one of the questions I'm most eager to get an answer for. And I have been reaching out :)
0xPersona 4y ago
Hey! Good question. I wish I could give you a better answer but the truth is I don't know (yet). That's one of the reasons I built this. I want to learn how organizations deal with things like that, and share that knowledge so we can create best practices. I promise that soon as I know the answer, I'll circle back!
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
  Make the max job size $600 and the contracting company technically won’t need to send a 1099…
  - reustle 4y ago
    If they’re in the US*
- lajamerr 4y ago

Mo3 4y ago

... yeah not going to happen. There's benefits to non-anonymous employment and the benefits of pseudonymous employment seem to mostly apply to illegal or grey area ventures. If you work as a blockchain engineer these days I can definitely see why you would want to remain anonymous.

Darmody 4y ago

Sounds like a good idea if you want to launder money. Anyway, I don't think that's legal anywhere in Europe.

biztos 4y ago

I am generally in favor of more privacy, but it’s hard picture the real-world use of this for anything other than overlapping jobs (“J2”) and evading sanctions. What else is it for?

yunwal 4y ago
I could see it being useful for jobs that make you a political target maybe? Security contracting, intelligence, or journalism?
- 0xPersona 4y ago
  Or even working in countries with generally higher crime or weaker rule of law. I spent years living in a country where even saying/posting something seemingly innocuous could put your life at risk.

vasco 4y ago

> soon most work will be done pseudonymously Eyebrow raised very high 81 days this article was discussed in HN: https://www.sofuckingagile.com/blog/mourning-loss-as-a-remote-team https://www.sofuckingagile.com/blog/mourning-loss-as-a-remot... In it, among other things, we learn a team member who was not even anonymous passed away, and the company only found out when the person's wife created a support ticket because they didn't know basic facts about them. If after reading that article, you walk away thinking it's a great setup, I'm thinking you're likely very different from anyone I've ever met.

maxbond 4y ago
Thanks for sharing stranger, that was a powerful piece.
samstave 4y ago
Doesnt this model only appeal to the use in "one-time, short-term, mostly-illegal" constructs? "Hey Mr. RockStar Dev, I want you to make me an app to rip of [THING]" "Sure, my @wallet is here and my skillset is listed here"
- rgbrgb 4y ago
  I'd guess that interaction is very common and not illegal anywhere I'm aware of.
  - nightpool 4y ago
    In most jurisdictions, it is illegal to contract with someone for goods or services over a certain amount if you don't have their tax information. Otherwise, tax avoidance would be trivial. In the US specifically, you're required to file Form 1099 for any contracts over $600, which requires the other party's SSN, EIN, or another foreign tax identifier.
    - jrumbut 4y ago
      Some of the companies with job postings on that site seem to be headed by people in the US. I'm not a lawyer but I think they're taking a serious risk.

zichy 4y ago

Every single job posting is from a weird crypto bullshit company. Great.

0xPersona 4y ago
I wouldn't describe any of the organizations listed as "bullshit". Weird, maybe. But they actually do really interesting and valuable work!
- jfk13 4y ago
  > interesting and valuable work I suspect we may not share the same idea of what's "valuable".
jrsj 4y ago
Alternatively they could be from non-crypto tech startups, 90% of which are working on stuff that is just as bullshit and never would have been funded in the first place if not for post 2008 monetary policy. Crypto isn’t special in being bullshit, this whole industry is full of a lot of bullshit.
- zichy 4y ago
  The fact that there are many bullshit companies out there does not change the fact that all web3/blockchain companies are bullshit.
  - jrsj 4y ago
    Depends on how you define “bullshit” I guess but from my perspective there’s at least profits being made and money being exchanged. That’s less bullshit then a company that just takes VC money, hires people, and ultimately implodes without actually delivering any value. And even if you look purely at social utility, if all this shit does is provide a test bed for ideas that end up utilized in future central bank digital currencies then they’ll probably have been worth it.
- moneywoes 4y ago

xwdv 4y ago

It is very dangerous for a blockchain engineer to reveal their line of work.

