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A Tutorial on Anonymous Email Accounts

248 points by Garbage 14y ago

baconhigh 14y ago
worth mention that hushmail are known to turn over email accounts at the drop of a hat
driverdan 14y ago
Use an email provider wholly owned and hosted in a country that's non-cooperative with your country, preferably one with an official language that differs from your country's. That alone will help you avoid standard subpoenas / legal requests. Add Tor and encryption on top of that and there is almost no chance of government interference, unless you're a terrorist / subversive.
ommunist 14y ago
Well, after reading this I realised that the first thing is to monitor and tame your outgoing traffic. So I renewed my Little Snitch license. And started to consider wiping the Skype off the machine.
pwniekins 14y ago
Man, what a weak article. I was expecting some cool tutorial on setting up tormail or something equivalent. Hushmail? Seriously? They have no qualms with cooperating with authorities at the drop of a hat.
Derpsec 14y ago
Holy shit, seriously who is running the EFF these days? I haven't checked in since the 1990s. This was the absolute WORST article on privacy I've ever read in my life. FUUUUUU... did they just advocate for people to use Hushmail? The same proprietary, for-profit organization that when contacted by the FBI they present the user with a decoy login screen so they can capture your password in the clear and then decrypt your entire history to hand over to the feds? Nobody should be using hushmail in 2012, not after multiple court cases that have detailed exactly what hushmail has done for the feds. Hushmail has sold their users out so many times I can't count. It's useless cloud encryption nonsense. If you really want to send an anonymous email, you use mixmaster, torrified. Period. If you need a method to be contacted by people who are clueless you then sign up to privacybox.de a free service provided by the German Privacy Foundation and you upload your public PGP key and have it forwarded to a tormail account. Reply through mixmaster encrypted If you're really paranoid you have mixmaster post encrypted emails to alt.anonymous.messages and skip centralized email servers like tormail all together http://anonymous-proxy-servers.net/en/help-live-cd/jondo-live-cd12.html http://anonymous-proxy-servers.net/en/help-live-cd/jondo-liv... This is how send email torrified with Jondo live privacy CD, or just install mixmaster on your own linux/bsd computer and use full disc encryption + pgp. Screw the EFF after reading that tutorial. It should be burned to the ground and an entire new organization built if this article is their best advice.
- SeanDav 14y ago
  I was going to down-vote this, but if you skip out your insults, your information is likely worthwhile. Your comment would have been far better without all the extra attacking gumph, which adds nothing and makes you less likely to be taken seriously.
deleted 14y ago
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dbz 14y ago
There is also Tor Mail as an anonymous email service.
- mike-cardwell 14y ago
  Nobody knows who runs the Tor Mail service. This is good because nobody can order them to give up information about you. However, it's also bad because you've no idea if it's being run by responsible people, a government agency, wikileaks, or just a few nosy kids. You should still definitely use PGP encryption if you're using it.
  - glomph 14y ago
    Shouldn't you always be using pgp anyway? Its not like you should trust someone like hushmail either.
    - SageRaven 14y ago
      Speaking of, has a replacement for firepgp (an awesome Firefox pgp plugin from some years ago) ever cropped up? It was so idiot-proof it was beautiful, and had the project not closed down, I probably would have rallied friends and family to use it.
      - Torgo 14y ago
        The problem is that it was not reasonably secure. As I understand the complaint, you can't integrate PGP into an extensible, skinnable interface securely. There's not firefox or OS support for making that kind of thing doable. You'd want to have some sort of OS and app support for being able to encrypt a message in a widget on a GUI layer above the browser and then transferring it in, so that PGP and Firefox never come into direct contact. Qubes OS has a rough mechanism for keeping different security-level apps separated, and identified via a colored window border. I wonder if something similar to this is the correct solution.
        aidenn0 14y ago
Devilboy 14y ago
The EFF is right, this is still way too hard.
- reginaldo 14y ago
  Actually it's a little harder still. For instance, when your browser makes requests in your behalf, it provides the destination server with a lot of information which can be used to identify you (at least temporarily)[1]. To get a better level of anonymity, one should at least use a combination of Tor and privoxy [2]. [1] https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/ [2] http://www.privoxy.org/ http://www.privoxy.org/
  - Wingman4l7 14y ago
    I could have sworn there was a "Show HN" which was a basic implementation of the Panopticlick browser fingerprinting, but I can't find it...
  - mike-cardwell 14y ago
    Your information is out of date. The Tor project no longer advises the use of privoxy, and advises all users to use The Tor Browser Bundle. This is specifically configured to make all Tor users look the same, precisely because of browser fingerprinting.
    - reginaldo 14y ago
      Thank you for the heads up. I didn't know that the Browser Bundle also took care of fingerprinting.
hayksaakian 14y ago
You could use one of the several temporary mail boxes to exchange messages. Presumably you'd save anything important on a flash drive or something remote.
runn1ng 14y ago
They say that Hushmail keeps your mail in plaintext. But does it? From what I heard, they encrypt your mail even on their servers. However what kills the service for me is the need to pay if you don't use it reguralry - and there is no way to pay for hushmail anonymously (read: with bitcoin).
- nodata 14y ago
  Hushmail isn't to be trusted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hushmail#Compromises_to_email_privacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hushmail#Compromises_to_email_... and https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/hushmail_turns.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/hushmail_turn...
- yungchin 14y ago
