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

218 points by synappser ↗ HN
HN has been my morning coffee favourite read for years now but it's my very first post. I'm an old man, so please bare with me.

I am a seasoned systems architect and developer, now retired. While I was tempted in the first few weeks of my retirement to just turn the page and let it go, I remembered how much I used to enjoy writing small utilities for my own daily workflows. A year ago, I asked my fellow forum members (a Mac-dedicated one) if they would like to beta test some of my applications (and oh, they did). I got high quality feedback I would not have gotten elsewhere. I kept striving to answer their feature requests and today many of my first beta testers are insisting that my applications have outgrown the private beta.

I was caught completely off guard by FinderFix (https://synappser.github.io/apps/finderfix/), the first application I'm opening to public beta, making the top row on Reddit a couple of weeks ago. This sudden limelight is both an opportunity and a challenge.

I am not complaining. Any publicity is good publicity and I got this kind of genuine enthusiastic feedback: "OH MY GOD! Bro you’re a god sent. Thanks man I love this app. Also that Cmd + X for cut/paste. Oof so good!".

I however cherish anonymity and I laud the Internet for allowing me to enforce it. I am thus publishing my software under a pseudonym (a pen name, if you prefer) with a free Apple Developer Certificate. How long will I be able, with Apple's current Gatekeeper policy, to preserve my anonymity if I were to turn this hobby into a real business, albeit a small one?

For more context, please refer to a couple posts of mine (a manifesto of my core ethos):

http://synappser.github.io/blog/

I guess this is a tough question to answer, unless you're an Apple insider, but I'd really appreciate any guidance you could give me.

Thank you

152 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 234 ms ] thread
kgraves
Do you know who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
bigiain
Satoshi does/did not have an Apple Developer account, and never needed his code signed by Apple to run on it's target platform.
cnity
Even if it was needed, they would not have had a hard time finding a trustworthy volunteer.
bigiain
Like Craig Wright?

(Oh, you said "trustworthy". My bad...)

defrost
Just another Nicolas Bourbaki . . .
xnorswap
Who hasn't been heard of for 12 years.

12 years ago doesn't really qualify as "nowadays".

supermatt
Does "turning into a real business" mean "making money"? If so, how do you expect to anonymously receive funds from the app store (or any other payment service provider).

The only way you could remain (externally) anonymous and comply with all the AML/KYC and other legal, corporate and service requirements (including taxation, etc) would be to have a company with a nominee director.

yieldcrv
You don't need a nominee director you just need the better jurisdiction. Several US states do not list directors or the names of anyone involved with the company, publicly. Some states don't have that information at all.
Havoc
Not sure I’d consider anonymous corporate entities “better”…
eyko
Better for the intended purpose
yieldcrv
You're the only one that read that.

The jurisdiction is better because it has more features, and those features are applicable to a broader audience. Additional features = better, less features = worse. You don't have to chose any specific feature of the jurisdiction yourself, like forming an anonymous corporate entity. You can [typically] form one that gives out all of your information in those places too.

supermatt
How does that work for AML? Not having to disclose UBOs it seems like you wouldnt be able to even open a bank account.

EDIT: seems you still have to disclose UBOs for IRS, banks, subpoenas, etc with these "anonymous LLCs" - unless you also use a nominee

yieldcrv
It depends on what level of anonymity you want.

There are about 3 or 4 levels

1) anonymity to the public and search engines

2) anonymity to the app store platform and most of the private sector

3) anonymity to the state, banking and legal

4) anonymity to intelligence community

the business entity as I described satisfies 1) and 2).

its not really clear to me that a nominee director legally satisfies 3), AML has always required decision makers and ultimate beneficial owners (UBO) to be the ones that financial institutions have records of, and the IRS requires that the UBO report it on their tax. If your criteria for 3) does not require strict adherence to legal, then there are plenty of other things you can do as well.

and if you aren't needing to list on "App stores" or use financial institutions, then 3) isn't necessary at all

bigiain
If your app stands enough chance of making enough to cover the costs, you could probably hide your identity behind a company identity.
spoonjim
There are three levels of anonymity: anonymity to the general public, to Apple, and to a state-level actor.