JusticeJuice 4y ago
Isn't that a little concerning?
- HWR_14 4y ago
  It seems less concerning and more BS. I have no idea who would target blockchain engineers or why. I do understand why "we are fighting the system, this is dangerous" would be a selling point used by employers.
  - jrsj 4y ago
    threatening someone who has the ability to intentionally introduce a vulnerability into even a relatively small cryptocurrency probably has the potential to be insanely profitable, and the odds of it even being investigated are far lower than any other form of fraud (for now). There’s plenty of good reasons to go after some specific blockchain engineers who could do this, but otherwise yeah it seems kind of silly and over dramatic.
    - HWR_14 4y ago
      If the oversight on your project is so weak that an engineer can add code that steals money without being noticed, all you do is change who profits from the inevitable theft. In fact, if you allow the code to be delivered anonymously, you practically guarantee that smart people will add the vulnerability and steal the money.
      - jrsj 4y ago
        I think stronger oversight and less trust is sort of implicit in a pseudo-anonymous model. An attack like I described doesn’t require something as obvious as “code that steals money” either, it could be something much more innocuous that even afterwards appears to have been a mistake. Almost any type of bug combined with a well timed leveraged short position could result in big profits.

mellosouls 4y ago

I don't know generally the use case for this though I remember seeing the most brilliant person I've ever encountered (a forum long ago) enquiring if a job enabled people to work anonymously; he was very cautious with his identity. I do think it makes sense in this day and age - with pseudonymous discourse long established online - for people to be able to work anonymously within reason (constrained by accountability and transparency when applicable). The site is interesting but perhaps a little gung-ho with some of its statements.

duxup 4y ago
I wonder how that works as far as risk goes. The employers asking for folks to work anonymous, could it be that there's a lot more risk with them for other issues compared any non anonymous employers? I know a dude who is a big believer that every employer is trying to scam him / squeeze out ever last drop of productivity / life out of him. So he plays the same game trying to squeeze out every last bit of money / bouncing from employer to employer looking for the next extra dollar. There's no relationship there with him, his employer, most of his coworkers. He's managed to jump from big corp (the natural place you find looking to maximize income) to big corp and run into a lot more bad situations than I ever have ...
0xPersona 4y ago
Thanks for sharing! I do think adoption could be driven by talent. I could imagine the best candidates preferring pseudonymous work, causing employers to accommodate in order to remain competitive. I think your point about pseudonymous discourse being long established online is a good one! Most of us are already pseudonymous to some degree e.g. our usernames on Twitter, HN, Github, etc.

TekMol 4y ago

Here is a question I have often wondered about: Say I am running a business in Europe. And one day I need to translate some text from German to English. I go to Google and enter "German to English translation service". Up comes a website that says "We translate one page of text for ₿0.000048". The website does not tell you where it is operated or who operates it. They state that where they are, they are not obliged to tell you where they are. Just send the coins (via Lightning Network) and your text will be translated. Would I be allowed to use that service? Can I deduct the expense from my taxes?

renewiltord 4y ago
Anti money laundering would get in the way, right?
DangerousPie 4y ago
Do they provide an invoice that fulfils the accounting requirements of your country? I suspect not, so you wouldn’t be able to deduct it.
- TekMol 4y ago
  Is that true? The you cannot deduct expenses in absense of an invoice? Any links to back that up? What I find around the net seems to point in the opposite direction. For example the German "Eigenbeleg": https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenbeleg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenbeleg The Wikipedia page says that to deduct expenses from earnings, the expense has to be "belegt" which means "documented". But it seems the documentation does not have to be done by the seller. It seems it can also also be done by the buyer.
  - 7steps2much 4y ago
    I am not sure if it is still handled that way, but in my experience these are not supposed to be used to create new receipts, but to replace receipts that were lost or document things that occured but couldn't be put on receipts for whatever reason. While it might be possible to use them this way they might be scrutinized and the additional work of justifying them might not be worth using a service that doesn't provide receipts. Also, there is this section: > Soll die Ausgabe vom Finanzamt anerkannt werden, muss dies ein Ausnahmefall bleiben. Meaning, roughly "Even if accepted by the authorities, it is to be treated as an exception" So i assume that they would not be a fan of you trying to use this too liberally within your accounting.