  It doesn't really matter whether they encrypt it on disk: the scenario here isn't that their disks get stolen, but that law enforcement makes them decrypt your mail. The only way to get in the way of that is to encrypt it yourself, see GPG etc. Also: isn't a bitcoin transaction really difficult to anonymise, with the global transaction record available to the whole world?
  - TeMPOraL 14y ago
    Isn't the point of bitcoin to have anonymized transactions, even though their record is available? AKA. you can know someone bought something, but you can't identify the parties?
    - mike-cardwell 14y ago
      It's not fully anonymous. Say my friend gets some bitcoins completely anonymously by doing something illegal. And then sends them to me completely anonymously. And then I go and spend those same coins on something like web hosting which ends up having some link back to me, eg I accidentally log in to it without using Tor one time. The police can then trace that hosting account back to me personally from my IP, and then ask me who sent those coins to me. Even if I refuse to tell them, they can still look at my various contacts/friends/family to see if any of them are likely to have committed the original crime, and investigate further. You can even connect to the bitcoin network via Tor. The risk comes when you spend them. If there's any connection between you and the recipient of those coins, then you're potentially screwed.
Xylakant 14y ago
if all you want is to receive mail, the CCC offers anonymous one-time adresses: https://anonbox.net/index.en.html https://anonbox.net/index.en.html
Ruscour 14y ago
I'd use Tor way more if it wasn't so damn slow. Of course security is a priority, but it's just not usable for me.
- robinh 14y ago
  If security is a priority, then set up a Tor node! :)
  - aes256 14y ago
    Then brace yourself for a flood of DMCA requests and law enforcement attention in 3.. 2.. 1..
    - prawks 14y ago
      Sorry for the perhaps extreme naivety, but does this actually happen to people who set up Tor nodes?
      - Xylakant 14y ago
        In germany some servers were collected by the police but relatively promptly returned once they figured out that they were tor exit nodes. Still, you're the first person that the police can get a handle on, so at least expect some questions once in a while. I don't know about any other country, but you might just consider hosting the tor exit node in a country with more friendly laws and then use a VPN to connect there.
        aes256 14y ago
        Indeed, you're probably protected by safe harbor/mere conduit laws in most jurisdictions, but you're still liable to become the subject of law enforcement investigations and have your equipment seized. More hassle than it's worth.
      - cookiecaper 14y ago
        It can happen if you run an exit node, because your IP is visiting bad sites. If you run a relay node without exit, this should never happen because all you're doing is moving around encrypted packets to other Tor nodes.
josscrowcroft 14y ago
Is using something like iPredator [0] VPN secure enough for logging into a pseudonymous email account? If you never (ever) use a different IP address to log in to that account? [0] https://ipredator.se https://ipredator.se
- nikcub 14y ago
  It has to be setup to fallback to no connection, otherwise you will almost certainly accidentally hit the page at least once with your real IP.
- bdkoepke 14y ago
  iPredator is using pptp which is very insecure. (The original authors of the protocol recommend that you shouldn't use it). It is also considered to be cryptographically broken as of last month. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-Point_Tunneling_Protocol#Security http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-Point_Tunneling_Protoc...) A list of reasonable VPN providers is available here: http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anonymity-seriously-111007 http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anon... (If you are using a VPN, you have to be aware that there is a lot of snake oil. Finding a good VPN provider is very difficult, and then purchasing the VPN anonymously is even more difficult.)
  - arnoooooo 14y ago
    Ipredator started supporting OpenVPN a few months ago.
techsupporter 14y ago
What about running my own e-mail from my residence or contained within a data center on a computer that I personally own (that is, not leased from the hosting provider) and connected to the Internet via a subscription in my own name? I'm rather curious about what legal areas this might fall into.
- kijin 14y ago
  > connected to the Internet via a subscription in my own name I thought the article was about anonymous e-mail. Anonymous as in, nobody can tell who you are, not even the Feds. Anything you paid for with your credit card is probably not going to meet that criterion.
  - techsupporter 14y ago
    Good point. I was more wondering about this as an alternative to purely anonymous e-mail in light of one of the reasons why people try to avoid having e-mail tied to them (government having a peek).
    - bstpierre 14y ago
      There was an article on HN a while back about a server removed from a DC by the feds; that's one risk. If you have the server at your home sending emails, it will be trivial for law enforcement to figure out where you are and show up at your door with a warrant to sieze your computer.
- ibejoeb 14y ago
  Yes, I'd like to hear about what other people are doing for private email too. Anonymous is pretty special case. How is everyone protecting day-to-day communications?
tagada 14y ago
Setting up GPG with a webmail, lets say Hushmail, completely d have been in the scope of that tutorial ... Description of "how install Tor Bundle" and blah blah blah are way too long, for such an incomplete result, man.
oron 14y ago
Plug : If all you need is to receive an email Air Mail is right for the job - http://getairmail.com http://getairmail.com
INTPenis 14y ago
Why use email? I know some drug dealers who are pretty IT savvy and they simply setup Pidgin with OTR on their computers. Some had Macs with Adium. Then they would message each other to go on OTR. That's all you should send in an e-mail or text message, "go on OTR".
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- aes256 14y ago
  If I understand correctly, the key feature of OTR is its plausible deniability; the messages you send do not have a digital signature that a third party can use to verify their integrity, but the other party in the conversation is able to verify them. Is that really going to hold up in court? Surely by the same token I could dismiss absolutely everything there is any record of me sending or receiving over HTTP because it could theoretically have been forged or tampered with in transit.
