I’m in a bind at work and there are some illegal things going on. I want to report them and share documents, but I don’t want to have it be trackable back to myself. I figure my Gmail and work email accounts are therefore non-starters. How can I sign up for a truly anonymous email address for this purpose?
Anonymity has proven a bit of a mixed blessing when it comes to the Internet. Too many people with malicious or criminal intent hide behind anonymity to be rude, mean, and hateful, not to mention spammers and scammers. On the other hand, there are times – like when you’re poised to blow the proverbial whistle on illegal practices – where it can be quite helpful to be able to interact with law enforcement or other agencies without being identified. If you’re paranoid about being tracked, this is also going to be a topic of great interest too.
The challenge is that the Internet never forgets, so if you set up an anonymous email address, don’t then test it by sending yourself a message from your regular Gmail or work account. Somewhere, somehow, that message will be logged and ostensibly discoverable, even if you delete it from your own sent folder. (Having said that, I’ll demonstrate how to send email to and from an anonymous account to illustrate how it works later in this tutorial!)
BECOME ANONYMOUS WITH PROTONMAIL
One of the premier choices for setting up email accounts with no links back to your own identity is Protonmail. Proton AG is an Internet company based in Switzerland that’s been around since 2014 and has become one of the world’s leading privacy companies, used by millions globally, as they state. It’s certainly easy to work with! Start by going to proton.me. Here’s the first screen you’ll see:
You can see that there are fair number of different services offered, including a VPN, but we’re most interested in Mail. Proceed by clicking on “Create a free account“. Oh, speaking of VPN, it’d be useful for you to have one so you can mask your own (home or work) IP address. If you don’t have one – and I recommend ExpressVPN – then consider using a public computer like one at the public library to help with anonymity.
SIGNING UP FOR A PROTON ACCOUNT
The signup process has a few steps, but it’s not particularly onerous. Start by specifying your desired username (which has to be unique, so odds are you might have to be creative to get past this step!) and a memorable password:
You can see that I have a pretty darn long password. Longer is always better with passwords! I’ve chosen “somesemirandomguy@proton.me” as my anonymous email address. By indicating that in this article, of course, I defeat the entire purpose, but you won’t be sharing that you’ve set up your new address, so it won’t be instantly compromised! 🙂
Click on “Create account” to proceed. It’ll have you jump through some CAPTCHA hoops to prove you’re human, then invite you to set a display name:
I’m going to just use “some semi-random guy” (adding the spaces and hyphen) but you can specify whatever you want or just leave it untouched.
Then Proton invites you to set up recovery information, which you probably won’t want to do:
Why wouldn’t you want to do that? Because whatever Proton’s privacy rules are, a court subpoena can be a tough thing to fight (if applicable) so the better move is to choose “Maybe later” rather than tie your new anonymous Protonmail account with your existing cellphone or email address.
You can set up an anonymous phone number through services like Google Voice, but now we’re just getting Hollywood blockbuster-level complex, without any obvious benefits. Just set a password you won’t forget.
Protonmail gets a bit testy about skipping these items:
It’s okay, just remember your password!
Click “Confirm“.
A FEW MORE SETUP OPTIONS IN PROTONMAIL
Gmail, it turns out, allows email sent to you to retain tracking links and what’s known as pixel trackers. Hate that feature? You can auto-forward all your Gmail messages to your Protonmail account, as it helpfully explains:
Nice, but this does again establish a link between a Gmail address and the new Proton AG address, so I’d suggest you skip this particular step by clicking on “Skip“.
Finally, you’re set up!
Turns out that Protonmail looks a whole lot like Gmail, as it happens.
HOW TO USE PROTONMAIL
For maximal anonymity, you’re already using a VPN to protect your identity and location during this process and every time you’d connect to your new Protonmail account, right? Your new inbox looks like this:
Quite attractive, actually, and who doesn’t like purple and lavender?
At this point you’re all set up and ready to use this to send or receive email anonymously. What you don’t want to do is send yourself or any of your friends test email messages, or have them send you test messages. Just trust it works.
I’m not under the same constraints, however, so I’ll try both sending a message to my Gmail account and sending one from Gmail to my new Proton.me address. Let’s start with the latter. Here’s what Protonmail shows:
Notice that the padlock icon adjacent to the From address indicates that it’s an encrypted message. Nice. But that generally applies to the content, not the “envelope”. Like a 70s spy thriller, you can encode the contents of a message, but if the system can’t read the recipient info, it ain’t going to be delivered! The implication of this is that there’s a log somewhere, on some server, that notes address XX sent an email to address YY.
What about the other way? If I send a message to my Gmail address from my Proton account, what does it look like in the Gmail inbox?
In this instance, I’ve shown the “more info” box superimposed over the message so you can see more detail. Notice that the sender is “some semi-random guy” with no further information about the sender, their location, proper name, etc. Mission accomplished, Mr. Phelps. Good luck with your situation!
Tip: I’ve written a lot of fun and interesting tech articles here on this site. Please check out my Tech Help Library to see what’s available for your education and edification.