barneygale 4y ago

They're all cryptocurrency jobs? Figures.

yunwal 4y ago
While I'm not a huge fan of this idea or cryptocurrency in general, "illegitimate" industries are often the spawning point for good new ideas (see: porn industry).
- barneygale 4y ago
  Could you elaborate on the porn industry example?
  - yunwal 4y ago
    Late response, but the porn industry served as an initial launching pad for a number of groundbreaking technological advancements. Examples include super 8 film, vhs, online payments, closed captioning, and various smaller achievements related to video streaming, for example the ability to see a still by hovering over the timeline on a video.

jrsj 4y ago

Most of this stuff is in crypto/smart contract/DeFi space…which is currently imploding. That being said I do like the idea of anon friendly work. Not even for the anonymity, but for being full async. I’ve tried looking for opportunities for work outside of my 9-5 in the past and it surprised me how difficult it was to find anything. Ultimately I gave up and cut some expenses instead.

nightpool 4y ago
Most salaried 9-5 jobs have conflict of interest clauses that prevent you from concurrently working for other employers without agreement from your first employer anyway (From a legal standpoint, this is generally regarded as part of the difference between salaried and hourly labor)
- ollien 4y ago
  I'm an hourly software engineer and fairly certain I'm forbidden from the same.
- jrsj 4y ago
  Fuck em, that will never hold up in court and they won’t even waste their time suing over it anyways.

pphysch 4y ago

Looking forward to giving audit-level access to my systems to a anon "Senior Security Auditor".

0xPersona 4y ago
You'd be surprised! Some of the best smart contract security folks in the space are pseudonymous and I imagine many organizations would work with them without needing to know their legal identity. One of those people is samczsun[1] who, amongst other things, famously prevented a potential ~$350m hack. [1] https://www.paradigm.xyz/team/samczsun/posts https://www.paradigm.xyz/team/samczsun/posts

francisofascii 4y ago

Anyone know if security firms already do this by default? For example, if you work for the NSA, do your co-workers even know what your real name is?

0xPersona 4y ago
Good question! I'd love to know the answer to this, too.
happyopossum 4y ago
That's going to depend more on what your role and assignment is than just the fact that you work for the NSA. In general though, working for the NSA isn't an anonymous act.
ghaff 4y ago
Sample size of one. Bay back when I had an offer from a three-letter agency, I wouldn't have been pseudonymous but I would have been officially working for some other government organization. I also had to book my own travel and they paid my expenses in cash on the spot.

outside1234 4y ago

Seems pretty illegal in most countries

Animats 4y ago

You get paid anonymously, in your choice of LUNA or APE.

waspight 4y ago

So what is doxxing anyway? Is the concern that anyone googling you will find you phone number or address? Why is that so bad in general? As long as you are not in some unique position like a famous person or something.

ljp_206 4y ago
I would be happy to start from a definition of doxxing and explain why it is not a good thing, but I am curious as to why you might not find the prospect of your address and phone number being revealed disturbing. Very boring, non-unique people get death threats all the time online. Even though the rate of online threats turning to violence against random users is demonstrably low, would you not be troubled to know your location was known to unknown potential harassers? Even disregarding physical assault, a potential attacker could make life online very difficult if they understood a few things about one's identity. I also ask this as someone who is skeptical of the prospect of anonymous employment, so I acknowledge there is certainly a spectrum of perspective on this issue. "As long as you are not in some unique position..." is reasoning that is very close to "as long as you have nothing to hide..."
- tgv 4y ago
  The first line on that page is literally "don't doxx yourself for work". You are only informing your employer of a few vital stats. The employer keeps that information private. There's no death threat involved.
  - 0xPersona 4y ago
    Well it's not just your employer who knows your legal identity at work. It's potentially the entire organization, and more.
morpheuskafka 4y ago
I think the vast majority of people greatly overestimate how difficult it would be to find someone's address. If you either own property or vote in the US, its usually trivial to find you via the county GIS/tax database and the state voter records. At least it is here in NC. If you rent and don't vote, it's a bit harder, but still lots of data brokers and other sources to look to.