  - snowwrestler 14y ago
    Is plausible deniability an actual legal concept at all? I see it used here and on other technical forums in topics like this, but aside from that I've only ever heard of it in political, not legal, contexts. Any lawyers able to shed light?
  - oconnore 14y ago
    The most useful feature (of course, not a unique feature) of OTR is perfect forward secrecy. This means that, unlike GPG, you can lose your private key and not give up everything you have ever encrypted. The plausible deniability stuff is probably not that useful in court, as you note.
    - georgeorwell 14y ago
      If the 'plausible deniability' is not that useful in court, that means it isn't plausible deniability. It's better to say that OTR doesn't provide plausible deniability, even though it claims to, if that's what you believe. (I don't have an opinion either way.)
deleted 14y ago
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glomph 14y ago
Of course Petraeus could not exactly have installed tor and started visiting hushmail.org without instantly being considered suspect.
- pyre 14y ago
  From work maybe, but would that have been the same from home?
mtgx 14y ago
What about Opera's FastMail.fm? They are not even based in US, so that might help. I see it's not free anymore though, but it also has no ads, so no tracking for that either. They could've also used RetroShare for both encrypted chats and mail, and it should've been pretty anonymous as well since it's P2P. This is not something most people would be willing to do, but for someone like Petraeus, it could've been useful. For most people using something like Jitsi for encrypted chats and video-calls is much more bearable, although you still have to watch-out where you sign-in from and where you create the account, so you'll probably have to follow the whole Tor browser part EFF mentioned in the beginning, if you want anonymity as well.
- andreaso 14y ago
  Regarding FastMail and the US. * FastMail have their servers in New York City (as well as on Iceland). * Opera Software do have an office in the US. I have no idea to what extent that puts FastMail under US juristriction. (Disclaimer: I work for Opera Software, but not on the FastMail team.)
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
bstpierre 14y ago
What about something like mixmaster[1]? Obviously more complex than using tor browser bundle with a webmail provider, but is it still viable for geeks? What are the risks? [1]: http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/483 http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/483
- gnosis 14y ago
  Mixminion[1] is the next generation anonymous remailer that was designed to fix some problems with mixmaster. You might want to use that instead, if you can. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixminion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixminion
holri 14y ago
Probably easier and more secure to just boot in a tails live system (usb, cdrom). This system uses tor and has everything installed and configured to protect your privacy. https://tails.boum.org/ https://tails.boum.org/
- cookiecaper 14y ago
  You still need to create an email account with a host who is at least semi-aware of the importance of privacy and cryptography (e.g., not Google). You can't make new Google Accounts from Tor nodes without additional verification (your phone number); same is likely to be true of all major email services. Accessing your Gmail through Tor and thinking that makes you "anonymous" is just going to tell everyone that you failed at being sneaky.
  - belorn 14y ago
    >Accessing your Gmail through Tor and thinking that makes you "anonymous" is just going to tell everyone that you failed at being sneaky. Thats a great slogan for a T-shirt :). Oki, for a bit more seriousness... One could in theory create an account on google through tor, verify the account with a burn phone, and be rather unidentifiable. Its just kind of costly, so just bad guys with anonymous cash that can do this and not journalists.
- lumberjack 14y ago
  Good suggestion. Also as a warning, don't (!) just use TOR as a proxy, through your everyday browser. Your everyday browser has probably enough configuration to be easily identifiable. That's why the torproject now emphasizes the use of the whole tor browser bundle. For more information: http://browserspy.dk http://browserspy.dk https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/
cookiecaper 14y ago
I2P's mail system may be safer than this (certainly much more anonymous since you don't have to transfer any money at any point in the process), depending on the content of your mail and the level of trust you feel for the person running I2P's mail system.
hntldr_com 14y ago
summary: use Tor always, create separate email box at Hushmail and access this box via Tor only as even single access from real IP might reveal your identity, never use email providers without HTTPS://, use end-to-end encryption like GPG.
forgotAgain 14y ago
It seems to me that a government sponsored virus would look for a fingerprint for something like Tor. Whose to say the virus isn't a virus but rather a part of a retail product placed there in cooperation between industry and government. If you want true security you need to use open products.
JimWestergren 14y ago
What about sharing secure notes via LastPass?
gesman 14y ago
Here is the better [and shorter] version of this tutorial: 1. Download Tor 2. Signup and use tormail.org 3. Done. I surprised eff.org didn't even mention tormail.org - this email forces you to use Tor, essentially forcing you to never make mistake of using non-Tor browser.
- rada 14y ago
  And who is to say tormail is not a honeypot?
  - sequoia 14y ago
    Use tor+gpg and does it matter?
    - rada 14y ago
      Agreed (unless you exchange the keys in a way that is traceable by honeypot owners).
    - SageRaven 14y ago
      If one is using tor+pgp I don't think the venue really matters all that much. I'd personally use a pastebin-like place (public or .onion, doesn't really matter) than an email server. Anyone know if there's an active NNTP network in onion land?
kibwen 14y ago
