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
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.
Very cool I did not know this. Do they ever plan to support Monero? Physical payment methods are still unideal because security cameras can track you.
Track you where? Post it at a post office or drop point with gloves a cap if you want to feel like a badass, dont put a return address on it. How would anyone know by the time it gets to the legitimate company selling a very normal product where it came from to even check cameras?
There’s too many unknowns for me to feel comfortable with it. Paper bills have identifiers so you have to make sure you got them anonymously, or launder them anonymously. Use gloves for everything. Mask your face without looking too suspicious. Hope that the post system doesn’t secretly scan letter contents. Hope that the government isn’t already tracking the movements of all citizens using cameras. Etc
Often the camera footage is enough. I’ve seen enough cases where police track down criminals via security camera footage, to know how effective it can be.
If you actually needed that level of privacy you wouldn’t be posting on a public forum about it.
I don’t, somebody else might
You don’t need much money to pay for Posteo, it’s 12 EUR a year. If you paranoid enough to suspect that bank tracks bills that you withdraw from ATM, just pay with these bills for a sandwich in a small convenience store. No standard surveillance camera will catch the serial numbers on the bills. Maybe do it a few times in different places. Then send the envelope through the drop box in suburbs or rural area where are no cameras. Don’t bring your phone to any of these locations. You’ll be fine.
This is why I just use darknet markets instead. Buying a new account takes only a few minutes, without leaving the house
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.
google’s system is not simple, they have a very opaque process that determines whether the user’s environment is “trustworthy” and asks for more information as needed.
it’s still possible to create a new google account without explicitly tying a phone number in some cases, but it hasn’t worked reliably for a very long time now.
until about 2023 creating it on an android <= 4.4 (kitkat) worked 100%, but now that also doesn’t work.
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
Obviously, your threat model matters. You didn’t say in the original post anything about it, and the mainstream privacy methods, I believe, are mostly to protect from general surveillance by commercial entities. If you have to worry about feds, maybe just going offline is a safer choice.
I mention “anonymous” in the title, and many times in the post, and explained the scenario at the start of the post. It’s true that the mainstream does not need anonymity, but anonymity was clearly the goal of the post.
And I agree that this method alone won’t save you from the feds. It’s just one tool in the arsenal
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.
Proton email is free and pretty easily accepts new throwaways without having to input any ID
every time I tried using VPN or Tor, they asked for phone number or a second email address. For the second email address, I’ve tried temporary email services but they all got rejected. Any recs?
I think it has to do with the frequency you create accounts. I’ve had it let me make an account, and I’ve had it demand more info.
Then I started using FF Relay —I know it’s not super private, but this is just trial circumvention— then sites stopped accepting the Relay emails.
But if he’s not logged in (because he doesn’t have an account) and he’s using a VPN (and maybe changing every time) then frequency shouldn’t matter bc Proton wouldn’t know it’s the same person
Wouldn’t it be able to tell from session cookies?
Fair enough. This is why I mentioned that the darknet method was the most reliable method I found. So far it hasn’t failed me
Oh definitely, thanks for sharing! It was an interesting read.
you can use certain temp mail providers for protons secondary email verification, money involvement makes it more insecure
I’ve never found one that worked, which ones do you use?
I’m fairly sure Protonmail does not accept this one for the secondary email check they use during signup
Not sure about proton mail but it works for reddit throwaways to get the verification code
that’s good to know! I haven’t made reddit throwaways in a long time so it’s nice to know that anonymous methods still work
yopmail, adguard, mailhole is open source and intermittently works
theres a gmail spoofer too idr what its called
I make burner inboxes on tutanota for longterm, yopmail for short-term. You might have to try multiple exits, but eventually you can get tuta to let you make an account over TOR.
Why pay for a burner?
That being said if you need a burner SMS number, no good free alternative to that since those usually involve simfarming.
Been a fan of smspool for that reason.
as mentioned in other comments, making burners on Tuta is a pain. You often have to wait 1-2 days before they’ll let you use the account, and often the account gets deleted during that period if it was made over Tor. Out of the 5-10 times I tried, I was only able to make 2-3 accounts. I’d rather pay for a reliable method.
And in my mind, paying is a more sustainable path. Protonmail and Tuta are pro-privacy, ultimately these services just want to avoid people creating unlimited spam accounts. Rotating Tor exits is something a bot can do, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if Tuta started blocking it entirely. Payment is a barrier that doesn’t cost your privacy. Protonmail and Tuta don’t accept crypto during account creation, but darknet markets provide a workaround
It’s pseudonymous, not anonymous.
