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
this legit feels illegal/criminal. aren't those accounts stolen or made through identity theft?
Not necessarily. Protonmail will happily let you create an account if you don't use a VPN or Tor. Such accounts are tied to your IP, so you can't create too many of them, which is all Protonmail cares about, since spam accounts reduce the trustworthiness of their email service. I really doubt sellers are going through efforts to steal accounts, if they can just make them for free at a coffee shop.
Darknet markets create a system where people can create accounts non-anonymously, and convert them into anonymous accounts by selling them to others. I wish this were more common. For example I'd love to be able to pay for an anonymous Youtube Premium account
Can't you just go somewhere that has public wifi and set up a Proton account from there? No VPN and they dont have your IP.
Could work in some cases, though if the feds were trying to track you down they'd have approximate location + surveillance camera footage to work from. As I said in other comments, the posted method works for extreme threat profiles
But they have a rough idea about where you come from
yes so that's the part where identity theft is used
So, I undetood what you were saying. It's weird how few others did. You have no way of knowing whether these were created by the person selling them (doubtful) or they used someone else's identity without their permission.
"using somebody else's identity" on it's own would not help here. To create a Protonmail account, you would either need a non-VPN IP, or access to a phone number or secondary email. You can't just plug in somebody else's name and address. The seller could try to hack other people's accounts, but in my mind it's much easier for them to create accounts legitimately using their own phone #, or at a coffee shop.
yeah this.. you can't know for sure the person selling you the account is the one who made the account, or the one who provided the personal information to create that account.
i highly doubt there are many people who even know where to sell their own created online accounts and monetize them. these accounts being sold at scale very likely seems like accounts that are literally stolen or created with stolen personal information.
of course, i'm not saying violating ToS is illegal or whatever bs. i hate those PII monetizing big tech as much as any other fediverse user.
is that legally identity theft? Creating accounts and then transferring them to others? I'm sure it violates ToS but I wasn't aware that it was illegal
It varies by jurisdiction but if the reseller you bought from is selling you an account used by some other person for some personally identifiable thing (which is why the internet at large trusts that account and why you bought it!) then you’re at the very least toeing the line of Id theft or impersonation and while the cops might not be able to get you for that particular crime they will absolutely have enough suspicion to investigate you and discover other crimes or even just watchlist you.
I don’t care if you break the law from a moral or ethical standpoint, but it can cause you problems from a practical one.
the internet trusts protonmail because protonmail adds barriers to prevent unlimited spam accounts from being created. Those barriers are IP, phone number, and secondary email. Darknet markets simply provide an alternative path: monetary. But monetary is still a barrier, and prevents spam accounts as well. So imo society should still "trust" it. In other words, a monetary barrier achieves sybil resistance without sacrificing privacy, and I'm all in support of that.
You are not following the point I’m making:
The account you buy on the darknet works because the rest of the internet already associated it with an identity. That means law enforcement has cause to investigate the new user for impersonation or id theft. It doesn’t matter if they can’t get you for id theft or impersonation on a technicality, they’re already investigating you at that point! Law enforcement attention is what you don’t want!
It’s like using your neighbors car with an expired tag because you don’t want to have your car show up on the highway cameras.
with dragnet surveillance, law enforcement is already investigating everybody. The purpose of buying it on the darknet is that it's anonymous, so it doesn't matter if law enforcement investigates it.
that's not what i'm talking about. i mean, the one who sold you the account is very likely not the one who provided the personal information to create the account. it's very hard to create those online accounts at scale with few people's personal information, so identity theft is widely utilized to mitigate that.
I think you overestimate the scale. Last I checked there were only like 3-4 sellers. They could easily be making these accounts themselves. If the scale grew larger, people in poorer countries would see it as a way to make a quick buck, and start selling them as well. And if the scale grew to an enormous size, Protonmail would probably just start accepting crypto instead of just letting darknet sellers make all the money.
i've seen far more. maybe there's not many on the specific forum/website you're looking at, but there are many criminals on dark web forums selling directly stolen accounts or accounts generated with stolen PIIs. in this case it is definitely illegal/criminal, and this post may be seen as endorsing such cases.
interesting, I have not seen that before but if it helps, no I don't endorse stealing accounts or buying stolen accounts. Given how easy it is to make a (non-anonymous) Protonmail account I'm inclined to believe that most accounts sold are legitimate, but one should always practice best judgement when browsing the darknet
Yeah the word “theft” usually connotes harm via taking away the possession of another. Identity sale or even light identity “fraud” if you’re being pedantic, but hardly theft if the originator of the account is knowingly transferring it away from themselves, especially for monetary gain.
either you didn't get the idea, or you don't know what's identity theft