Don't overlook the Google-related footnote at the end: "Google keeps logs of IP addresses for 18 months, after which they keep logs of three-quarters of the IP address. Three-quarters of an IP address may be still enough to breach your pseudonymity in the case of an FBI investigation." Contrast this with the explanation from Google's own Privacy FAQ[1]: "We strike a reasonable balance between the competing pressures we face, such as the privacy of our users, the security of our systems and the need for innovation. We believe anonymizing IP addresses after 9 months and cookies in our search engine logs after 18 months strikes the right balance." I'm quite surprised to learn that Google equates "anonymizing IP addresses" with "chopping off an octet". I suppose I'm a bit naive. [1] http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/faq/ http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/faq/
- joonix 14y ago
  EFF didn't cite a source regarding the 3/4 claim in their article. I'd be curious where they got that information since it does conflict with their privacy policy.
  - nl 14y ago
    I believe the chopping of the octet is separate to the anonymization, unless they haven't updated their docs: What does it mean to anonymize the logs? We will change some of the bits in the IP address in the logs as well as change the cookie information. We're still developing the precise technical methods and approach to this, but we believe these changes will be a significant addition to protecting user privacy. http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/services.google.com/en/us/blog_resources/google_log_retention_policy_faq.pdf http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrust... Edit: I think I'm wrong about this. http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1058&context=jpc http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1058&#... After Google announced its log retention policy update in 2008, C. Soghoian asked Google for details about the log sanitization process. He then published the following response from Google [34]: After nine months, we will change some of the bits in the IP address in the logs; after 18 months we remove the last eight bits in the IP address and change the cookie information (emphasis our own). It is dicult to guarantee complete anonymization, but we believe these changes will make it very unlikely users could be identied."
tekknolagi 14y ago
And I wrote a blog post about something similar, but it hits a lot more bases than just using Tor. Tor has issues of its own. http://bernsteinbear.com/a-quest-for-anonymity http://bernsteinbear.com/a-quest-for-anonymity
- cynwoody 14y ago
  Under your Public WiFi heading, you should add a warning about surveillance cameras, POS credit card trails, and employee memories. These days, cameras are everywhere, and video storage has gotten very cheap. Assume investigators will visit each shop from which you surfed and act accordingly. Best to buy your coffee at coffee shop A and do your surfing from near but not in coffee shop B. Also, if, for instance, you are on a book tour to hype your biography of P4, be aware that, even if you follow WiFi best practices, you will still be leaving a geographic trail that investigators could find very interesting.
  - stinkytaco 14y ago
    It makes me wonder why the government works so hard to get new powers of investigation. It seems easier to catch someone now than it ever has, despite the preponderance of new privacy tools. Using good old fashion police work like warrants, subpoenas, plea bargains, surveillance, etc, police can put together a lot of pieces that add up to a whole (I make a comment elsewhere in the thread about the problem of plausible deniability in the face or corroborating evidence). Why the hell do they need more tools? Perhaps someone in law enforcement could shed some light on this. After all, I am looking at this from the outside.
    - tekknolagi 14y ago
      Or the inside, depending on how you look at it.
  - tekknolagi 14y ago
    That is a good idea. Mind if I include this post as a block quote, citing your username?
sprash 14y ago
Much easier to use is Bitmessage: http://bitmessage.org http://bitmessage.org It works similar to Bitcon, is decentralized and does not rely on trusted third parties (e.g. for signing). Whitepaper: http://bitmessage.org/bitmessage.pdf http://bitmessage.org/bitmessage.pdf
- mike-cardwell 14y ago
  Would like to give this a try, but I don't use Windows. Should it work on Linux? I imagine a lot of early adopters of such a system would not be using Windows...
  - sprash 14y ago
    It works perfectly fine on Linux. You need Python2, PyQt and Sqlite for it to use though. (run: python2 pybitmessagemain.py)
bredren 14y ago
In many cases, hard core security around email isn't necessary. For light privacy, where you simply don't want the other party to immediately be able to google your address (i.e. craigslist or online dating) I want to recommend Gliph Cloaked Email. https://gli.ph https://gli.ph I run Gliph and am happy to answer questions about the level of anonymity you can achieve if anyone has any.
- sneak 14y ago
  > We encrypt data with 256-bit SSL in transit and AES-256 encryption before it hits disk. Your website copy does not inspire confidence in your ability to properly implement cryptography software.
  - iskander 14y ago
    For us crypto-ignoramuses, what's wrong with what you quoted?
    - Lanzaa 14y ago
      >> We encrypt data with 256-bit SSL in transit and AES-256 encryption before it hits disk. > For us crypto-ignoramuses, what's wrong with what you quoted? First off, it is very easy to get cryptography wrong. I wouldn't trust most people with being able to implement cryptography software correctly. Buzzwords like AES and SSL are used to convey a sense of security. Their 256-bit SSL uses AES-256 to encrypt data in transit. While using AES-256 to encrypt a file doesn't mean it is secure. The mode of operation is very important. The following wikipedia page has a picture that was probably encrypted with something like AES-256. I will let you guess what the original picture was. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_cipher#Modes_of_operation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_cipher#Modes_of_operation Another issue not discussed is key management. To encrypt the files with AES-256 they need to have the key. If someone breaks into their server, the server will have the key and the files. It becomes easy to break the security.
- Lanzaa 14y ago
  How do you encrypt data stored on your severs? Also, the gli.ph https certificate will expire in less than two weeks. You may want to renew.

