[ANN] Pink: Escort startup Series A share sale

[bradpink]

Is there any information on your team's infrastructure?
How many developers?
How many marketing people?
Do you have some escorts already signed up and ready to use the app upon release?
What would be a general strategy of marketing to clients?
Also, I'm still a bit concerned about the ID verifications and linking social media profiles to the app if you want to be a client. Maybe it's just me with the trust issues 
I get it, the app isn't happening without it, just wondering what's the % of people that want to remain anonymous when doing this sort of stuff. Is there a study on this?

We won't get into details about team members due to opsec concerns, sorry! It is not our first rodeo.

Initial response from escorts has been very positive. Near end of November we will start actual sign ups.

Advertising to clients will take several forms. A big one will be referral fees from other clients and providers. As a hypothetical example, maybe we offer escorts $50 per booking through Pink. And for new clients, an additional $50, plus $50 to the client. That will ensure we get word of mouth quickly.

As far as ID, everyone would love to remain anonymous! And not just for escorting. I would like to buy my cable TV service anonymously :] I would like to buy groceries with my credit card anonymously. So you are totally correct that no one likes identifying themselves. At least Pink has a real reason for it.

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[dma88]

interesting project, and it sounds so far like this is serious and not a joke or a scam!  quick question- you're using monero & zcash for anonymity.  I've heard them come up most of the time as being better than dash or any masternode-based coin.  is that true?  you have a real need for anonymity.. do you have a list of coins that meet your requirements, and ones that don't?  and what do you think of deeponion, and tor-based coins?  deeponion operates within the tor network, not even touching exit or entry nodes.. you could keep the payments fully on tor.

[bradpink]

interesting project, and it sounds so far like this is serious and not a joke or a scam!  quick question- you're using monero & zcash for anonymity.  I've heard them come up most of the time as being better than dash or any masternode-based coin.  is that true?  you have a real need for anonymity.. do you have a list of coins that meet your requirements, and ones that don't?  and what do you think of deeponion, and tor-based coins?  deeponion operates within the tor network, not even touching exit or entry nodes.. you could keep the payments fully on tor.

Yeah I have not heard good things about Dash and looking at their system, it is trust-based. ZCash has a lot of potential despite their founders saying strange refrains and their 20% fee. But at the moment it is too slow to be useful for many cases. And no mobile client for shielded transactions. If ZCash makes privacy mandatory they will be interesting.

Tor access is an important aspect. But it is only one side of it. Blockchain privacy is even more critical because it remains as a permanent record. DeepOnion seems to be a normal coin with no privacy features except it forces Tor.

[dma88]

interesting project, and it sounds so far like this is serious and not a joke or a scam!  quick question- you're using monero & zcash for anonymity.  I've heard them come up most of the time as being better than dash or any masternode-based coin.  is that true?  you have a real need for anonymity.. do you have a list of coins that meet your requirements, and ones that don't?  and what do you think of deeponion, and tor-based coins?  deeponion operates within the tor network, not even touching exit or entry nodes.. you could keep the payments fully on tor.

Yeah I have not heard good things about Dash and looking at their system, it is trust-based. ZCash has a lot of potential despite their founders saying strange refrains and their 20% fee. But at the moment it is too slow to be useful for many cases. And no mobile client for shielded transactions. If ZCash makes privacy mandatory they will be interesting.

Tor access is an important aspect. But it is only one side of it. Blockchain privacy is even more critical because it remains as a permanent record. DeepOnion seems to be a normal coin with no privacy features except it forces Tor.

they're adding deepsend, which (they claim) will make it one of the most anonymous coins out there.  remains to be seen if that works out.

also, with the new ethereum hard fork, zksnarks can be used with ethereum. do you see ether as providing any kind of strong anonymity in the near future?

[bananafana]

What made you decide to take the blockchain route? The potential for anonymity?

Any thoughts on this?

[danBitcoin]

Will you invite more advisors to your team?

I'm also curious about this. What areas do you see yourself needing more advisors in, in the future?

After we finish our B round we're going to be doing a CEO and CFO search.

That should be exciting. I hope you guys have the funds by then to get someone awesome.

Is there anyone you have your eyes on for the CEO position?

[Dipsomaniac]

Will you invite more advisors to your team?

I'm also curious about this. What areas do you see yourself needing more advisors in, in the future?

After we finish our B round we're going to be doing a CEO and CFO search.

That should be exciting. I hope you guys have the funds by then to get someone awesome.

Is there anyone you have your eyes on for the CEO position?

That's actually a good question.

[SeksiStarlord]

You cannot use the name pink, its already used by the real pink coin. They are the real PINK
Anyway I doubt that your idea is good it sounds fishy to me and if its not an altcoin (no coin/token) it does not belong here in my opinion

[celestio]

You cannot use the name pink, its already used by the real pink coin. They are the real PINK
Anyway I doubt that your idea is good it sounds fishy to me and if its not an altcoin (no coin/token) it does not belong here in my opinion

You cannot use the name Starlord, its already used by the real Starlord. He is the real Starlord.

