I feel like this is a hack that is rarely talked about. And it’s the most reliable method I’ve found for getting an email account that I can use for signing up to other websites.
Imagine you want to create a completely anonymous account on some website. Most websites require an email account to sign up. if you’re lucky you can use one of those a temporary email services, but many websites block those nowadays. They only accept trusted email providers like Gmail, Protonmail, etc. And trying to make an anonymous account on those providers is difficult. Even Protonmail, surprisingly. If you try to sign up for Protonmail using a VPN or Tor, they will ask for a phone number or a second email account. So now you have to get a phone number anonymously (very difficult), or get another email account anonymously, back to square one.
Darknet markets solve this problem. Pay a bit of Monero, and you get an account. Completely anonymous. Now I won’t pretend it’s easy. Even just signing up for a darknet market often requires learning how to PGP encrypt/decrypt messages. But it only takes an 30 min or so to figure it out and sign up, and it opens up a new world of tools to use for privacy. There are many other types of accounts that you can buy aside from Protonmail, and many other products in general that you can buy.
I don’t get why Protonmail doesn’t just accept anonymous crypto as an option during signup, but until they do this is honestly the most reliable option I’ve found. I really wish more websites just accepted crypto for account creation. It’s understandable that in order to prevent spam accounts, account creation has to cost something, and crypto allows it to cost something without costing your privacy.
Anyways, here’s a quick guide to get started. I’ll avoid direct links since I don’t know if those are allowed.
- install Tor Browser Bundle, and use it for the following steps
- search for websites like Daunt, Dread forums, and Tor Taxi. Darknet markets change all the time so use those websites to figure out which ones are currently active. Cross-check links across multiple websites to make sure they are trustworthy, since often scam websites will try to pose as legitimate ones
- look for markets that let you search for the product you’re interested in before signing up, to save you time
- some markets require you to load funds into the market and then pay using those funds. Avoid loading more than you need, since some markets have “rugpulled” before (aka taken everybody’s funds and disappeared. This is the risk of an anonymous market).
Edit: also if for some reason a seller doesn’t accept Monero, you can use a crypto swap. Basically you send the swap service some Monero, tell them what crypto to convert it to (like Bitcoin or Ethereum), and where to send it to. Many can be used anonymously, without signup
this legit feels illegal/criminal. aren’t those accounts stolen or made through identity theft?
Not necessarily. Protonmail will happily let you create an account if you don’t use a VPN or Tor. Such accounts are tied to your IP, so you can’t create too many of them, which is all Protonmail cares about, since spam accounts reduce the trustworthiness of their email service. I really doubt sellers are going through efforts to steal accounts, if they can just make them for free at a coffee shop.
Darknet markets create a system where people can create accounts non-anonymously, and convert them into anonymous accounts by selling them to others. I wish this were more common. For example I’d love to be able to pay for an anonymous Youtube Premium account
Edit: also in case it reassures anybody, the accounts I got from the darknet were clearly freshly made accounts, not stolen. Only a few days old, and no emails except the “welcome to protonmail” one.
Not necessarily. Protonmail will happily let you create an account if you don’t use a VPN or Tor. Such accounts are tied to your IP
Can’t you just go somewhere that has public wifi and set up a Proton account from there? No VPN and they dont have your IP.
Could work in some cases, though if the feds were trying to track you down they’d have approximate location + surveillance camera footage to work from. As I said in other comments, the posted method works for extreme threat profiles
But they have a rough idea about where you come from
people can create accounts non-anonymously, and convert them into anonymous accounts by selling them to others
yes so that’s the part where identity theft is used
is that legally identity theft? Creating accounts and then transferring them to others? I’m sure it violates ToS but I wasn’t aware that it was illegal
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A much easier and safer way to generate an anonymous email if you live in the EU is to use Posteo.
After you create an account, you get an account code. You can pay by mail with account info on a piece of paper. €1/month. Mail off some Euro, no returned address required.
Posteo accepts other currencies as well, though obviously mailing cash internationally takes longer.
Tutanota (uses recovery key) into Murena.io (free with rate limits) also works without any money lmao
It’s pseudonymous, not anonymous.
Monero is completely anonymous
The email accounts aren’t
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Man, if you really think some darknet service is going to be more reliable just because Protonmail wants a specific kind of fiat
what do you mean? Are you talking about how you can pay for Protonmail using cash? I haven’t found a way to anonymously send cash. Physical movement can be easily tracked via surveillance cameras
Physical movement can be tracked by cameras. All digital transactions are tracked by virtue of the way the internet works.
When you put your trust in digital transactions you are putting your trust in the cryptography that hopefully underpins them. With recent regimes of harvest now decrypt later, you are putting your trust in both the perfect forward and quantum/parallel resistance of that cryptography.