248 points by Garbage 14y ago

worth mention that hushmail are known to turn over email accounts at the drop of a hat

Use an email provider wholly owned and hosted in a country that's non-cooperative with your country, preferably one with an official language that differs from your country's. That alone will help you avoid standard subpoenas / legal requests. Add Tor and encryption on top of that and there is almost no chance of government interference, unless you're a terrorist / subversive.

ommunist 14y ago

Well, after reading this I realised that the first thing is to monitor and tame your outgoing traffic. So I renewed my Little Snitch license. And started to consider wiping the Skype off the machine.

pwniekins 14y ago

Man, what a weak article. I was expecting some cool tutorial on setting up tormail or something equivalent. Hushmail? Seriously? They have no qualms with cooperating with authorities at the drop of a hat.

Derpsec 14y ago

Holy shit, seriously who is running the EFF these days? I haven't checked in since the 1990s. This was the absolute WORST article on privacy I've ever read in my life. FUUUUUU... did they just advocate for people to use Hushmail? The same proprietary, for-profit organization that when contacted by the FBI they present the user with a decoy login screen so they can capture your password in the clear and then decrypt your entire history to hand over to the feds? Nobody should be using hushmail in 2012, not after multiple court cases that have detailed exactly what hushmail has done for the feds. Hushmail has sold their users out so many times I can't count. It's useless cloud encryption nonsense. If you really want to send an anonymous email, you use mixmaster, torrified. Period. If you need a method to be contacted by people who are clueless you then sign up to privacybox.de a free service provided by the German Privacy Foundation and you upload your public PGP key and have it forwarded to a tormail account. Reply through mixmaster encrypted If you're really paranoid you have mixmaster post encrypted emails to alt.anonymous.messages and skip centralized email servers like tormail all together http://anonymous-proxy-servers.net/en/help-live-cd/jondo-live-cd12.html http://anonymous-proxy-servers.net/en/help-live-cd/jondo-liv... This is how send email torrified with Jondo live privacy CD, or just install mixmaster on your own linux/bsd computer and use full disc encryption + pgp. Screw the EFF after reading that tutorial. It should be burned to the ground and an entire new organization built if this article is their best advice.

SeanDav 14y ago
I was going to down-vote this, but if you skip out your insults, your information is likely worthwhile. Your comment would have been far better without all the extra attacking gumph, which adds nothing and makes you less likely to be taken seriously.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

dbz 14y ago

There is also Tor Mail as an anonymous email service.

mike-cardwell 14y ago
Nobody knows who runs the Tor Mail service. This is good because nobody can order them to give up information about you. However, it's also bad because you've no idea if it's being run by responsible people, a government agency, wikileaks, or just a few nosy kids. You should still definitely use PGP encryption if you're using it.
- glomph 14y ago
  Shouldn't you always be using pgp anyway? Its not like you should trust someone like hushmail either.
  - SageRaven 14y ago
    Speaking of, has a replacement for firepgp (an awesome Firefox pgp plugin from some years ago) ever cropped up? It was so idiot-proof it was beautiful, and had the project not closed down, I probably would have rallied friends and family to use it.
    - Torgo 14y ago
      The problem is that it was not reasonably secure. As I understand the complaint, you can't integrate PGP into an extensible, skinnable interface securely. There's not firefox or OS support for making that kind of thing doable. You'd want to have some sort of OS and app support for being able to encrypt a message in a widget on a GUI layer above the browser and then transferring it in, so that PGP and Firefox never come into direct contact. Qubes OS has a rough mechanism for keeping different security-level apps separated, and identified via a colored window border. I wonder if something similar to this is the correct solution.
      - aidenn0 14y ago

Devilboy 14y ago

The EFF is right, this is still way too hard.

reginaldo 14y ago
Actually it's a little harder still. For instance, when your browser makes requests in your behalf, it provides the destination server with a lot of information which can be used to identify you (at least temporarily)[1]. To get a better level of anonymity, one should at least use a combination of Tor and privoxy [2]. [1] https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/ [2] http://www.privoxy.org/ http://www.privoxy.org/
- Wingman4l7 14y ago
  I could have sworn there was a "Show HN" which was a basic implementation of the Panopticlick browser fingerprinting, but I can't find it...
- mike-cardwell 14y ago
  Your information is out of date. The Tor project no longer advises the use of privoxy, and advises all users to use The Tor Browser Bundle. This is specifically configured to make all Tor users look the same, precisely because of browser fingerprinting.
  - reginaldo 14y ago
    Thank you for the heads up. I didn't know that the Browser Bundle also took care of fingerprinting.

hayksaakian 14y ago

You could use one of the several temporary mail boxes to exchange messages. Presumably you'd save anything important on a flash drive or something remote.

runn1ng 14y ago

They say that Hushmail keeps your mail in plaintext. But does it? From what I heard, they encrypt your mail even on their servers. However what kills the service for me is the need to pay if you don't use it reguralry - and there is no way to pay for hushmail anonymously (read: with bitcoin).