[mcfom]

You cannot use the name pink, its already used by the real pink coin. They are the real PINK
Anyway I doubt that your idea is good it sounds fishy to me and if its not an altcoin (no coin/token) it does not belong here in my opinion

You cannot use the name Starlord, its already used by the real Starlord. He is the real Starlord.

Look at that guy username don't take the half part of it.

This guy is asking the valid question there is already another coin with same ticker than it will make the things confusing for people.

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/pinkcoin/

[bradpink]

What made you decide to take the blockchain route? The potential for anonymity?

Any thoughts on this?

Yes. We could have raised money from people we know. But that would increase our operational risk. With blockchain currencies we are able to maintain a tight ship.

[bradpink]

Is there anyone you have your eyes on for the CEO position?

Not something we'd talk about until we figure out their exact exposure. Some people are more confident being publicly associated with our project than others.

[deeltje]

We are an extrajurisdictional company. If our opsec fails, then the core team will be prosecuted.

Interesting. So your whole team is okay with this fact? What kind of charges and penalties do you expect you would be facing?

Most of the team does not know each other. Principle people are very few. Most people are trustless contractors that have little to zero liability.

Will not comment on what penalties and charges. But I will say: Morality over legality. Laws we break are to benefit people only and we do not use our anonymity to go around committing crimes.

Wholeheartedly agree with the morality over legality. Good answer, thanks for your time.

[Zeatorius]

We are an extrajurisdictional company. If our opsec fails, then the core team will be prosecuted.

Interesting. So your whole team is okay with this fact? What kind of charges and penalties do you expect you would be facing?

Most of the team does not know each other. Principle people are very few. Most people are trustless contractors that have little to zero liability.

Will not comment on what penalties and charges. But I will say: Morality over legality. Laws we break are to benefit people only and we do not use our anonymity to go around committing crimes.

Wholeheartedly agree with the morality over legality. Good answer, thanks for your time.

Please provide an answer to how you'd protect the service providers, last thing we want is blood-coin on our hands

(bad pun i know)

[bradpink]

they're adding deepsend, which (they claim) will make it one of the most anonymous coins out there.  remains to be seen if that works out.

also, with the new ethereum hard fork, zksnarks can be used with ethereum. do you see ether as providing any kind of strong anonymity in the near future?

So far everything DASH has done feels very scammy. We'll see if they overcome it. We are not prejudiced and we will accept anyone that brings solid tech.

If Eth gains traction with lots of private transactions we'll gladly use them too. Our focus is on our business. Everything else is only a tool in that goal.

[bradpink]

Please provide an answer to how you'd protect the service providers, last thing we want is blood-coin on our hands

(bad pun i know)

Provider safety is top of our list. Our VP of Product and Development, Sarah (Twitter @SarahPinkApp) is an active sex worker and has helped a great deal in designing our policies. We enable easier screening for providers, so that more clients will screen. This is big for business, but also increases the average level of security. Providers are constantly harassed by clients that don't understand the need for or don't want to go through the process of screening. They don't understand the risk providers face. Here are two articles Sarah wrote about the difficulties of escorting and how Pink helps:
https://medium.com/@PinkApp/challenges-in-the-business-of-pleasure-d22e9ec03b75
https://medium.com/@PinkApp/providers-for-pink-cd37087eda7a

Pink acts as a clearinghouse. Providers can either trust us to screen, or allow us to pass through client info directly so they can be screen the client themselves. All this will just be one click for clients. And our ultra security setup makes clients more likely to trust us. Not to say anything bad about good agencies, but our data security policies are a lot stronger than most companies can even do, let alone afford. Read about our setup here: https://medium.com/@PinkApp/pink-app-trading-latency-for-anonymity-and-other-techniques-815ee21c6da4 TL;DR:

• Database is stored 2 Tor hidden services deep.
• HS uses authenticated mode, so the .onion is not published in the HSDir. No one can stumble on it or access it without the auth cookie.
• All systems are RAM-based, no disks. Encrypted backups are streamed and can be restored quickly in case of failure.
• App and DB servers are physical hardware, not virtual or cloud. Combined with no HDD, no one can image our systems, even if they did manage to find the servers.
• DB access is gated per user, rate limited. SQL injection and attacks like that are not possible, even with an app layer compromise.
• Servers do not have Internet connectivity. For DB, only connectivity is inbound hidden service traffic. So even with exploit, data exfil is incredibly difficult.
• Clear net proxy (www.pinkapp.io) is TCP->Tor proxy only. SSL keys are only on the app servers. Even if someone monitors or controls the gateway, all they get is IP addresses, no content.

We will have third party security audits and publish the results. There will not be a better place to ever have your information.