Anonymity to the general public is very easy, incorporate a company behind some of the shell corporation mumbo jumbo that any corporate lawyer can prep for you, it will cost $ but it will be easy.

Anonymity from Apple could probably be pulled off by incorporating in a country with fairly weak transparency and having the company owned by an offshore trust.

Anonymity from a state level actor would be pretty hard. You'd have to have a shell corp in a foreign country owned by a shell corp in another foreign country and even that might not be enough.

yieldcrv
You can also use someone else's ID and metadata, signing up to banking and Apple while remote desktopping in to a compromised windows computer near their postal code.

Compromised windows computers are listed by postal code on some market places.

This will pass practically all flagging on the transactional side.

(You can still use a company you formed as well, and DUNS number, for the public listing on the app store)

Not really that complicated.

treyfitty
Legitimate question: what benefits are there to be anonymous to the general public? Wouldn’t most people be happy to take credit for their code?
musikele
If your code is perfectly legit, but lies in shady or non-generally-ethical sectors, like porn, gambling, weapons, one might want to hide their identity to the general public.
bigiain
If you're a retired gentleman mostly coding for your own and your friend's use, and you've seen the trashfire that social media and the modern internet has become compared to the time before The Eternal September - back when you originally started using the internet... It's very very easy to see why you might desire anonymity before widely releasing simple utility tools.

to: developer@gmail.example.org

from: billy-joe@3rd-grade.nowheresville-elementary-schoole.edu.us

subject: FinderFix

I demand you integrate FinderFix with TikTok and Discord IMMEDIATELY - or I'll come over there and rape your family and pets!!!llII!!1!!

krageon
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.
ghaff
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.
krageon
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.
ghaff
There can also be significant disadvantages to totally disconnecting anything you do online from your professional identity. If the two things really don't have anything to do with each other--say you're a developer and write risque fiction on the side--it may make sense to use a pen name and that's not uncommon.

However, many professionals in the tech space and elsewhere have online work that is intimately connected with their day job--and may even be part of their day job. In that case, anonymity is not really an option.

digisign
You could take credit in the interview, field questions, and if there is still some doubt, log in to whatever it is you'd like to show. In other words, show privately, not publicly.
ghaff
For me at least, it's pretty much nothing to do with interviews. Articles, conference presentations, just being "me" at events, social media, etc. is all part of the package.
digisign
Sounds like work is a major part of your identity. Personally prefer to keep them separate-ish.
ghaff
It's more that I'm paid to have a fairly public role which pretty much has to be under my own name.
renonce
When you are part of a company or some entity, the risk is smaller since the credit goes to your company rather than yourself. When you work for yourself that's not the case.
nor-and-or-not
A friend of mine programs free / open source software and one of his libraries was used in a crypto scam project.

Suddenly he got accusations and threats from a person from a completely different country, because that person thought he was the brain behind the crypto scam where they lost some money. He had to take it to the police to get that person stop threatening and harass him.

filchermcurr
People are nuts. I ran a small, simple MUD (a text-based MORPG). Nothing fancy, nothing overly popular, a nice little niche group of people. Seemingly. I ran it anonymously, but there will always be somebody you know who slips something about you that will break that anonymity. The day that happened to me, a couple of disgruntled players found my Facebook account and sent messages to me and my immediate family threatening to kill us in various colorful ways.

My information is pretty locked down, but my family was less so. They started to get threatening phone calls. Very unpleasant stuff.

Anyway, that's when I learned that credit isn't worth the hassle of harassment.

digisign
There's an interesting piece about being a mini/micro celebrity by Tim Ferriss. Am too lazy to look it up, but the gist is that for every ~thousand people, several are bat-shit insane and looking for something to obsess over.

