Search engines do not penalize you for it, even if they have figured out what you're doing. The worst that could possibly happen is that the benefit be negated within their algorithms, and your efforts will have been a waste. But no it will not hurt your rankings. I watched an SEO video that suggested this very thing as a way to help, although they did stress that the increase is SLIGHT.
But for example, my anchor text color is a VERY close shade to my regular text color, except the hover and visited properties. I COULD make it the same color. This looks like regular text and I highlight certain key phrases linking back to myself. The surfer does not see the link unless they mouse over it.
This isn't cloaking, because google and the surfer see the same exact thing. The difference is that google and the surfer are looking for different things.
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