Just some food for thought. Sending cash might be a smarter choice than you think.
harvest now decrypt later applies to cameras too. Install a bunch of security cameras, aggregate all footage, use facial detection, gait detection, predictive algorithms, etc to figure out the motion of all citizens at all times. I would not be surprised if governments were already doing this.
You simply cannot practically “encrypt” physical methods wirh the same amount of entropy that can be used for digital methods. And this is even before quantum-safe encryption.
Hndl applied to physical surveillance is all metadata. Hndl for digital interactions is content too.
that’s assuming they don’t scan the contents of mail, in which case physical surveillance would include content too.
Physical surveillance of mail is incredibly expensive, slow and subject to a bunch of regulations.
It also doesn’t consistently work.
Electronic surveillance of communications is incredibly cheap in comparison, near instantaneous and an evolving new technology that’s loosely regulated if at all.
It also creates a 1:1 copy of the transmission for interpretation at a later date.
Regulation means nothing, if the feds want to track people there’s endless strings they can pull. Plenty of evidence online of feds intercepting packages and bugging devices. They can even use illegal means and then use parallel construction.
On the other hand, just because the feds collect a bunch of dsta to be decrypted later, doesn’t mean they actually will. Encryption is very rarely cracked, it’s far more difficult than tracking people down via camera footage. Not to mention, statute of limitations means that even if they crack it 20 years later, the data might be useless by then.
Fact is, I can send some monero to somebody today and know it won’t be cracked within the year. But if I put on a mask and gloves and try to send a letter in the dead of the night, I know there’s still a chance that I’m caught.
There’s a reason why hackers today choose to use crypto and mixers rather than cash. Same reason why the US criminalized tornado wallet. Turns out, Monero and mixers are incredibly effective.
Exactly, do you really think that your data is magically more secure because you paid the vendor with bits farmed on an ASIC somewhere instead of dead slave owner portraits?
yes, I believe that Tor and Monero are more private/secure than the postal service, just like I believe that 2048-bit RSA is more secure than a padlock
Nobody mentioned the postal service? You’re either hallucinating AI slop or a deluded zoomer regurgitating AI slop, and therefore you can go fuck yourself sideways
you’re going to have to explain what you meant by dead slave owner portraits. I assumed you meant dollar bills, but if you want to pay Protonmail using cash you need to mail it over, hence the postal service
That is indeed a currency with a picture of a dead slave owner on it, got it in one
I could easily sign up for a protonmail account without mailing anything, that sounds like such sovereign citizen bullcrap I can’t type it out with a straight face XD
the point of the post is about creating accounts anonymously. Try creating a protonmail account using a VPN or Tor, without giving any PII.
You were the one that brought up cash, I was simply explaining that sending Monero is often more private than sending cash
Monero is very secure. You might want to actually read about it first… For one, it runs best on consumer grade hardware
Cool, so running on consumer hardware makes your communications more secure how exactly?
I brought up the hardware thing because people don’t use ASICs for it as far as I understand. Which is what you said.
The zero-knowledge proofs and ring signatures make it secure.
But hey man, if you think you can crack it, there’s millions of dollars there waiting for you so go for it.
Okay, cool, completely aside the point
Say I spent the next 5 years developing StuperDuperMonero with -1-knowledge proofs and purple starfish signatures
Would you purport that this would somehow make your communications more secure?
The fuck are you even talking about?
The word I said have actual meaning.
get your old android phone, no phone # needed. install lineageos + gapps. go to some public wifi spot. register a fresh gmail account. jot the login down somewhere. reset/wipe your phone. you’re done.
I’d rather stop communicating altogether than do anything that involves interacting with shitcoins in any shape or form.
this doesn’t work these days, google requires your phone number during signup even on android google app. also if you’re using ‘your’ old android phone the IMEI is probably already tied as being owned by you…
Google wants all your infos, no way around that
I don’t think that’s correct as I’ve registered a fresh account as described, during the setup phase of a phone, within the last month and no phone number was needed. I’ll give you the benefit of doubt as I don’t want to do that again just to disprove a stranger on the internet, but if anything changed it had to change in this very, very recent period.
edit: the posit of OP was to open an account in order to be able to register to other accounts, not go jasonbourne on 5eyes and friends.
Using a nearby public wifi spot, means that the email provider has your approximate location. If the feds get involved, then combined with security camera footage they can likely track you down.
Monero provides a way for people to pay for things anonymously, and is a lot more convenient then trying to pay with cash anonymously. For some people, their privacy is more important than whatever qualms they may have against crypto. Clearly you are not one of those people, and that’s fine
Why all that version over using the public access computers of your local library?
I ain’t got none of those and this is/was the only way you can open a gmail account without a phone number; as posited in OP, this is to be used only to register to stuff, not use it as a comms medium.
Monero is really the only real anonymous currency, you SHOULD use it and so should everyone else. You shouldn’t be okay having everything you do tracked.
I would love for a less environmentally impactful thing to be invented, but it doesn’t exist yet.