So if multiple thousand folks know you exist, prepare for some stalking.

ffhhj
A friend made an app based on some calculation method he found in a youtube channel. Shame on him for not crediting the author, but months later this influencer created an app of his method and wrote a menacing review for my friend's app, backed with thousands of upvotes. He found other apps implementing the method received similar threats as top reviews.
bigiain
> Anonymity from a state level actor would be pretty hard.

I'd say "totally impractical/impossible for regular individuals".

As James Mickens so eloquently put it:

If your adversary is the Mossad, YOU’RE GONNA DIE AND THERE’S NOTHING THAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. The Mossad is not intimidated by the fact that you employ https://. If the Mossad wants your data, they’re going to use a drone to replace your cellphone with a piece of uranium that’s shaped like a cellphone, and when you die of tumors filled with tumors, they’re going to hold a press conference and say “It wasn’t us” as they wear t-shirts that say “IT WAS DEFINITELY US,” and then they’re going to buy all of your stuff at your estate sale so that they can directly look at the photos of your vacation instead of reading your insipid emails about them. -- https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf

Some of us enjoy cosplaying extreme privacy nuts, or engaging in recreational paranoia. But don't for a minute kid yourself into believing you stand a chance against the NSA (or your jurisdiction's equivalent).

raverbashing
As funny as this is, you (not you, the person in the example) broke the anonimity when you chose to be an antagonist yourself (and drawing attention in the process).

The best way to be anonymous to those agencies is to be irrelevant to them

Beltiras
Then you just become training data for their threat algo.
bigiain
> The best way to be anonymous to those agencies is to be irrelevant to them

And to make sure that everybody who has the same name as you also stays irrelevant to them... And that nobody ever uses your name as an alias and does anything "relevant" to them.

"“A senior administration official who spoke on condition he not be identified said Kennedy was stopped because the name ‘T. Kennedy’ has been used as an alias by someone on the list of terrorist suspects.” A number of media outlets carried the same version of the story.

Of course, “Ted” Kennedy’s real first name is Edward, and would appear as such on any ticket or identification documents, so why the senator’s name should set off alarms, even if a ‘T. Kennedy’ appeared on a “no fly” list, is a mystery that has not been explained.

The New York Times reports a different story: “The alias used by the suspected terrorist on the watch list was Edward Kennedy, said David Smith, a spokesman for the senator, who uses his full name, with a middle initial, of Edward M. Kennedy.”"

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2004/08/kenn-a21.html

RonMarken
One cannot remain private or anonymous from a state-level adversary indefinitely but throwing your hands up and dismissing it as impossible is also a fallacy. Details are sporadic for easy reasons but quite a few whistle-blowers and other controversial figures have managed to keep themselves anonymous and disappear in a controlled-exit without any obvious retribution. Probably the best case outcome.
imjonse
You can easily be an anonymous open source developer at least.
ghaff
Anonymity is a lot easier in general if money isn't involved because you don't need any connection to a bank or a taxing agency. (Yes, there's crypto blah blah as an option but that's not very practical for just collecting income.) There are still ways to track you down but assuming reasonable operational security you can be pretty safe from casual and even not so casual attempts to find out who you are.
Jack_rando_fang
Wait... there are "free Apple Developer Certificates"?
justsomeguy123
I'm also curious what this is. Apple wouldn't give free certificates even for open source apps! $99 to give their users free apps.
bigiain
The free developer accounts don't get your apps into the iOS app store. That requires a paid up $99 developer account.

I think (but am not sure) that you can use them (for now) to sign a macOS app that you distribute from your own download somewhere, and Mac uses can download your apps and click through the "Yes, I trust apps signed with that Satoshi Nakamoto certificate" dialog and install them.

r12343a_19
You don't get even free macOS notarization without paying $99. Really, could I get a link to where this mythical free account is and what it provides?
justsomeguy123
This may have been a mistake. Apple will have a reason to revoke your certificate.
Copenjin
I've read your post on anonymity, considering that there are successful developers from Russia or some other fake-democracy countries for example, I don't really see why you should have any problems. And which kind of problems? Less revenues?

