Hi,

I wanted to contact the owner/administrator of a website. Unfortunately, they didn't provide any means of contact ( email, phone number, online form, simpleX whatsoever).

So the only alternative that I had thought was to create a Mastodon account and publish an open communication with them tagged.
( who know with a bit of luck. )

Unfortunately, to create a Mastodon account, you have to provide an email 📧 address 😞
The problem with email address is that it can be correlated to track you down and more.. there are so many examples online, I will not cover this here.

So the workaround is to create a new email address dedicated just for that usage or service. But it's becoming merely impossible to create a free email account somewhere without giving up your identity. (phone number, ISP[^1] email address, paying online with Fiat[^2] , Cloudflare or whatever trick )

I've seen already few posts about this subject on lemmy and other platforms

• https://linux.community/post/388196
• https://lemmy.world/post/42242662
• https://lemmy.world/post/15049454

some quote from those links

Like it or not, email is a critical part of our digital lives. It’s how
we sign up for accounts, get notifications, and communicate with a wide
range of entities online. Critics of email rightfully point out that
email suffers from a significant number of flaws that make it less than
ideal, but that doesn’t change the current reality. In light of that reality, I believe that an encrypted email provider is a
must-have for everyone in today’s age of rampant data breaches, insider
threats, warrantless police access, and targeted advertising.

All the providers listed around the WWW are wrong !
Either they ask to identify yourself, or if you use Tor, you are blocked, or you cannot use it to register to any service online (third party).

See the table below \

Do not hesitate to propose any other, or maybe you have another solution ? Like self hosting email service ? I already dig up a little bit, but I found this and it looks scary. Thank you GAFAM...

So maybe it doesn't look like much? But actually, it's blocking me more and more. I cannot move/interact on internet or in real life ! because I get often "You have to register online" and that registration come with mandatory email..

Where I live, you better stay anonymous. Because what you say can definitely strike back to you. There is no freedom of speech. Please help to make internet free again.

Because we need it in our daily life and social interactions...

Thanks

mailbox•org 🤔

• not free, only accept Fiat
• last check: 2026-05-21

Which payment methods can I use?

Cash by post (By letter and EURO banknotes only - no cheques)

Cash deposit into our bank account

disroot•com ❌

• Require a identification email address

gmx•com ❌

• various blocking methods ( depending on IP )
  

• last check: 2026-05-20
   

inleed•com ❌

• Require a identification email address

• last check: 2026-05-21

mailo•com ❌

• Do not accept 3th-party registration email for an unknown period

• currently down

• last check: 2026-05-20

mailfence•com ❌

• Need to provide another e-mail address XD
  

• last check: 2026-05-21

proton•me ❌

• Do not accept 3th-party registration email
• last check: 2026-05-20

tuta•com ❌

• IP blocking

• TOR forbidden
  

• last check: 2026-05-20

[^1]: Internet Service Provider
[^2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money

It's almost like email providers dont want spammers to create accounts and send unsolicited emails to people with their service. Not that I think you will.

To receive an email you can run your own mail server if you have a domain because DMRK, SPF, and DKIM are all about authentication of emails that have been sent.
But domain registars also require email addresses for billing purposes.

Uhh, proton works fine…

You might need to clear your browsing data. You might want to start doing that all the time if you’re concerned about anonymity or privacy.

I ran into the same problem recently and gave up. (You were much more persistent / stubborn than me; thanks for compiling the above list!)

All major providers prevent you from registering anonymously because they don't want to have their services abused by spammers and scammers. Your best bet might be to get a VoIP number (not one of those public ones, but a paid one just for yourself), possibly paid with crypto. (Monero?) I haven't tried that route, though, because it wasn't worth the effort for me.

Identity is an unsolved problem on the Internet. We’ve allowed email addresses to serve as a proxy for identity for a long time, but they no longer really work. As a result, we’ve lost both our ability to be anonymous and our ability to be known.

I’ve been playing with ideas to help fix this, and I’d like to connect with anyone working on something similar.

why don't you post your open message on the threadiverse since you have an account already?

Zero issues with proton here as well... I create an alias for everything that asks for an email...

What do you mean by "do not accept 3rd party registration email"?

Use an alias service like addy.io or Proton's SimpleLogin (I think DDG has a service too, or did) to create an email address to forward emails to your actual address, and then just don't use the alias for anything else. I believe both of those take anonymous payment methods.

Not sure how well developed this Fediverse interaction between Lemmy-Mastodon is, but can you not reply from your Lemmy account to a Mastodon post ? And please change the broken disroot dot com link in your post into https://disroot.org/ t y

Depending on where you live, mailbox.org also offers payment by cash.

Also, if you are fine wit emailing the website owner, try contacting webmaster@[domain]. Sometimes those are monitored.

did you use a VPN or Tor? That's usually where they start asking for a phone or secondary email during the sign-up process.

VPN or Tor are necessary if you want to create anonymous accounts.