mind-blight 4y ago

In most countries, there are a ton of legal protections and mandated benefits for workers. In the US, unemployment, workers comp, and social security stand out as the big ones. Beyond just tax, it's important that the government knows where you work so that you can effectively file complaints or for benefits of you happen to be working for an abusive employer, get laid off, or want to get paid during retirement

InefficientRed 4y ago

> using your legal identity at work is unnecessary, and puts your safety, security, and privacy, at risk. How is it even possible to employ someone in the US without knowing their legal identity?

abdel_nasser 4y ago

jkaplan 4y ago

It’s interesting to see all these ideas built around the idea that “more anonymity is better.” I think the opposite is usually (not always) true, and that many of the issues we see in today’s internet stem from the fact that we have completely lost a human connection to the people on the other end of our interactions. (You can even go further and connect this to the larger loss-of-community trends across modern society.) Developing a real relationship with someone increases empathy and trust; it leads to healthier, clearer, and more productive communication; and it generally is good for everyone’s mental health and happiness. Personally, I want a less anonymous and more communal internet (and society).

somenameforme 4y ago
You can observe plenty of people acting like the worst imaginable human being on Facebook or Twitter - all under their own name. I think you're spot on about the issue, but I'd argue the reason is simply scale. When you have only 5 people in your vicinity you're going to form deep relationships with them, whether or not you want to - or whether or not you like them. It will simply happen due to the fact you're going to be around these people day in, day out. 500? Well that gets more difficult. It'll require some degree of mutual effort to form relationships, but it's still very doable especially as you'll be still somewhat regularly bumping into the same people. 5,000,000? You will, in all probability, never see the same person twice. And even if you do, you probably won't remember them among the jungle of faces. You will never form any sort of a relationship unless you aggressively go out of your way to do so. And whoa, who's this random guy trying to be so aggressively buddy buddy with me? This dude is weird. Let me smile, nod, and find the nearest exit. And in the internet, you're around hundreds of millions to billions.
- jkaplan 4y ago
  Oh for sure! I’m not saying using real names automatically creates real relationships and trust, just that it helps. I just generally want to see the internet moving toward deeper, more meaningful interactions, which, like you say, is a big challenge, and almost certainly means some form of making things “smaller.” But making things more anonymous strikes me as the wrong direction.

dj_mc_merlin 4y ago

Interesting to note: HN sometimes upvotes articles just because they want to shit on an idea. I'm not disagreeing here actually, the statement: > don't doxx yourself for work could (was?) generated by a Markov chain.

olalonde 4y ago

Might want to look at adult industry jobs, a lot of them offer remote work with minimal identity verification. Ironically, that's how I got my first development job when I was still in high school (the employer didn't know nor ask my age). It would have been a lot more difficult to get a similar job at a "regular" employer who knew my age.

0xPersona 4y ago
Thanks for sharing! I didn't know that. That's actually very interesting.
- TameAntelope 4y ago
  Just FYI this will get you into a decent amount of hot water, and the company into a lot of hot water, for all kinds of labor law and IRS reasons.
seanhunter 4y ago
Seems to me that _of all employers_ it would be most important for the adult industry to verify people’s age.

happyopossum 4y ago

This sounds like a great way to work multiple jobs at once, under the table, then stiff your employers. Oh, and all without you as an employee having any of the employment protections and benefits provided by your government. I just don't see this taking off in any significant way for legitimate work.

gorbachev 4y ago

The first time one of these companies hire someone from Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba or any of the other countries under sanctions practically everywhere and et hit by multi-million dollar penalties and severe restrictions on how they can operate in the future, this thing will stop being a thing. How would they even know, if a competitor got hired to work for them? This might possibly be a good thing for workers, but there's so much risk involved for the employer, any competent legal expert would strongly advice against it.