Opening a small company could probably be ok to preserve some sort of basic anonymity (meaning, it takes a variable but not negligible amount of effort to understand who the owner is).

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jimmySixDOF
As Banksy is said to have said : "My work speaks for itself, I'm a Painter not a talker."
mathrawka
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 can then create a business account on Apple and Google (and anywhere else).

All of the public facing information will be your company name. If you want more details or help, just ask here.

New_California
Anon LLC is US specific. Not available in other countries.
DarthNebo
Not limited by LLC, registering a company anywhere can ensure it to an extent
New_California
No, company board and owners are public and readily available data in virtually all countries, US being an exception to the rule.
weego
The seychelles is also a good choice for a completely anonymous company (note that banking may be a bigger issue to solve)
necovek
At least where I am from (Serbia), registry of all LLCs is publicly available with personal data on all the "members" (whole- or part-owners). The best you can get is by having a foreign LLC where there is no name requirement register an LLC here.
sschueller
In Switzerland that would require you to deposit at least 25k or you can not use a fantasy name.
calvinmorrison
Well there goes my "Middle Earth Orc Roundup Pest Control" business name...
867-5309
to the Orcs, we are the pest
ocrb
And even then there's a public entry that you are the owner, there are no anonymous LLCs in Switzerland.
Dracophoenix
> 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).

Congress passed a bill with rider a that now makes the creation of anonymous LLCs difficult.

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/467017-house-passes-bill-...

https://maloney.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/congress-...

https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2021/02/04/the-end-of-the-an...

mathrawka
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.
Dracophoenix
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...

pc86
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.

ghaff
The 90% use case is that someone wants to make it quite hard for an Internet rando (or maybe their employer) to connect them to their "true name" and, by extension, all the other data connected to their true name--likely including their address among other things, especially if their name is uncommon or other data is already known. This is pretty easy in the US.

Making it so no one can make the connection is much harder (as in close to impossible) and probably illegal in many cases especially if money is changing hands.

Dracophoenix
> 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.

All for-profit companies doing business in the United States have always been required to report to the IRS and state tax authorities. There's never been a way to make money anonymously short of simply not filing with IRS (definitely illegal). This new law doesn't change or improve upon that in any way.

Prior to the bill being passed, one could set up a shell company in Nevada without giving away one's name. With the passage of this bill, one's ownership in an LLC is kept in a registry by a government agency for the sole purpose of surveillance. There's only as much "privacy" from the general public as there is the likelihood that the Treasury's servers are secure. And there's absolutely none from the members of the US government.

There are purposefully installed concessions that were requested by certain entrenched interest groups. For example, a company employing at least 12 people won't have to report anything. And the fact that the bill was a rider on a veto-proof legislation shows the substance of it wasn't quite popular enough to devote a legislative session towards the issue. It's little more than a privacy buster under the guise of an anti-corruption bill.

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tmp2343EU
...or strike a deal with existing LLC. This is what my company does. We sign contracts and you re hidden behind offshore corporate veil.
dijonman2
Excellent suggestion, but how do you find an existing LLC that won’t fuck you?
adbachman
Go looking.

What have you tried that didn't work?

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dijonman2
Partnered with the wrong person and lost money/time.
tmp2343EU
Meet the people behind it, draft good contracts, trust your guts. It will always be a gamble, tho.
runnerup
In many states if you want anonymity you ALSO have to pay a lawyer to be the principal agent in addition to the registered agent.

Basically the lawyer is the CEO/“Owner” but since you pay them to do exactly as you say, they delegate everything back to you and just sign forms occasionally that you put in front of them.

vanattab
I always wondered about these situations? What prevents the Lawyer from just taking off with company assets if they are the owner? If there are other contract terms limiting the lawyer and giving someone else control is the lawyer still "legally" the owner?
wombatpm
Bad lawyers can and do. They also end up in jail.
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[dead] usrn
bigiain
Great plan!