Inspired by your post, I just wrote a post about buying email accounts anonymously using darknet markets: https://sh.itjust.works/post/60519693.
But here's the guide from the bottom of my post:

1. install Tor Browser Bundle, and use it for the following steps
2. 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
3. look for markets that let you search for the product you're interested in before signing up, to save you time
4. 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).

You can also buy email accounts on darknet markets using Monero. I posted about it here: https://sh.itjust.works/post/60519693

Good for you man ! may be you don't use Tor ?
I could create an account but at the first e-mail received my account has been "frozen" and I need to provide an ID.
I'll try to do a screenshot later on...

Thanks @hirihit640@sh.itjust.works nice I'll read that !
but you should not use the word DarkNet (that's for the mainstream media, to scary peoples to use Tor ! DarkNet sound like is for shady peoples only XD )

You mean posting on lemmy for example ?

Man, dig up a little, all the major free e-mail provider come with this limitation

oh sorry for the broken link (they were not supposed to be link but header only... I'll fix that )

Correct ! thanks I've updated the list.

"Funny"

and I didn't even received a message telling me why :)

I'm working on it, I'll PM you.

I don't understand your wording of what that limitation is.

My best guess would be that you mean you want to use a custom domain for the email address..?

for me it sounds like you actually do not want to communicate via E-Mail (for obvious reasons) but require one for registering with a service that you actually want to use.
Can't you use a throw away E-Mail to register at the service? Something like the anonbox from the Chao Computer Club: https://www.anonbox.net/de/

That way you can create an account with a throw-away Email and then use the account without any linking to you. But be sure to use an anonymuous, non-trackable wayy when creating this throw-away mail and also while using the service you are registering for.

So I rephrase,
it means that if you subscribe to another web service/website ( F*cebook, mastodon ...) whatever and you receive an email to confirm your registration with that service, the email provider will block, freeze, or ban you. \

I hope it's more clear now

cock.li

I have been trying to come up with a solution that retains anonymity while also preventing spam/scam/etc for a while now. I have a few ideas, but feel there's room for improvements.Im'm up for discussing related ideas.

You mean it's going to scare off all the Karens and the corporations that have already enshittified the clearweb? Don't threaten me with a good time! "Darkweb" it is for me!

Yeah I use mullvad.

Thank you, that makes more sense. Proton has an article on this (https://proton.me/support/human-verification) and it does imply your use of tor will trigger it (as opposed to only requiring captcha).

My only 3 ideas are:

1. Some search results indicate that upgrading to a paid account removes this issue on proton, but it seems the wording for this on the page above was removed. If you're willing to try spending some money on it you can try upgrading the proton account with crypto (buy bitcoin with monero?) and pay for a month?

2. Try if they accept adding a verification email from an anonymous provider, or another provider which would do this?

3. If you plan on/have the option to go on a holiday check which countries allow buying prepaid SIM cards for cash without ID and pick one up to pass the verification on one of these providers?

you could say "I use a VPN"..

VPN service: Requires trusting a single provider; not as anonymous as Tor; browser fingerprint differs from Tor’s
VPN paid service: not anonymous if you paid with Fiat XD

XD
I think it might frighten people to use privacy centered network like Tor is we call them DarkNet..

Thanks for your 3 propositions 👍

1. so paid, can only be with an anonymous crypto like Monero otherwise it's pointless
2. can you rephrase ?
3. That's an ideas, but one might need to create new e-mail every week :)

👍 I just tried
Too bad the domain name are vulgar (not helping the cause)
You can directly receive e-mail that really good
Sadly the PoW is bugy, and I dind;t manage to enable the SMTP (sending email)

On 1, would it not work if you created a new bitcoin wallet, then bought bitcoin with monero and used that bitcoin to pay? I understand BTC isn't anonymous, but if you fund the wallet only with BTC purchased via monero and don't re-use the wallet it shouldn't identify you.

On 2, I meant to test if proton mail (or one of the other providers where the only issue is needing another email address) accepts adding a verification email address to the proton account (which in theory passes the human verification check), where the verification email address is from for example disroot, or from one of the anonymous mail providers. Basically just a test if the human verification check can be circumvented with another provider that would do the human verification check or similar, maybe there is a gap in the validation for one of them.

Does that make sense?

Either way, if you need this to be anonymous and also rotate the account with a high frequency like weekly, probably neither of those will remain feasible even if one of them would maybe work once.

I think you’re making some critical errors in this reply. If you make personal privacy or security decisions based on its content, it’s probably a very good idea to reevaluate them with a clear and honest outlook.

It is easier to develop trust of a single provider than to develop trust of a random decentralized network of providers in a system that has been under confirmed attack for at least 15 years.

Browser fingerprinting can be defeated or manipulated in many ways to accomplish different goals outside of either using tor or a vpn.

Cash may not be under active surveillance and provides fantastic anonymity if you are capable of handling it appropriately. Even if you are not, investigating cash transactions is incredibly expensive, cumbersome, time sensitive and is defeated by a million simple methods that have been in practice for millennia.