Monero is completely anonymous
The email accounts aren’t
hence why op wants email without ties to their real identity
cock.li has no kyc signup i think
Haha well they may have the same problem with some services just not accepting emails from their url, they admit I’m the homepage that messages often end up in spam
Just get a Tuta account. No recovery email or phone number required. Sometimes they will kill a new account, just wait a day or two before using it or buy a voucher from Proxysrore with Monero and upgrade.
Tuta will kill any new account that is used to register to another service. It’s in their ToS and you get blocked immediately.
I used Tuta to create my Bluesky account and all my Addy traffic goes to Tuta although I did wait a while before using my Tuta.
Tuta is not the best check the list at the bottom of the first post --> https://programming.dev/post/50697138
Who said it was the best?
no one you’re right, I was meaning it’s not fitting in my need ( see my post )
I have had spotty success with Tuta in the past. Out of the 5-10 times I tried, maybe 2-3 succeeded. And I had to wait 1-2 day before I could find out whether or not it succeeded, and if it failed I’d have no idea why. I just found the process way too annoying, and I’m willing to pay a few bucks to save myself the trouble. And, last I remember, the voucher can only be used to upgrade an account, but the problem is creating an account in the first place
I’ve recently changed dozens of accounts to use Mozilla email masks. Most websites accept them, and the ones that don’t I think twice if I actually need that service. I have Simple Login and 3 custom domains if I really want to, before I give out a personally identifiable name. I’ve only seen one service that was super strict and only allowed gmail, outlook/hotmail, and yahoo.
I’ve also used duck.com’s free email masks with great success
Not quite what OP is talking about but useful in most cases
Hmmm. Is this a new development with protonmail? I have used VPN plus a throwaway/temporary email to get a protonmail account before.
Hmmm. Is this a new development with protonmail? I have used VPN plus a throwaway/temporary email to get a protonmail account before.
you’re doing the divine’s work; thank you for this!
Outlook gives you aliases, but obviously we’re not trying to use big bro tech.
Proton paid does this as does free with limited aliases.
Then there’s SimpleLogin (also through Proton) that gives you a bunch of domains to use with several other domains. The only service that rejected the alias domain was Github, but it’s trash and owned by MS so nbd.
Can you elaborate on how to get get Monero and hide then transaction from BigData/Gov?
I’ve seen some of the basic steps but I imagine the Gov/Bank see me transfer money to a Monero.
They see that Monero account pay for ServiceX. They then see ServiceX coming from my IP (a VPN might precent this). Or they see ServiceX used by an account that is linked to me. Or they see a number of services paid for by the same Monero account.
Using a VPN is not always possible.
I’ve also seen machines that take cash but imagine these have CCTV to prevent theft and many link to me even harder.
I don’t quite remember since I bought it so long ago, but I think the easiest method was to simply buy some bitcoin or ethereum at an exchange (they usually don’t support monero), and then use a swap service to convert to monero. I also remember something about rinsing/washing your initial funds, by first sending them to another Monero wallet that you own? Sort of like a mixer, but since Monero transactions are mixed up by default, you can just send them to another wallet and the final wallet is now unlinked from you? To be honest I don’t even know if this step is necessary. Hopefully somebody else can pitch in here with more up-to-date tips.
As for your VPN concerns, if you can’t use a VPN all the time, reading online it seems like the official Monero GUI wallet supports Tor, though I haven’t tried it so I can’t really help here
Edit: in case you haven’t heard of Tails or Whonix, I’d also recommend looking into those if you care strongly about privacy. Be warned that they are fairly inconvenient to use though
Edit2: it seems like the extra step of sending the funds from one monero wallet to another one that you own, is unnecessary. If you use a KYC exchange, then use a (non-NYC) swap to convert to Monero and transfer to your wallet, then you should be fine. Though it can’t hurt to send the money to a second wallet, sort of like adding a hop to the onion routing system used by Tor.
Also, apparently Monero feather wallet has good Tor support. You can read more on reddit or the Dread forums on Tor
Gov/Bank see me transfer money to Monero
They don’t, Monero transactions are entirely anonymous and untraceable.
They see that Monero account pay for ServiceX
They don’t, Monero transactions are entirely anonymous and untraceable.
they see a number of services paid for by the same Monero account.
They don’t, Monero transactions are entirely anonymous and untraceable.
Good post, haven’t tried this as I haven’t felt the need but it’s good to know there is a market for this.