A guy who writes utilities to make his Mac work exactly the way he wants it to, should avoid Apple.

Brilliant!

:facepalm:

Veen
That's hardly helpful for someone who develops Mac apps.
New_California
Yes, it is absolutely conceivable to be anon developer, except for officially publishing in the Apple/Google/MS walled gardens.

Then if you would want to accept donations or payments, anonymity is only possible with cryptocurrencies and cash-by-mail. The easiest one (anonymity wise) is Monero and the most popular one is Bitcoin.

bigiain
> anonymity is only possible with cryptocurrencies and cash-by-mail. The easiest one (anonymity wise) is Monero and the most popular one is Bitcoin.

Can we just stop with the "Bitcoin is anonymous" bullshit here?

Anybody here is smart enough to know better, so it just earmarks you as another fucking crypto-shill.

kzrdude
I think you have some kind of point but it's lost by being rude
bigiain
Yeah, fair criticism. But I'm just so over the insane mass hallucination these planet burning pyramid scheme grifters keep wanting to convince everybody is real. There are no clothes, there isn't even a damned emperor. They all deserver to be called out and ridiculed at every sighting. And yeah, I'm rude while doing that.
[dead] tossl568
formerkrogemp
> How about you just shut the fuck up and we'll keep saving in Bitcoin and you can keep your infinitely inflating dollars.

bitcoin is losing value. It's really not a hedge against inflation as you propose. As more people need what little money they have leftover from losing it in bitcoin, they'll pull the remaining fraction of their savings out and reduce the price of bitcoin. The price is just barely above $20,000 now. Most miners are running on fossil fuels consuming electricity greater than that of countries. You need to get a grip because your ponzi scheme is collapsing.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/crypto/bitcoin-falls-fresh-18-m...

tossl568
It's been a hedge against inflation for me for nine years thanks. I'm not pulling a cent out. Those people are selling a scarce asset to me, and thousands like me, and they can only sell to us once. Most miners are running on stranded, excess renewable energy that can't be used for anything else. A ponzi scheme implies an exit. We're never swapping back to dollars that can be printed out of thin air.
formerkrogemp
> It's been a hedge against inflation for me for nine years thanks.

For a period of record low inflation excluding 2021 and the current year? Sure. During 2021 and 2022? Only price falls for Bitcoin.

> Most miners are running on stranded, excess renewable energy that can't be used for anything else.

Bullshit. There is opportunity cost to this electricity use, and it keeps fossil fuel power plants open longer than they would have otherwise been. I don't think you need me to tell you how big of a crisis climate change is.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/bitcoin-miners-align-...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-miners-are-giving-new-l...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/18/bitcoin-m...

https://hbr.org/2021/05/how-much-energy-does-bitcoin-actuall...

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2022/05/04/cryptocurrency-...

https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/bitcoins-puzzle-...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/bitcoin-is-re...

tossl568
We'll revisit that in a few years shall we? After continued inflation caused by endless QE.

Sounds like you have a problem with fossil fuels and the subsidies that exist for them. I suggest you direct your anger there instead of trying to police what calculations people choose to do.

ahaquer
Bitcoin is anonymous in the sense that you don't necessarily need to link your wallet to your real name, it's just not the best choice for privacy since transaction details are public. Besides, mixing services exist.
bigiain
> Besides, mixing services exist.

