

Ask HN: My Startup is Illegal - notme8000

My Startup Is Illegal<p>I am designing a P2P hardware product that will (among other things) make it harder for governments to intercept or acquire the data from users’ private communications. I am working with one other person, and our concern is this:<p>How do you move forward with something when you know you might be taken to court, put under surveillance, heavily fined, or otherwise harassed?<p>We are both shy people who like to work behind the scenes. Our current strategy is to keep to ourselves and try to get a working product while off the radar. Unfortunately our other problem is that we need help and don’t know how to ask for it. We specialize in software and security and we have no experience with building hardware prototypes. Both of us are working for free, he supports a large family doing side jobs, and my family is helping me out.<p>I guess the discussion I would like to see is twofold:<p>1) How do you stay strong when faced with a huge legal grey area like this?
Have you ever survived being typecast as “the wrong side of the law”?
How can you move forward with innovation when you are constantly in a paranoid state?<p>2) How do you meet people when you feel uptight discussing the details of your project? Especially when you can’t afford to hire someone, and you need to appeal to the small group who are motivated by similar passions?<p>I hope we are not too DIY for our own good. I would hate to see a creative project like this get killed because of something so surmountable.<p>It might be difficult for me to answer questions about my situation, especially publicly. I am open to the idea of talking privately, and I apologize in advance if I seem cagey.<p>notme8000@hushmail.com
======
ScottWhigham
_How do you move forward with something when you know you might be taken to
court, put under surveillance, heavily fined, or otherwise harassed?_

I think the question is also, " _Why_ do you move forward with something when
you know you might be taken to court, put under surveillance, heavily fined,
or otherwise harassed?"

I'm not trying to be pedantic; it's a legitimate question. Why do this if you
know going into that it will cause potentially great harm to both you and your
partner who "supports a large family"? It's akin to jumping off a cliff that
you haven't looked over to see what's at the bottom. So there would need to be
a _very_ compelling reason to move forward, I would think.

So what's your reason for pushing through these problems? When times get
tough, what will motivate you to keep pushing through rather than quitting
after 2-3 years?

------
turbojerry
Some suggestions-

1\. Tormail rather than hushmail. 2\. Get on the cypherpunks mailing list,
you'll get lots of input from lots of smart people
<http://www.cypherpunks.to/list/> 3\. Use Tor for everything that pertains to
your project. 4\. Find a group that really needs your product and have them on
your side, like dissidents in dictatorships, talk to them, find out how your
product can help them, if you're in a "democratic" country and the authorities
come after you, you can legitimately tell them that you're helping to free the
people of a country, it helps to be able to name dissidents who have been
murdered by such a regime, you can then ask the agents of your state if they
are in favor of these murders, in many countries advocating murder in a
different state is a crime, so it is most likely they will not answer your
question, merely asking that in a recorded interview will most likely see you
free. Afterwards, assuming you are free from state interference it is
important that you make it public what has happened to you, do interviews with
tech and liberty minded media, talk to the EFF, NOT Wired. 5\. Have
contingency plans, like having your schematics, code etc ready to be
distributed on TPB like the 3D printed gun from Defense Distributed has been.
6\. If you are at some stage going to release what you have non-anonymously,
do it through a separate legal entity, like a limited liability company, so
any legal ramifications are borne by that legal entity and you are not
personally liable, you will need a lawyer to advise you, you might contact the
EFF and have a conversation with them. 7\. Be careful, and good luck.

~~~
turbojerry
Sorry about rgw formating, hope this is better.

Some suggestions-

1\. Tormail rather than hushmail.

2\. Get on the cypherpunks mailing list, you'll get lots of input from lots of
smart people <http://www.cypherpunks.to/list/>

3\. Use Tor for everything that pertains to your project.

4\. Find a group that really needs your product and have them on your side,
like dissidents in dictatorships, talk to them, find out how your product can
help them, if you're in a "democratic" country and the authorities come after
you, you can legitimately tell them that you're helping to free the people of
a country, it helps to be able to name dissidents who have been murdered by
such a regime, you can then ask the agents of your state if they are in favor
of these murders, in many countries advocating murder in a different state is
a crime, so it is most likely they will not answer your question, merely
asking that in a recorded interview will most likely see you free. Afterwards,
assuming you are free from state interference it is important that you make it
public what has happened to you, do interviews with tech and liberty minded
media, talk to the EFF, NOT Wired.

5\. Have contingency plans, like having your schematics, code etc ready to be
distributed on TPB like the 3D printed gun from Defense Distributed has been.

6\. If you are at some stage going to release what you have non-anonymously,
do it through a separate legal entity, like a limited liability company, so
any legal ramifications are borne by that legal entity and you are not
personally liable, you will need a lawyer to advise you, you might contact the
EFF and have a conversation with them.

7\. Be careful, and good luck.

~~~
turbojerry
I forgot something.

8\. Assume the Moscow Rules are true,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Rules> and if you are particularly
worried, learn some tradecraft, [http://www.paladin-
press.com/category/Espionage_and_Investig...](http://www.paladin-
press.com/category/Espionage_and_Investigation) .

------
lifeguard
0) Everyone is already under surveillance all the time.

1) Be in start-up stealth mode if there is a high chance your product will be
misunderstood in a negative way.

2) Seek cohorts at these places: <http://www.2600.com/meetings/mtg.html>
<http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces>

~~~
HackerClues
Not my post but really helpful links, thanks a lot.

------
ig1
It's not clear why you think your startup is illegal ? - encryption broadly
speaking isn't legally restricted in most western countries.

If what you're doing is illegal in the country that you're in then why not
move to a country in which it will be legal ?

------
ethanazir
Apply for a patent. The office will be too lazy to actually consider what you
are doing and give you a license to file abroad which you can show to the
feebs to prove you are not doing anything illegal.

------
tptacek
Why would this be illegal? Lots of people work on products that make it harder
for governments to snoop on citizens.

~~~
rst
OP might have seen some press about the "CALEA II" proposals that the FBI is
widely reported to be shopping around Washington, which would, reportedly,
impose large penalties for failure to wiretap on demand. (This would probably
be civil as opposed to criminal liability, but the fines are described as
being large enough that they're obviously intended to force noncompliant
services out of business[1].)

That certainly isn't law yet, but it appears to be a serious proposal, and for
someone thinking about privacy-preserving technology, it might be worth
worrying about.

[1]
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/04/29/calea_ref...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/04/29/calea_reform_fbi_wants_power_to_fine_internet_chat_providers_that_don_t.html)

------
sharth
You should include which country's laws that you are concerned about.

------
jbobes
i thought you're selling drugz