nodata 14y ago
Hushmail isn't to be trusted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hushmail#Compromises_to_email_privacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hushmail#Compromises_to_email_... and https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/hushmail_turns.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/hushmail_turn...
yungchin 14y ago
It doesn't really matter whether they encrypt it on disk: the scenario here isn't that their disks get stolen, but that law enforcement makes them decrypt your mail. The only way to get in the way of that is to encrypt it yourself, see GPG etc. Also: isn't a bitcoin transaction really difficult to anonymise, with the global transaction record available to the whole world?
- TeMPOraL 14y ago
  Isn't the point of bitcoin to have anonymized transactions, even though their record is available? AKA. you can know someone bought something, but you can't identify the parties?
  - mike-cardwell 14y ago
    It's not fully anonymous. Say my friend gets some bitcoins completely anonymously by doing something illegal. And then sends them to me completely anonymously. And then I go and spend those same coins on something like web hosting which ends up having some link back to me, eg I accidentally log in to it without using Tor one time. The police can then trace that hosting account back to me personally from my IP, and then ask me who sent those coins to me. Even if I refuse to tell them, they can still look at my various contacts/friends/family to see if any of them are likely to have committed the original crime, and investigate further. You can even connect to the bitcoin network via Tor. The risk comes when you spend them. If there's any connection between you and the recipient of those coins, then you're potentially screwed.

Xylakant 14y ago

if all you want is to receive mail, the CCC offers anonymous one-time adresses: https://anonbox.net/index.en.html https://anonbox.net/index.en.html

Ruscour 14y ago

I'd use Tor way more if it wasn't so damn slow. Of course security is a priority, but it's just not usable for me.

robinh 14y ago
If security is a priority, then set up a Tor node! :)
- aes256 14y ago
  Then brace yourself for a flood of DMCA requests and law enforcement attention in 3.. 2.. 1..
  - prawks 14y ago
    Sorry for the perhaps extreme naivety, but does this actually happen to people who set up Tor nodes?
    - Xylakant 14y ago
      In germany some servers were collected by the police but relatively promptly returned once they figured out that they were tor exit nodes. Still, you're the first person that the police can get a handle on, so at least expect some questions once in a while. I don't know about any other country, but you might just consider hosting the tor exit node in a country with more friendly laws and then use a VPN to connect there.
      - aes256 14y ago
        Indeed, you're probably protected by safe harbor/mere conduit laws in most jurisdictions, but you're still liable to become the subject of law enforcement investigations and have your equipment seized. More hassle than it's worth.
    - cookiecaper 14y ago
      It can happen if you run an exit node, because your IP is visiting bad sites. If you run a relay node without exit, this should never happen because all you're doing is moving around encrypted packets to other Tor nodes.

josscrowcroft 14y ago

Is using something like iPredator [0] VPN secure enough for logging into a pseudonymous email account? If you never (ever) use a different IP address to log in to that account? [0] https://ipredator.se https://ipredator.se

nikcub 14y ago
It has to be setup to fallback to no connection, otherwise you will almost certainly accidentally hit the page at least once with your real IP.
bdkoepke 14y ago
iPredator is using pptp which is very insecure. (The original authors of the protocol recommend that you shouldn't use it). It is also considered to be cryptographically broken as of last month. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-Point_Tunneling_Protocol#Security http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-Point_Tunneling_Protoc...) A list of reasonable VPN providers is available here: http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anonymity-seriously-111007 http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anon... (If you are using a VPN, you have to be aware that there is a lot of snake oil. Finding a good VPN provider is very difficult, and then purchasing the VPN anonymously is even more difficult.)
- arnoooooo 14y ago
  Ipredator started supporting OpenVPN a few months ago.

techsupporter 14y ago

What about running my own e-mail from my residence or contained within a data center on a computer that I personally own (that is, not leased from the hosting provider) and connected to the Internet via a subscription in my own name? I'm rather curious about what legal areas this might fall into.

kijin 14y ago
> connected to the Internet via a subscription in my own name I thought the article was about anonymous e-mail. Anonymous as in, nobody can tell who you are, not even the Feds. Anything you paid for with your credit card is probably not going to meet that criterion.
- techsupporter 14y ago
  Good point. I was more wondering about this as an alternative to purely anonymous e-mail in light of one of the reasons why people try to avoid having e-mail tied to them (government having a peek).
  - bstpierre 14y ago
    There was an article on HN a while back about a server removed from a DC by the feds; that's one risk. If you have the server at your home sending emails, it will be trivial for law enforcement to figure out where you are and show up at your door with a warrant to sieze your computer.
ibejoeb 14y ago
Yes, I'd like to hear about what other people are doing for private email too. Anonymous is pretty special case. How is everyone protecting day-to-day communications?

tagada 14y ago

Setting up GPG with a webmail, lets say Hushmail, completely d have been in the scope of that tutorial ... Description of "how install Tor Bundle" and blah blah blah are way too long, for such an incomplete result, man.

oron 14y ago

Plug : If all you need is to receive an email Air Mail is right for the job - http://getairmail.com http://getairmail.com

INTPenis 14y ago

Why use email? I know some drug dealers who are pretty IT savvy and they simply setup Pidgin with OTR on their computers. Some had Macs with Adium. Then they would message each other to go on OTR. That's all you should send in an e-mail or text message, "go on OTR".

