Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: pajag88 on March 27, 2013, 11:27 pm

Title: Anonymous mail
Post by: pajag88 on March 27, 2013, 11:27 pm
Hey guys !
 The tormail server seems to be down and I need to get some bitcoin in. Does anybody know any other good anonymous mail ???
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: Euphoric on March 27, 2013, 11:37 pm
Tor mail is back up, be patient. Patience is a must with security, if you can't be patient, then you will compromise your security.
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: pajag88 on March 28, 2013, 12:01 am
Tor mail is back up, be patient. Patience is a must with security, if you can't be patient, then you will compromise your security.

still down for me :(

 but those are words of wisdom tho !
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: Green Camel on March 28, 2013, 12:37 am
Find a cheap VPS provider and set up your own email server. I pay a couple of pounds a month for mine.

The only reason to have a Tormail account (vs Gmail, etc.) is that they won't close down your account if they suspect it's being used for illegal purposes. It's not any more anonymous than Gmail, Hotmail, etc.

Always use PGP.
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: pajag88 on March 28, 2013, 12:47 am
Find a cheap VPS provider and set up your own email server. I pay a couple of pounds a month for mine.

The only reason to have a Tormail account (vs Gmail, etc.) is that they won't close down your account if they suspect it's being used for illegal purposes. It's not any more anonymous than Gmail, Hotmail, etc.

Always use PGP.

that's not a bad idea actually !
 The thing is that I just needed to access my email to get my bitcoin in ( no email - no bitcoin :( ) And my bitcoin purchasing method is unfortunately tied in to that specific email address.But if I can create an account which wouldn't get shut down right away that would solve my problem
 The reason I don't use Gmail, hotmail or anything else is that all the accounts get shut down if you are trying to access them through tor :/ otherwise I would not have an issue.
 
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: pajag88 on March 28, 2013, 12:54 am
we are up and running boys !!!
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: Green Camel on March 28, 2013, 01:07 am
Find a cheap VPS provider and set up your own email server. I pay a couple of pounds a month for mine.

The only reason to have a Tormail account (vs Gmail, etc.) is that they won't close down your account if they suspect it's being used for illegal purposes. It's not any more anonymous than Gmail, Hotmail, etc.

Always use PGP.

that's not a bad idea actually !
 The thing is that I just needed to access my email to get my bitcoin in ( no email - no bitcoin :( ) And my bitcoin purchasing method is unfortunately tied in to that specific email address.But if I can create an account which wouldn't get shut down right away that would solve my problem
 The reason I don't use Gmail, hotmail or anything else is that all the accounts get shut down if you are trying to access them through tor :/ otherwise I would not have an issue.
That's not true. If you set up a Gmail account from a non-Tor IP, you can keep on using it from Tor. It's just that you can't create accounts from Tor. With Hotmail, my experience has been that you must remember the answer to your security question. The password won't work the second time you try to log in but once you've reset it once, you won't have to do it again.

Good to know Tormail is back up, I had some emails waiting for me too.
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: pajag88 on March 28, 2013, 01:26 am
Find a cheap VPS provider and set up your own email server. I pay a couple of pounds a month for mine.

The only reason to have a Tormail account (vs Gmail, etc.) is that they won't close down your account if they suspect it's being used for illegal purposes. It's not any more anonymous than Gmail, Hotmail, etc.

Always use PGP.

that's not a bad idea actually !
 The thing is that I just needed to access my email to get my bitcoin in ( no email - no bitcoin :( ) And my bitcoin purchasing method is unfortunately tied in to that specific email address.But if I can create an account which wouldn't get shut down right away that would solve my problem
 The reason I don't use Gmail, hotmail or anything else is that all the accounts get shut down if you are trying to access them through tor :/ otherwise I would not have an issue.
That's not true. If you set up a Gmail account from a non-Tor IP, you can keep on using it from Tor. It's just that you can't create accounts from Tor. With Hotmail, my experience has been that you must remember the answer to your security question. The password won't work the second time you try to log in but once you've reset it once, you won't have to do it again.

Good to know Tormail is back up, I had some emails waiting for me too.

well that was my initial set up, but it kept telling me since I'm logging in from different IP it is a security issue :/ ( at least gmail )
That setup was just causing problems, but I don't think I ever tried resetting the password tho so it's likely that would fix it.
All in all thank you :) it's good to know this shit lol And it's good that tormail is up
Peace and Love
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: astor on March 28, 2013, 03:05 am
Hey guys !
 The tormail server seems to be down and I need to get some bitcoin in. Does anybody know any other good anonymous mail ???

If you still want an answer to this question, there are no other hidden service email providers. TorMail provides a great service for the community.

However, you can create email accounts over Tor on some clearnet webmail providers. I know that Yahoo Mail, Safe Mail, and Yandex work over Tor. Safe Mail is the best option, because it uses SSL by default and has a simple interface which you can use with JavaScript disabled. You'll want to turn off IP checking, otherwise it will log you out when you switch exit nodes after 10 minutes.
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: zerik on March 28, 2013, 07:50 am
Hey guys !
 The tormail server seems to be down and I need to get some bitcoin in. Does anybody know any other good anonymous mail ???

If you still want an answer to this question, there are no other hidden service email providers. TorMail provides a great service for the community.