seanhunter 4y ago
Yup. Feels like if this ever started to suceed in gathering traction, OFAC would shut it down.
InefficientRed 4y ago
Might not even get there. It's almost all defi which is imploding ATM. All of the LooksRare job postings 404. The rest have application instructions which amount to "engage with our social media", which makes me wonder if the jobs ever existed or if it's exclusively a way to generate leads and the appearance of buy-in. The beauty of anon hiring is that we'll never know.
- katz7nfnfnfnfn 4y ago
- 0xPersona 4y ago
  Hey, thanks for commenting! Are the LooksRare job postings responding with a 404? Their application involves sending an email, when you click "apply" it launches your email client. It's working for me. Am I missing something? Thank you :)
  - InefficientRed 4y ago
    The site lists links to tweets from the company, which point to their website, which 404: https://twitter.com/LooksRare/status/1521564976112369664 https://twitter.com/LooksRare/status/1521564976112369664 etc. which point to these links (all 404): https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/frontend-engineer https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/frontend-engineer https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/backend-engineer https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/backend-engineer https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/backend-engineer-indexer https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/backend-engineer-ind... https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/ux-specialist https://docs.looksrare.org/about/hiring/ux-specialist

GTP 4y ago

I'm a bit scared to ask but... How do you stipulate a contract if you're pseudonymous? Or maybe you are supposed to work without a contract and accept monthly payments using a cryptocurrency?

iLoveOncall 4y ago

That sounds like rugpulls waiting to happen.

belial1971 4y ago

How do they pay the check? https://intelibilia.substack.com/p/18-crypto-wages-day https://intelibilia.substack.com/p/18-crypto-wages-day

banteg 4y ago
we just stream stablecoins every second https://llamapay.io https://llamapay.io

cs137 4y ago

This sounds like a good thing, but I'm not sure it is. Capital wins under the current system because the bad guys control your reputation and career, but capital will win under a pseudonymous work system too because careers will cease to exist (or, in any case, will be difficult to assemble) and the commoditization of labor will be complete. I'm a very "out" antifascist, and I've lost jobs due to my public not-liking-fascists, so I'm sympathetic to people who'd benefit from pseudonymous work, but fiverrization is not the way forward. The solution is to have aggressive right-to-forget, anti-blacklisting, and anti-discrimination laws, and not only to enforce them vigorously but to go forward on the presumption of employee innocence (that is, innocent until proven guilty).

edmcnulty101 4y ago
Another solution is UBI.
rootusrootus 4y ago
> I'm a very "out" antifascist, and I've lost jobs due to my public not-liking-fascists That kind of statement makes me curious. What kind of behavior do you exhibit that has cost you jobs?
- titanomachy 4y ago
  I'm also interested. If I'm running a company that has to do business with ordinary people, I want to avoid hiring someone who vocally and publicly espouses radical political views that many people would react to negatively. Even if they are "pseudonymous", since it could still become known later on that they are associated with the company. Different people define "fascism" so differently that being "antifascist" could mean anything from protesting against the KKK, to actively working to bring down the capitalist world order (which happens to be the framework in which most companies have to operate.) If I have radical political views, that's the part of my life that I'm keeping pseudonymous.
  - cs137 4y ago
    > being "antifascist" could mean anything from protesting against the KKK, to actively working to bring down the capitalist world order (which happens to be the framework in which most companies have to operate.) I'd say I'm between the two. I'm a radical by US false-consciousness standards, but a moderate by sane-people standards. I do want to bring down the capitalist world order, but I'm not going to behave unethically, break laws blithely, or fuck over an employer who treats me well in service to that goal. In general, I'm against violence unless absolutely nothing else will work (and I don't think we're at that point yet, although we may get there). Violent revolutions tend to see a transfer of control from the originial vanguard (who were willing to use violence to achieve a goal, but who didn't seek out the opportunity to use it) to mindless thugs who just want to be paid to hurt people.

giaour 4y ago

Most work today requires some level of exposure to sensitive data of some kind, be it related to business strategy, company financials, or customer data. You're not getting access to that as some anonymous internet rando.

dev-3892 4y ago

I'm not sure how I guarantee that I'm not getting exploited if I'm working without my employer knowing who I am. How do I have a reasonable expectation of legal protection in this scenario?

jjcon 4y ago

Anyone else find it odd that the two jobs that list salaries are in the junior dev/first job range?

warkdarrior 4y ago

So employees can work pseudonymously, but employers have to disclose their identity? Why not make it fully pseudonymous for both sides?