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aes256 14y ago
If I understand correctly, the key feature of OTR is its plausible deniability; the messages you send do not have a digital signature that a third party can use to verify their integrity, but the other party in the conversation is able to verify them. Is that really going to hold up in court? Surely by the same token I could dismiss absolutely everything there is any record of me sending or receiving over HTTP because it could theoretically have been forged or tampered with in transit.
- snowwrestler 14y ago
  Is plausible deniability an actual legal concept at all? I see it used here and on other technical forums in topics like this, but aside from that I've only ever heard of it in political, not legal, contexts. Any lawyers able to shed light?
- oconnore 14y ago
  The most useful feature (of course, not a unique feature) of OTR is perfect forward secrecy. This means that, unlike GPG, you can lose your private key and not give up everything you have ever encrypted. The plausible deniability stuff is probably not that useful in court, as you note.
  - georgeorwell 14y ago
    If the 'plausible deniability' is not that useful in court, that means it isn't plausible deniability. It's better to say that OTR doesn't provide plausible deniability, even though it claims to, if that's what you believe. (I don't have an opinion either way.)

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glomph 14y ago

Of course Petraeus could not exactly have installed tor and started visiting hushmail.org without instantly being considered suspect.

pyre 14y ago
From work maybe, but would that have been the same from home?

mtgx 14y ago

What about Opera's FastMail.fm? They are not even based in US, so that might help. I see it's not free anymore though, but it also has no ads, so no tracking for that either. They could've also used RetroShare for both encrypted chats and mail, and it should've been pretty anonymous as well since it's P2P. This is not something most people would be willing to do, but for someone like Petraeus, it could've been useful. For most people using something like Jitsi for encrypted chats and video-calls is much more bearable, although you still have to watch-out where you sign-in from and where you create the account, so you'll probably have to follow the whole Tor browser part EFF mentioned in the beginning, if you want anonymity as well.

andreaso 14y ago
Regarding FastMail and the US. * FastMail have their servers in New York City (as well as on Iceland). * Opera Software do have an office in the US. I have no idea to what extent that puts FastMail under US juristriction. (Disclaimer: I work for Opera Software, but not on the FastMail team.)
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bstpierre 14y ago

What about something like mixmaster[1]? Obviously more complex than using tor browser bundle with a webmail provider, but is it still viable for geeks? What are the risks? [1]: http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/483 http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/483

gnosis 14y ago
Mixminion[1] is the next generation anonymous remailer that was designed to fix some problems with mixmaster. You might want to use that instead, if you can. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixminion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixminion

holri 14y ago

Probably easier and more secure to just boot in a tails live system (usb, cdrom). This system uses tor and has everything installed and configured to protect your privacy. https://tails.boum.org/ https://tails.boum.org/

cookiecaper 14y ago
You still need to create an email account with a host who is at least semi-aware of the importance of privacy and cryptography (e.g., not Google). You can't make new Google Accounts from Tor nodes without additional verification (your phone number); same is likely to be true of all major email services. Accessing your Gmail through Tor and thinking that makes you "anonymous" is just going to tell everyone that you failed at being sneaky.
- belorn 14y ago
  >Accessing your Gmail through Tor and thinking that makes you "anonymous" is just going to tell everyone that you failed at being sneaky. Thats a great slogan for a T-shirt :). Oki, for a bit more seriousness... One could in theory create an account on google through tor, verify the account with a burn phone, and be rather unidentifiable. Its just kind of costly, so just bad guys with anonymous cash that can do this and not journalists.
lumberjack 14y ago
Good suggestion. Also as a warning, don't (!) just use TOR as a proxy, through your everyday browser. Your everyday browser has probably enough configuration to be easily identifiable. That's why the torproject now emphasizes the use of the whole tor browser bundle. For more information: http://browserspy.dk http://browserspy.dk https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/

cookiecaper 14y ago

I2P's mail system may be safer than this (certainly much more anonymous since you don't have to transfer any money at any point in the process), depending on the content of your mail and the level of trust you feel for the person running I2P's mail system.

hntldr_com 14y ago

summary: use Tor always, create separate email box at Hushmail and access this box via Tor only as even single access from real IP might reveal your identity, never use email providers without HTTPS://, use end-to-end encryption like GPG.

forgotAgain 14y ago

It seems to me that a government sponsored virus would look for a fingerprint for something like Tor. Whose to say the virus isn't a virus but rather a part of a retail product placed there in cooperation between industry and government. If you want true security you need to use open products.

JimWestergren 14y ago

What about sharing secure notes via LastPass?

gesman 14y ago

Here is the better [and shorter] version of this tutorial: 1. Download Tor 2. Signup and use tormail.org 3. Done. I surprised eff.org didn't even mention tormail.org - this email forces you to use Tor, essentially forcing you to never make mistake of using non-Tor browser.

rada 14y ago
And who is to say tormail is not a honeypot?
- sequoia 14y ago
  Use tor+gpg and does it matter?
  - rada 14y ago
    Agreed (unless you exchange the keys in a way that is traceable by honeypot owners).
  - SageRaven 14y ago
    If one is using tor+pgp I don't think the venue really matters all that much. I'd personally use a pastebin-like place (public or .onion, doesn't really matter) than an email server. Anyone know if there's an active NNTP network in onion land?