[AppreciatingValue]

Please provide an answer to how you'd protect the service providers, last thing we want is blood-coin on our hands

(bad pun i know)

Provider safety is top of our list. Our VP of Product and Development, Sarah (Twitter @SarahPinkApp) is an active sex worker and has helped a great deal in designing our policies. We enable easier screening for providers, so that more clients will screen. This is big for business, but also increases the average level of security. Providers are constantly harassed by clients that don't understand the need for or don't want to go through the process of screening. They don't understand the risk providers face. Here are two articles Sarah wrote about the difficulties of escorting and how Pink helps:
https://medium.com/@PinkApp/challenges-in-the-business-of-pleasure-d22e9ec03b75
https://medium.com/@PinkApp/providers-for-pink-cd37087eda7a

Pink acts as a clearinghouse. Providers can either trust us to screen, or allow us to pass through client info directly so they can be screen the client themselves. All this will just be one click for clients. And our ultra security setup makes clients more likely to trust us. Not to say anything bad about good agencies, but our data security policies are a lot stronger than most companies can even do, let alone afford. Read about our setup here: https://medium.com/@PinkApp/pink-app-trading-latency-for-anonymity-and-other-techniques-815ee21c6da4 TL;DR:

• Database is stored 2 Tor hidden services deep.
• HS uses authenticated mode, so the .onion is not published in the HSDir. No one can stumble on it or access it without the auth cookie.
• All systems are RAM-based, no disks. Encrypted backups are streamed and can be restored quickly in case of failure.
• App and DB servers are physical hardware, not virtual or cloud. Combined with no HDD, no one can image our systems, even if they did manage to find the servers.
• DB access is gated per user, rate limited. SQL injection and attacks like that are not possible, even with an app layer compromise.
• Servers do not have Internet connectivity. For DB, only connectivity is inbound hidden service traffic. So even with exploit, data exfil is incredibly difficult.
• Clear net proxy (www.pinkapp.io) is TCP->Tor proxy only. SSL keys are only on the app servers. Even if someone monitors or controls the gateway, all they get is IP addresses, no content.

We will have third party security audits and publish the results. There will not be a better place to ever have your information.

With that much knoweldge and expertise on security, why not just be a security company instead of the escort app? Have you thought about that? Could the revenue be higher, and there wouldn't be a need for hiding?

[bradpink]

With that much knoweldge and expertise on security, why not just be a security company instead of the escort app? Have you thought about that? Could the revenue be higher, and there wouldn't be a need for hiding?

Most companies do not want this kind of security. They view security as a cost. Look at Equifax. Hacked and their share price is doing just fine. There is no reason for these companies to care. If Equifax goes out of business from the hack maybe there will be a need. It is not even the right design. Pink trades availability for security.

A lot of our security is to fight against law enforcement. This is a problem few companies have.

[deeltje]

Please provide an answer to how you'd protect the service providers, last thing we want is blood-coin on our hands

(bad pun i know)

Provider safety is top of our list. Our VP of Product and Development, Sarah (Twitter @SarahPinkApp) is an active sex worker and has helped a great deal in designing our policies. We enable easier screening for providers, so that more clients will screen. This is big for business, but also increases the average level of security. Providers are constantly harassed by clients that don't understand the need for or don't want to go through the process of screening. They don't understand the risk providers face. Here are two articles Sarah wrote about the difficulties of escorting and how Pink helps:
https://medium.com/@PinkApp/challenges-in-the-business-of-pleasure-d22e9ec03b75
https://medium.com/@PinkApp/providers-for-pink-cd37087eda7a

Pink acts as a clearinghouse. Providers can either trust us to screen, or allow us to pass through client info directly so they can be screen the client themselves. All this will just be one click for clients. And our ultra security setup makes clients more likely to trust us. Not to say anything bad about good agencies, but our data security policies are a lot stronger than most companies can even do, let alone afford. Read about our setup here: https://medium.com/@PinkApp/pink-app-trading-latency-for-anonymity-and-other-techniques-815ee21c6da4 TL;DR:

• Database is stored 2 Tor hidden services deep.
• HS uses authenticated mode, so the .onion is not published in the HSDir. No one can stumble on it or access it without the auth cookie.
• All systems are RAM-based, no disks. Encrypted backups are streamed and can be restored quickly in case of failure.
• App and DB servers are physical hardware, not virtual or cloud. Combined with no HDD, no one can image our systems, even if they did manage to find the servers.
• DB access is gated per user, rate limited. SQL injection and attacks like that are not possible, even with an app layer compromise.
• Servers do not have Internet connectivity. For DB, only connectivity is inbound hidden service traffic. So even with exploit, data exfil is incredibly difficult.
• Clear net proxy (www.pinkapp.io) is TCP->Tor proxy only. SSL keys are only on the app servers. Even if someone monitors or controls the gateway, all they get is IP addresses, no content.

We will have third party security audits and publish the results. There will not be a better place to ever have your information.

That's interesting you have an escort on staff. What's an example of a policy directly influenced by having someone with her experience there that you wouldn't have otherwise thought of?

[bananafana]

What made you decide to take the blockchain route? The potential for anonymity?

Any thoughts on this?

Yes. We could have raised money from people we know. But that would increase our operational risk. With blockchain currencies we are able to maintain a tight ship.

It's a good tool, especially in this industry.