0xPersona 4y ago
Employers don't have to disclose their identity, it's up to them! Many of the founders of these organizations are pseudonymous themselves.

londons_explore 4y ago

In most places, being employed anonymously is illegal for both the individual and the company. I could imagine that even if you were paying taxes, you might be prosecuted simply because you could not prove to a tax authority that the other party had paid their taxes. Apart from that, you're probably going to miss out on a lot of government and private schemes that require proof of employment - mortgages and credit being a big one.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

phailhaus 4y ago

A common refrain is that "crypto is speedrunning the history of finance." I think this is destined for the same outcome: we're going to hear stories coming out of pseudonymous work that remind us why the rules are in place today. For example: can't file lawsuits against your employer for labor violations if you're trying to stay anonymous! So they really don't have a great incentive to treat you well.

warkdarrior 4y ago
How would you prove to a court that you are an employee of that company??

tiffanyh 4y ago

How does this work given that the company needs to record who they are making payment too (even if it's just a W-2 contractor). (I'm speaking from a US lens here)

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

Lots of other comments around the dubious legality of this, at least in the US. I'd like to comment, though, on the fact that the majority of these jobs are in the crypto/defi space. I'm also not alone in commenting on this, and this fact alone is obviously not surprising, but I'd like to point out that the central idea of crypto that you can somehow "escape the government's control of finance" by using crypto is as much of a fever dream as that you can feasibly work anonymously for a company. At the end of the day, the vast majority of people need the services of society and government to function. Crypto advocates have long crowed "look how great it is that we have gotten monetary supply out of the control of government", but you only need to look at the current environment to see how ridiculous this is. At the end of the day people expect to be able to exchange money for goods, and not go to jail for doing so, and that is something government's aren't willing to give up, regardless of the medium of exchange. As it related to this case, the biggest question folks have is "what benefit to I get for working for a company pseudonymously". On reflection it's largely downside for the vast majority of people unless you are an anti-government absolutist, or are working in something like the drug trade or a hit man that is shady to begin with.

titanomachy 4y ago
"Largely downside unless you are an anti-government absolutist..." Or, the public persona associated with your real identity is so visibly antisocial/radioactive that nobody would hire you if they knew who you were.

jmspring 4y ago

"using your legal identity at work is unnecessary" Uh, employers in the US are required to verify employment eligibility. One submits an i9 form. For contractors / etc, you still need to submit information for 1099. What am I missing here - if considering the US?

TulliusCicero 4y ago

On a related note, anyone know if there's a site that shows you (decent) part-time coding jobs?

jamal-kumar 4y ago

Don't exploit brokers like Zerodium already operate under these kinds of parameters?

throwaway892238 4y ago

> using your legal identity at work is unnecessary, and puts your safety, security, and privacy, at risk. Yes. And that's a good thing. You are at risk of being fired if you are a white supremacist neo-nazi gay-bashing woman-hating trans-denying animal-abusing child-molesting felonious douchebag in your private life. And you're more likely to be caught doing insider trading or some other illegal/anti-competitive act. An identity is part of regulating a culture and maintaining the law. The risk is a feature, not a bug. The really funny thing is that this whole website is now an easy way to find people who are looking to be pseudonymous and any employers that are skirting laws. Should've kept it on the dark web.

