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suggestions for free, anonymous email addresses.

Started by WOTR, May 24, 2015, 04:35:44 AM

WOTR

I need to register just under a dozen email addresses without attaching any names or identity to the accounts and I need them to be active only for a couple of months.  They must be capable of sending and receiving emails.  Does anybody have a suggestion?  I tried hotmail- but they now want to verify the account by texting a code (and froze the test account).  That is not what I am after.

I know it is a stupid question, but I cannot afford to have an account frozen when they discover that the person who registered them is not "John Doe".

Anyhow, thanks.

Little Hater

Far as I know, the only one of the major free email providers that doesn't require a phone number now is GMail. Someone will be along directly to prove me wrong, though.

albrecht

Quote from: Little Hater on May 24, 2015, 06:40:11 AM
Far as I know, the only one of the major free email providers that doesn't require a phone number now is GMail. Someone will be along directly to prove me wrong, though.
I haven't tried to make a new email in some time but have noticed that both google and yahoo keep asking me to provide phone numbers etc. So far I haven't and I can still use the services, so maybe for new members they require but don't want to kick old users off (or have already data-mined my data and so don't want to push the issue ;))

WOTR

Thanks for the responses... Perhaps I will surf around and see what I can find if Gmail is going to be a pain.  No, there is nothing "bad" or illegal about this.  I do, however, need a few addresses to provide to a group (some of whom need to remain anonymous for the sake of their jobs, and some who will likely sign the email with their name...)



WOTR

Thanks.  I just registered a test account at inbox.com.  They promise the account remains active until it is unused for 90 days, didn't require any other email address and did not even give the option for a phone number.

There are a number of services that I found that offer to encrypt the emails and they seem interesting for my personal life at some point... There was even one service that moves their email servers between countries regularly to make it harder for people to start legal proceedings to get the information- but that seems like overkill for a minor coup.

I may try a test account at each of those places as well.  I only want to make sure that the accounts run for the next week before things go into gear and if inbox.com is a problem, i would like options to fall back on.

Thanks.

Hushmail.  You can get a free, anonymous account with 25 mb of message space.  You have to log in every two weeks to keep the account active.

WOTR

While I used one service to register the necessary accounts, I did find protonmail and signed up there for my regular use.  Based in Switzerland and encrypted, they seem to take security a little more seriously.  There is a waiting list, but it was only a week or so...


It was a group from MIT and CERN who were concerned about the security of email who started it awhile back...

albrecht

While I know the main ones are not secure and based on culling information but I also question the actual "anonymity" of the ones that advertize that fact. Call me uber paranoid, and I don't have anything criminal to hide, but I even questioned the internet, anon remailers of the past, PGP, etc. We are supposed to trust the internet, and now TOR-based stuff, but that also was developed by the military. We are supposed to trust servers based in other countries? But they already comply, mainly, with our IRS, Interpol, FACTCA, etc. Who knows? It could be, at least, protect you from more pedestrian hackers etc but from the governments or advanced hackers?? I don't know about that.

WOTR

There is no doubt that these services are not 100% secure.  Also, I set up my main account with my last name and not even over a VPN.  "They" will know it is me, and I have no problem with that.  What I do have a problem with is the revelations about the number of companies (hello Google and Microsoft) who give the NSA a backdoor to their servers so that every conversation can be recorded, viewed and stored.  At least I am confident that Protonmail cannot do this with the encryption they use.


Is it perfectly secure?  Well, lets just say that I am running windows...  The fact is that if you are targeted, your anonymity and security will fail.  However, my goal is to just make it so that I have to be targeted- so that less of my stuff ends up easy pickings.


From Protonmails FAQ.
NOT RECOMMENDED:
Edward Snowden â€" If you are Edward Snowden, or the next Edward Snowden, and have a life and death situation that requires privacy, we would not recommend using ProtonMail. For extremely sensitive situations, it is simply not a good idea to use email as a medium for communications.


RECOMMENDED:
Private Citizen with Privacy Concerns â€" ProtonMail is also perfect for an individual that does NOT want the government to have access to all of their emails at any time, and does not like Google or Microsoft constantly scanning and archiving all conversations. With ProtonMail, the barrier of entry for mass surveillance is high enough that mass surveillance simply is not practical. This is an example where ‘good privacy’ can act as a meaningful substitute to ‘perfect privacy’.

ProtonMail will not release ANY data unless provided with an enforceable Swiss court order. To get such an order, the case must first work its way through the Swiss courts where stricter privacy laws might result in a different ruling. Even if an adversary went through the expensive and time consuming procedure of obtaining such an order, ProtonMail’s zero access cryptography means we would only be able to release data that is encrypted since we do NOT hold the decryption keys.


Anyhow, is it perfect?  No, but it is free, and it is not based in the US, and I do not believe that the NSA can easily hack them.  Can they hack me?  You bet... But I am just one more person to make life difficult if they want to collect every byte of information they can on every citizen...

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