And don't work. They were revealed to be useless way back when the Magic The Gathering Online Exchange crypto grifters pulled the first high profile scam, and they got hounded through all the "mixers" anyway. Chainalysis has been able to see straight through "crypto mixers" for almost a decade. (Yeah, there are probably way that right now you can't track bitcoin through other crypto currencies and back into bitcoin, maybe... But we are now a long long way from "good advice to an old guy who want to sell macOS utilities anonymously")

tatertots1234
Mixers on programmable blockchains like TornadoCash do seem to provide strong anonymity when used correctly. If you have evidence suggesting its cryptography can easily be cracked, feel free to point to that.
kzrdude
If HN was anonymous, then we couldn't see that two posts were made by the same account or not. But HN has pseudonyms with (unlimited?) pseudonyms per person, and Bitcoin is a bit like that, except that it's commonplace to have many pseudonyms (wallet).
4ggr0
HN is also similar to a blockchain in another regard - You can't really delete your account and its content, which really annoys me to be honest. I like to purge online accounts from time to time, but that's not possible with HN.
New_California
No, we can't. Bitcoin *is* anonymous against average Joe which is what the OP needs here.

Pretty irrelevant here but for your fucking information, with significant expert effort, Bitcoin *can* be also anonymous against big actors.

petercooper
I'm being tongue in cheek here, but to support your point a little, if Bitcoin was not generally anonymous in nature, we'd know who Satoshi is.. no? :-)
happyopossum
Does Satoshi regularly receive bitcoin donations and convert them to USD? If he did I'm reasonably certain that someone could figure out his identity. The list of people that the US Govt (as an example) wanted to find and couldn't trace through bitcoin transactions is very short...
elcomet
Bitcoin is anonymous (ie your key is not linked to your identity) but not private (all your transactions can be seen)
kzrdude
It's somewhere between (not including) anonymous and multi-pseudonymous.

Each address is a random pseudonym. A wallet is a collection of pseudonyms but it's secret that they belong together. Except network analysis can infer that some of them do. Pseudonyms are persistent, can't "change them", only transfer coins out of the pseudonym to a different one, i.e. log a transaction.

tatertots1234
> Can we just stop with the "Bitcoin is anonymous" bullshit here?

Care to point to Satoshi’s real identity since anonymity in Bitcoin is bullshit?

viraptor
They didn't use any modern services - we mainly know of an old, idle account. If they were actually active today and we knew which transactions to look at, there would be some trail to follow. So, that isn't a counterexample you're after.
tatertots1234
All of their transactions are visible in the ledger, not hard to find. The same tools they used still exist today, except with additional privacy enhancements like some chains using zk-SNARKs.

The only weak points are exchanges. The OP can decide how anonymous they want to be - complete anonymity would imply not exchanging to fiat at all.

viraptor
The weak points are literally anything beyond transfers between clean accounts. Want to buy anything? It needs to be picked up. Want to transfer money to someone? They can be asked about you. Want to pay for services? You need to access them in a safe way. Even submitting new transactions, you could be traced by enough nodes if someone actually cared.

I don't disagree that most of them are not practical for a rando developer who wants to be anonymous, but I'm still annoyed at "the only weak point is...".

tatertots1234
If you are an anon dev and you share your real identity with a counterparty, you aren’t doing a great job at staying anonymous.

Anybody can start a new crypto wallet and receive funds into it, and then make transactions and keep that value on-chain to remain anonymous. There are a number of anon devs in the Ethereum ecosystem doing just this.

With enough effort your IP might be traceable if you do something like mint a token from a compromised website. But advanced methods also exist to break anonymity in systems like Tor, VPNs and cash which we often consider to have strong properties of privacy and anonymity, and to this nobody would refute as “bullshit.”

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jdthedisciple
Can't you (semi-) anonymously receive money via Paypal?
VoidWhisperer
I could be wrong but I seem to remember paypal will require KYC at some point past a certain amount of money coming into the account (?)
texasbigdata
You can have agreements with vendots? How would anyone but you and the vendor know anything about that?
mike_hearn
It is, yes. You can simply self-sign and then tell users how to bypass the security warning, which is what you're already doing so what's the problem?