woodruffw 4y ago

I don't think most of this is legal, at least in the United States. In the US, your employer is required to collect certain basic facts about you for tax and compliance purposes: your legal name and your legal status are the most basic ones, followed by your working location/residence (for local tax purposes). An employer who fails to collect and retain this information is effectively indistinguishable from a sweatshop owner. On the other hand, "pseudonymously" might really just mean that the company collects that information, and doesn't forcefully disclose any of it to your coworkers. Which seems...not particularly abnormal? I've worked with over a dozen people over the years whose "official" name, residence, &c. was never disclosed to me.

sbarbarian 4y ago

I can see wanting to keep my job secret from my peers, but not from my employer. How can you build trust with whomever you're working with? I can't imagine feeling comfortable sending anything in writing in a work environment to a colleague who has no reputational accountability (both within / outside the firm).

whynotkeithberg 4y ago

Holy shit and I won't even attempt to say this with any tact or grace... You're quite a few years to late to take advantage of the talent you did without any actual plan to pay them for their work. The greater fool concept only works for so long.

katz_ 4y ago

_8j50 4y ago

How can you be pseudonymous if you work in person like this post: https://anonfriendly.com/jobs/62a278494d70510878922082 https://anonfriendly.com/jobs/62a278494d70510878922082 It will be very weird if people call me badrabbit in person.

giaour 4y ago
You must also report to work daily in a rabbit mask. Welcome to the future.

mistrial9 4y ago

I am amazed at the arm-chair lawyers here who leap at the opportunity to tear holes and make veiled accusations about something so completely basic as "ability to work for pay." Do people not understand that cash work is as old as boats? Do you really want government record keeping in every day and night of your personal life? You want that so badly that you will leap to the front of the forum with your Legal Questions ? Yes, health care and stability and proper tax payments are the mark of civilized life. And guess what First Worlders ? more people around you are falling into despair than you realize, because they wont say it.

Jistern 4y ago

I have actually used pseudonymity for some time. It works. It's not perfect, but I find it to be very useful. I fell into it out of necessity because formal legal contracts are often not feasible to enforce when you are paying some guy, who lives halfway around the world, a few hundred or a few thousand dollars. As long as everyone pays their taxes, in some cases this can be a very reasonable method of working with contractors. However, this approach tends to make dispute resolution in a court of law unfeasible. Specifically, for software development I use obfuscation instead of the threat of adjudication to protect myself. Essentially I indicate to the contractor, "Here, build this thing for me. I'm not going to tell you how I'm going to use it. Also, I'm not giving you my real name; I don't need your real name. I'll pay you weekly or even daily so that you don't need to worry much about being unpaid." This is an ancient concept, but the internet makes it much more efficient. There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach but, frankly, it is, wellll, ummmm, kind of weird and very unfriendly because each party is implicitly and constantly indicating, "I don't trust you" to one another. On the plus side, ending relationships is typically extremely quick and easy. "What's that? You refuse to do what I want? I see. Goodbye and good luck." No muss, no fuss, no drama, and no fear of reprisals. I detest arguing with, for example, recalcitrant or incompetent contractors. From my perspective, the ending “relationships part” is super-duper great. I detest becoming enmeshed in sticky personal disputes with contractors whom I have engaged. I need contractors to provide me with deliverables. I strive to prevent them from discussing their personal lives with me. Why? I have found that once contractors start discussing their personal lives with me, they will invariably use my knowledge of their problems as means to justify their excuses for failing to deliver on time and/or on budget. Regardless of their reasons, if they are unable to deliver high quality work on time and on budget, then I need to find another contractor who will.

thephyber 4y ago

I’m not sure I would hire anyone pseudonymously except for work that could be done on, say, Upwork or MechTurk (small assignments that don’t require sensitive access). I would look at the US CISA guidance[1] on North Korean hacker MOs and consider the possibility that the person you hire might be using the opportunity to drain your company of finances, IP, or to sabotage your infrastructure. They may not work for North Korea, but consider the possibility they might abuse your trust in a similar way. [1] https://cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/alerts/aa20-106a https://cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/alerts/aa20-106a

andsoitis 4y ago

> don't doxx yourself for work. That’s a pretty cynical and paranoid outlook on life.

RockRobotRock 4y ago

What if you want a job that isn't defi/crypto silliness?