Is selling programming services in the DNM the safest job ?

Hi there, this is my first post in the DNM, bear with my ignorance. I see only drugs dealing on the DNM, when I think the safest job that can benefit from DNM is programmer. Nothing need to be shipped by postal services. Nobody has to know your address. And you can relocate easily anywhere with internet connection.

However, what bother me, is that the code one write can give clues about one identity, because it disclose what you know, but also your coding style. (Conventions that can easily be pinpointed on github) Information about my coding convention + knowledge is enough to know who I am for a dedicated LE with high confidence. (Even if I suspect that they don't care about me since, aside escaping tax, I'm doing nothing illegal, and will never work for a customer which I know is robbing people.)

Am I too paranoiac ? I've not seen yet one programmer offering services on the DNM, I'd like to know how they are doing that. And how do they develop their reputation from zero ?


Comments


[7 Points] PerpetualPlusFour:

If you're not doing anything illegal, and just looking to avoid paying taxes on some otherwise legitimate dev work, then

A) what kind of person who browses DNMs would be interested in your services in the first place? Agora and Evo aren't well known destinations for students who want help starting a blog or small business owners who want a website to advertise their wares. It's mostly full of people interested in drugs and financial scamming, with a little arms dealing on the side for good measure.

B) why the hell do you need to worry about being anonymous to your clients? You don't need to communicate in PGP-encrypted messages over Tor to do odd jobs and get paid under the table. I would say there are probably more people who have at least a little unreported income on a somewhat regular basis than people who don't. You would have to be bringing in a lot of money before getting busted by a tax audit becomes a serious concern.

I really don't see any way it would be beneficial or rational to do perfectly legal development work in this manner. What kind of legitimate customer wants to have their website made by someone who refuses to disclose their identity, communicate over normal channels, accept payment in a normal manner, or be identified as the author of the resulting code? I can certainly think of some software development work that would benefit from that arrangement, but none of it falls into the category of "doing nothing illegal." Sorry if this makes me sound a little fascist, but real talk: nobody goes through that much trouble to remain anonymous if they have nothing to hide.

TL;DR: if you're really just looking to do ordinary, legal development work without paying taxes, you don't need to use a DNM or get paid in Bitcoin... Just don't report the damn income. If you're looking to do some other kind of dev work such that DNMs make legitimate sense, don't be coy about it - tell us what you're actually thinking of and we can give better feedback/advice.


[4 Points] darknetsolutions:

We've been doing it for 3+ years. Plus not a single one of our sites we hosted was taken offline.


[2 Points] peng81828:

Not sure how effective it would be on DNM, but you can offer your services over at /r/slavelabour


[1 Points] sharpshooter789:

In the utopic/BMR arrests I believe the one programmer was arrested and he supposedly had no other involvement. Not sure if there was a conviction either. However, this is all hearsay since the reports were in dutch and Google translate is terrible.