kibwen 14y ago

Don't overlook the Google-related footnote at the end: "Google keeps logs of IP addresses for 18 months, after which they keep logs of three-quarters of the IP address. Three-quarters of an IP address may be still enough to breach your pseudonymity in the case of an FBI investigation." Contrast this with the explanation from Google's own Privacy FAQ[1]: "We strike a reasonable balance between the competing pressures we face, such as the privacy of our users, the security of our systems and the need for innovation. We believe anonymizing IP addresses after 9 months and cookies in our search engine logs after 18 months strikes the right balance." I'm quite surprised to learn that Google equates "anonymizing IP addresses" with "chopping off an octet". I suppose I'm a bit naive. [1] http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/faq/ http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/faq/

joonix 14y ago
EFF didn't cite a source regarding the 3/4 claim in their article. I'd be curious where they got that information since it does conflict with their privacy policy.
- nl 14y ago
  I believe the chopping of the octet is separate to the anonymization, unless they haven't updated their docs: What does it mean to anonymize the logs? We will change some of the bits in the IP address in the logs as well as change the cookie information. We're still developing the precise technical methods and approach to this, but we believe these changes will be a significant addition to protecting user privacy. http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/services.google.com/en/us/blog_resources/google_log_retention_policy_faq.pdf http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrust... Edit: I think I'm wrong about this. http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1058&context=jpc http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1058&#... After Google announced its log retention policy update in 2008, C. Soghoian asked Google for details about the log sanitization process. He then published the following response from Google [34]: After nine months, we will change some of the bits in the IP address in the logs; after 18 months we remove the last eight bits in the IP address and change the cookie information (emphasis our own). It is dicult to guarantee complete anonymization, but we believe these changes will make it very unlikely users could be identied."

tekknolagi 14y ago

And I wrote a blog post about something similar, but it hits a lot more bases than just using Tor. Tor has issues of its own. http://bernsteinbear.com/a-quest-for-anonymity http://bernsteinbear.com/a-quest-for-anonymity

cynwoody 14y ago
Under your Public WiFi heading, you should add a warning about surveillance cameras, POS credit card trails, and employee memories. These days, cameras are everywhere, and video storage has gotten very cheap. Assume investigators will visit each shop from which you surfed and act accordingly. Best to buy your coffee at coffee shop A and do your surfing from near but not in coffee shop B. Also, if, for instance, you are on a book tour to hype your biography of P4, be aware that, even if you follow WiFi best practices, you will still be leaving a geographic trail that investigators could find very interesting.
- stinkytaco 14y ago
  It makes me wonder why the government works so hard to get new powers of investigation. It seems easier to catch someone now than it ever has, despite the preponderance of new privacy tools. Using good old fashion police work like warrants, subpoenas, plea bargains, surveillance, etc, police can put together a lot of pieces that add up to a whole (I make a comment elsewhere in the thread about the problem of plausible deniability in the face or corroborating evidence). Why the hell do they need more tools? Perhaps someone in law enforcement could shed some light on this. After all, I am looking at this from the outside.
  - tekknolagi 14y ago
    Or the inside, depending on how you look at it.
- tekknolagi 14y ago
  That is a good idea. Mind if I include this post as a block quote, citing your username?

sprash 14y ago

Much easier to use is Bitmessage: http://bitmessage.org http://bitmessage.org It works similar to Bitcon, is decentralized and does not rely on trusted third parties (e.g. for signing). Whitepaper: http://bitmessage.org/bitmessage.pdf http://bitmessage.org/bitmessage.pdf

mike-cardwell 14y ago
Would like to give this a try, but I don't use Windows. Should it work on Linux? I imagine a lot of early adopters of such a system would not be using Windows...
- sprash 14y ago
  It works perfectly fine on Linux. You need Python2, PyQt and Sqlite for it to use though. (run: python2 pybitmessagemain.py)

bredren 14y ago

In many cases, hard core security around email isn't necessary. For light privacy, where you simply don't want the other party to immediately be able to google your address (i.e. craigslist or online dating) I want to recommend Gliph Cloaked Email. https://gli.ph https://gli.ph I run Gliph and am happy to answer questions about the level of anonymity you can achieve if anyone has any.

sneak 14y ago
> We encrypt data with 256-bit SSL in transit and AES-256 encryption before it hits disk. Your website copy does not inspire confidence in your ability to properly implement cryptography software.
- iskander 14y ago
  For us crypto-ignoramuses, what's wrong with what you quoted?
  - Lanzaa 14y ago
    >> We encrypt data with 256-bit SSL in transit and AES-256 encryption before it hits disk. > For us crypto-ignoramuses, what's wrong with what you quoted? First off, it is very easy to get cryptography wrong. I wouldn't trust most people with being able to implement cryptography software correctly. Buzzwords like AES and SSL are used to convey a sense of security. Their 256-bit SSL uses AES-256 to encrypt data in transit. While using AES-256 to encrypt a file doesn't mean it is secure. The mode of operation is very important. The following wikipedia page has a picture that was probably encrypted with something like AES-256. I will let you guess what the original picture was. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_cipher#Modes_of_operation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_cipher#Modes_of_operation Another issue not discussed is key management. To encrypt the files with AES-256 they need to have the key. If someone breaks into their server, the server will have the key and the files. It becomes easy to break the security.
Lanzaa 14y ago
How do you encrypt data stored on your severs? Also, the gli.ph https certificate will expire in less than two weeks. You may want to renew.