Seriously: Hiding Links With Font Colors?

Seriously: Hiding Links With Font Colors?
 I just don't get it. How can people in 2013 think Google is that dumb? A Black Hat Forum thread has a webmaster asking if his idea of hiding links using black font on black background a "smart idea."

Really? Are there still people out there doing this stuff? I guess so. But doesn't Google catch this stuff fairly easily? I wonder if they even bother to penalize the sites doing this or if they just discredit the links? I assume they just discredit them because this is way too easy to do.
The good news is that everyone in the thread is telling this webmaster NOT to do this.

Author: Barry Schwartz