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Comment by epoxia | Hacker News Reader

I would recommend reading Extreme Privacy by Michael Bazzell if these types of thing concern you. A relevant passage:

"First, I would never provide my home address on any application or W-9 form. This should only be your PO Box, UPS Box, or PMB address. Your employer likely does not care much about where you live, unless the job has residency requirements, such as a police officer. The IRS does not object to the use of a mail box address. They just want their money."

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This feels like one of those bits of security tips / infotainment that IRL provides no value.

It just adds an extra step that keeps the general public away from your PII. The post office knows who owns that PO box and where that person actually lives. A simple subpoena makes that information available to whatever arm of enforcement needs it.

Every info aggregator (including ones that post crap online) already has both bits of info and associates them.

Go ahead, do some searches on yourself - I had accurate addresses and poboxes I’d long since forgotten about.

Yeah, I know. It's disturbing to say the least. The thinking with PO Boxes is just left over from a time when it was possible to use them as an extra layer of protection. It's barely an inconvenience to anyone who wants to get your address, anymore.

A simple what? "subpoena"? Is that like a new term for a bulk database retrieval?

A lot of rich and famous do this, keeps the “riffraff” off their ass. Not meant to be bulletproof but can be useful.

Some rich folks trying to avoid random googlers isn't quite the same as trying to avoid ICE's ire.

Many famous people have stalkers. And not the point of this subthread.

PO boxes have stricter address information requirements but there are other services that are more lax and can pass with a utility bill from a previous rental address. Thus, obfuscating the real address.

I've been using PMBs for about 20 years. If you don't own real estate it can definitely help anonymize your location, even to the government. You rent one home, get a PMB using that location as your home, then move. Use the PMB for everything and never give out your new home address.

If you own real estate it's much harder, especially now that companies have to report their owners and directors.

At the very least PMBs help protect your home address from companies and the public.

Does this work in practice? Historically my actual residence is needed for tax reasons, i.e. properly tracking what state I owe income tax in for cash compensation and stock options.

get a PMB in your state (or county even). You'll be surprised how many PMBs exist

What is a PMB?

Private Mail Box (i.e. a PO Box like product at your local UPS store/etc).

Thank you.

Yeah I don't see how this works. Got a mortgage, you're going to report info that lead them to your financial institution who knows the address and so on. Insurance, any other financial service that did some data checks / credit checks.

I don't buy into the idea that you can magically hide your home address, this info is already out.

A step further, homeowners are public information. You can even look up the records online for free on county treasurer websites.

Not everybody owns a home, particularly the transient workers who would be concerned with ICE.

I don't think an apartment / renting would be much different.

Krebs on Security talked about this. He kept getting death threats and swat'd.

You setup corporations who own your shit. The mortgage and house ownership is handled by the corp. You own the corp, and in some cases there is an umbrella corp that owns other corps.

The corporation then rents you your house. Mortgage and related points back to the corpo address, and you use a PO Box for personal stuff.

Ditto for phones, domains, etc. -- run through the company.

No. What he's describing is like covering your face with your hands and thinking that you're invisible.

It might help obscure your physical address in public records and keep private companies from finding it as easily, but yeah, it's not going to keep the government-wide database from locating you.

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