It's a common misconception that macOS forces all software to be signed by Apple. It doesn't. ARM Macs require all software to be signed, but crucially, any signature is OK at the kernel level. It's only at the first-run-from-finder level that Gatekeeper gets involved. This has been true from the start and I've seen over the years scattered comments from Apple developers that they view the Mac as a true general purpose computing device, and thus have no plans to change this. The ramped up signing requirements on ARM are more to do with simplifying the core OS by ensuring all code has an identity than stopping non-Apple approved software.

If you think users should trust you despite your anonymity then you can simply point them to Apple's official documentation on how to work around Gatekeeper:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/open-a-mac-app-from...

The process is straightforward if you know about it:

1. Download a self-signed or unsigned app.

2. Locate it in the finder.

3. Hold down the control key and right click it, then choose open.

4. Click open when the security alert appears.

Most people think you have to use the command line to open non-signed apps on macOS but it's not actually the case.

To self-sign an application you can generate certs using the Certificate Assistant in the Keychain Access app, or use OpenSSL from the command line. Then sign as normal. The fact that the cert doesn't come from Apple means Gatekeeper will ignore it, but, allows the app to run on ARM and ensures the OS has a stable identity it can use for assigning permissions across upgrades.

happyopossum
> 3. Hold down the control key and right click it, then choose open.

It's actually either Ctrl-click or right-click.

wlindley
As someone who grew up when they printed your address when your photo and name appeared in the paper, and when everyone had their name, telephone, and address in the telephone book -- this seems bizarre. Are you never planning to appear at a trade show and promote your product? Hiding who you are seems cowardly, or maybe you have nefarious motives with your program. Transparency and honesty are the best policies in business and personally.
CogitoCogito
> Hiding who you are seems cowardly, or maybe you have nefarious motives with your program. Transparency and honesty are the best policies in business and personally.

I don't understand your absolutist viewpoint here. Can you really not imagine a non-nefarious situation in which someone might not want to associate themself publicly with their work?

dlsa
Yeah, that comment they don't like? Crazy people will false report some incident to get a SWAT team at your address. Other crazy people will call your employment and start a campaign of attacks to get you fired. Plenty of examples of this out there. Some people, eg youtubers, get swatted multiple times. Police turn up multiple times. These aren't isolated cases.
mellavora
Here is a non-nefarious situation:

Let's say your side project is for a political party. Then, two years later, you apply for a job and the hiring manager is from a different political party, and has strong views on the matter. You don't get the interview.

__warlord__
Wow. Just wow. Since when someone choosing to be anonymous equals “cowardly” or “nefarious”?
caslon
Are you never planning to appear at a trade show and promote your product?
tmp2343EU 

  - One might be working on multiple, own, competing products.
  - One might want to have a normal fulltime job where managers and HR aren't worried about their little side project.
  - One might not want people who google them to see they have a project going.
  - ...
Privacy doesn't exclude transparency and honesty.
FpUser
>"Are you never planning to appear at a trade show and promote your product? Hiding who you are seems cowardly, or maybe you have nefarious motives with your program."

Just fucking wow. There are whole bunch of totally valid reasons why one would want to be anonymous. It is ok to refuse to deal with such person / entity but to blame them in such terms is highly insulting and totally incompetent.

_dain_
Those newspapers and telephone books were not indexed and trivially searchable by anyone with a computer in any part of the world. It's like asking why people don't want ubiquitous facial recognition technology, when people have openly displayed their faces for other people to memorize for millenia.
formerkrogemp
That might have been ok in your small town or small city of people who didn't read the paper. An internet phone book might exist in some fashion, but I'd rather not have stalkers able to find their victims so easily for example. I agree transparency and 'honesty' are good policies in business in general, but having a name, number, and address exposed to the public seems like a bit much, no?
dev_tty01
My daughter has a web presence in the music domain. There are a couple photos of her playing the piano or doing something else in a professional capacity as an artist, but her personal details are carefully kept private. If you could just see a sampling of the absolute crap that is sent to her business contact points, you would not wonder why people want to maintain privacy.

