Hello I read the thread about email providers blocking registration/signup through Tor, and I have experienced the same problem on some forums.
But the regime often seems to be arbitrarily enforced -- you can't register from a Tor exit node, but a VPN or simple web proxy will do. Alsosome services flag sign up from certain geographical locations or IP ranges belonging to hosting providers but don't mind ordinary use through Tor, VPN or web proxies. I have for some time thought that the solution might be a project similar to BugMeNot or people collaborating across borders. For example, a European or Asian needs an account on a social network, email service or forum but doesn't want his IP exposed and and doesn't want expose to the admins that he is using Tor. He may want to have the signup go through a residential IP in country X, because he for one reason or another needs plausible deniability. If the signup goes through a "normal" residential non-Tor IP, but ordinary use goes through Tor, the user can later claim plausible deniability. - Yes, I signed up for the account several years ago, but I don't recognize subsequent logins through Tor so the subversive political or social commentary was not by me but made by someone abusing my account. if the registration and ordinary use is divided over multiple legal jurisdictions with differing data retention regimes, it will be very hard and expensive to prove anything. Add to this that legally an IP address is not a person, and that the owner of the IP from which the signup was done would not necessarily be held responsible for how the account is used. Some countries either have no mandatory data retention or nonly very short. I can see several benefits in such an approach, plausible deniability for both the person using the account and plausible deniability for the one "lending" out his IP. Only a forensic examination conducted on all equipment owned by the lender of the IP shortly after the signup would reveal anything. Is there any reason why such a privacy service does not exist? People could make it profittable by doing registration on demand for bitcoins. If you dont want your own home IP associated with your collaboration, possible solutions include: Doing the registration from public libraries, disposable sim cards with internet access, neighbor's/friend's wifi, workplace, school or other institution with an IP not likely to be flagged as problematic by the service. What's your thoughts? _______________________________________________ tor-talk mailing list [email protected] https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