However, you can create email accounts over Tor on some clearnet webmail providers. I know that Yahoo Mail, Safe Mail, and Yandex work over Tor. Safe Mail is the best option, because it uses SSL by default and has a simple interface which you can use with JavaScript disabled. You'll want to turn off IP checking, otherwise it will log you out when you switch exit nodes after 10 minutes.

Yea but how much security does that actually provide? I know you can create a yahoo account over tor. If you only sign in using tor could anyone track you to your real ip.

I realize nothing 100% secure and if one really wanted to expend the $ and resources to find you they can. I also none of this protects you from the provider turning your logs over to LEO.

Also, most providers like gmail analyzes information about you from your emails for marketing and violations of TOS.

One poster is correct. Some people will believe you are a scammer just because you use tormail.
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: astor on March 28, 2013, 03:32 pm
I realize nothing 100% secure and if one really wanted to expend the $ and resources to find you they can. I also none of this protects you from the provider turning your logs over to LEO.

Also, most providers like gmail analyzes information about you from your emails for marketing and violations of TOS.

How do you know TorMail isn't doing that? How do you know it isn't an LE honeypot? Tor hides your IP from TorMail in exactly the same way as it hides your IP from clearnet sites. The only difference in the circuit is that TorMail is also hidden from you, whereas clearnet sites are not.

Hidden services are designed to protect the hidden service, they provide no additional protection to the user, other than that LE can't find them and subpoena their records. But that's assuming the hidden service isn't run by LE.

I was simply offering some backup email services that work over Tor. Since there are no other hidden service email providers, I listed some clearnet ones. You don't have to use them, but TorMail may go down again, possibly for good next time. You might want to have some backups.
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: smogmonster13 on March 28, 2013, 08:54 pm
Gmail now requires all kinds of verifications of ID, including a cell phone number.
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: Chaosforpeace on March 28, 2013, 11:09 pm
Yes it is an age old question. Is tormail a honeypot.
I mean it is a 100% free service that has skilled admins.
HOW? Where is the generous benefactor who is paying for it?

Just a thought
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: smogmonster13 on March 28, 2013, 11:29 pm
Isn't Tormail open source? I have been under the impression that open source means that people can look at the code to see what information is being captured, etc.

What about Lavabit?
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: zerik on March 29, 2013, 12:06 am
I realize nothing 100% secure and if one really wanted to expend the $ and resources to find you they can. I also none of this protects you from the provider turning your logs over to LEO.

Also, most providers like gmail analyzes information about you from your emails for marketing and violations of TOS.

How do you know TorMail isn't doing that? How do you know it isn't an LE honeypot? Tor hides your IP from TorMail in exactly the same way as it hides your IP from clearnet sites. The only difference in the circuit is that TorMail is also hidden from you, whereas clearnet sites are not.

Hidden services are designed to protect the hidden service, they provide no additional protection to the user, other than that LE can't find them and subpoena their records. But that's assuming the hidden service isn't run by LE.

I was simply offering some backup email services that work over Tor. Since there are no other hidden service email providers, I listed some clearnet ones. You don't have to use them, but TorMail may go down again, possibly for good next time. You might want to have some backups.

It could very well be that tormail does that. There really is no way to know for sure. All they have is their word and reputation. I never get spam mail in my tor mail account.

I did not word that post well. It was late at night I wasn't criticizing. I was just wondering if there is a better way to anonymize clear net email providers like yahoo or gmail. It is hard to use tor mail for certain thing. Besides it would be good to have more options.
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: Chaosforpeace on April 01, 2013, 12:00 pm
Unfortunately there aren't any other options. Some turn to hushmail, but anyone with a brain knows not to.
Just get a gmail account and send messages only encrypted with pgp.
Or even better, tormail with only pgp encrypted emails.
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: anonymouse23 on April 01, 2013, 09:35 pm
The only reason to have a Tormail account (vs Gmail, etc.) is that they won't close down your account if they suspect it's being used for illegal purposes. It's not any more anonymous than Gmail, Hotmail, etc.

Tafuck you talking about? Tormail operators are unknown, they dont keep logs and sniffing mail is more difficult through Tor.
While @ GMail they will give up your whole history prolly coupled with a nice Google profile without a warrant.

Another anonymous email provider is riseup.net
Those guys would prolly torch everything and take some LE down with them before handing any of your data over. :D

Edit: Send me a PM if you need an invite.
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: astor on April 01, 2013, 10:04 pm
Isn't Tormail open source? I have been under the impression that open source means that people can look at the code to see what information is being captured, etc.

The software they use is probably open source. The webmail programs they use definitely are, so I'm assuming the rest of it is. That doesn't mean they don't log or haven't modified the software to do other things.

It's open source in the sense that you can download the software and read the code that the developers wrote. The TorMail admins are not publishing any changes that they may or may not have made.
Title: Re: Anonymous mail
Post by: lelmeriodici on April 02, 2013, 01:38 am
You DO NOT want to use any service over Tor that has ever been associated with your "real" identity or IP address.  Google/Gmail and plenty of other email accounts can be created over Tor easily, they simply require a phone number to verify the account.  DO NOT use any number associated with you–use a burner phone or get access to the phone of a person you do not know.  Then, access that email via, and only via, Tor.