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
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
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.