</rant_on> Just as an aside, if you see a person on the internet, it is incredibly rude and infantile to comment on their physical appearance, unless those comments are specifically solicited. Comment on their profession, hobby, art, or whatever else the business or site is about, but nobody gives a crap about your opinion on their looks, their clothes, their eyes, etc... Grow up and keep your teenage fantasies to yourself. </rant_off>

DarrenDev
I’d say it depends what you mean by anonymous. If you mean you don’t want every mention of your software to be “John Smith’s app” then just start a company. That would make it “Company X’s app.” No one would care much about who owns Company X or which of their developers wrote the code. You wouldn’t be completely anonymous, as you’re still the owner of Company X, but users referencing your apps wouldn’t know about or mention you by name. They could, but they won’t.
cik
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 card to sign up to the VPN, paying for 3 years - under the assumption the card is burned. With said VPN I created a paid for email account with a trusted service (not gmail or office). I used said email to sign up with a VOIP provider, to receive a telephone number that could receive SMSes.

Then, I signed up for a twitter, and a domain. Use the above to set up a corporation with nominee shareholders in the jurisdiction of your choice, same with bank account. Congratulations - you can now buy your certificate.

Now, using the funds of the corporation do everything above again - such that you're able to tie the corporation's CC to the outcomes.

There's a lot more - but this is a reasonable start.

This may be illegal where you live. At the very least, depending on how you use the above there are tax implications.

captn3m0
Setting up a corporation in most jurisdictions would require a valid ID proof, no?
MrDresden
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.

nsonha
not related but is "prepaid credit card" a debit card? Also why is the card with the debt is called "credit" and the one with actual money is called "debit"? Driven me crazy.
ask_b123
Possibly because debit is debt from the bank's POV? They owe you that amount of money. I'm not sure though.
pc86
No, a "prepaid credit card" is a credit card with a balance of $0 but you pre-pay a certain amount. So you buy a card for $500, you can charge up to $500 on it then it's useless. Similar, but not linked to any bank account.

A debit card debits from your account. A credit card requires the bank to extend you credit.

morpheuskafka
In that case the card effectively is a bank account of its own and often has features such as accepting direct deposit. I believe those cards are regulated as Reg E (EFT/debit) and not Reg Z (credit). They aren't regulated as banks, though a lot of them do place the money with a bank to get FDIC protection, but there was a major regulation change for these accounts a few years back that added more requirements for fee disclosure and ID verification.
happyopossum
When you have a credit card, the issuer is providing you credit, and a debit card draws on debits from your checking account.
3np
Would you be able to name the voip provider?
honkdaddy
> Use the above to set up a corporation with nominee shareholders

How are you anonymous in this case? It doesn't seem like the VPNs are gonna make any difference if the government still knows exactly who you are when the tax man comes knocking.

cik
This isn't a tax avoidance scheme at all. There are countless, easier ways to do this frankly. VPNs help obfuscate the ability to trace the individual - nothing more. My ultimate goal is to have a passport issued to this individual. It's possible.
floor_
If writers can write under a pseudonym why can't coders?
ghaff
Writers can write under a pseudonym. But someone whether a publisher or their PoD service like Amazon know their real name/their company name so they can be mailed a check if nothing else.

It all comes down to what you mean by anonymous/pseudonymous. Do you mean that a determined investigator/the government couldn't track you down? Or do you mean that a casual user doesn't know your real name? The latter is pretty easy. The former is almost certainly quite a bit harder (and more expensive) depending on jurisdiction--and may not even be possible if the government in particular is serious enough.

pixelpoet
Inconceivable!
mmphosis
You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means.
ericfrazier
Sure, just make many unsuccessful apps like me.
random-human
Assuming you are in the US, and depending on your state laws, you can go to your County Clerks office and file an Assumed Name for Unincorporated Business (DBA). That is enough to open a business bank account and use that name for the Apple Developer program. It also won't have all your information plastered all over the place like LLCs/Corps (from personal experience with both)