Now in the previous lectures, we covered different types of email providers.
Within each type there are a number of providers, and each one of these providers could have their
own pros and cons.
Therefore, at this stage I wouldn't blame you if you feel a little bit confused or find it a little
bit difficult to pick, which is best for you.
Now, the reason why I covered so many different types, because I think each one of these types is
different from the other and one all of these types can be very, very useful because you'll be able
to pick which is best based on your scenario.
So as I mentioned at the start of the section, when you want to pick an email service, you want to
keep two main things in your mind.
Why do you want to use this service and what's your threat model?
Who might be trying to anonymize you or discover your location?
Keeping that in mind and in order to revise and make it easier for you to pick a good email provider
based on your scenario, I made this simple table that summarizes everything we talked about so far.
Now, the main thing you keep in mind is as we go down in this table, the provider type will be more
private, more secure, and therefore more anonymous.
But it will have less features.
So like I said, it all comes down to why you want to use it for and what's your threat model.
So the first type of providers we had look on where the common services such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo
Mail and all of that.
These email providers can send emails to the clear net and to the darknet.
As we saw.
They all use JavaScript so they are less secure.
We know that they heavily track you and log everything you do, so they are not private.
Like I said, if you really want to use this, you want to make sure that you use fake identity and
never communicate with your own email addresses or any other email addresses that can link to your real
identity.
They do not offer a hidden onion service link and they do use HTTPS encryption.
So these were the base.
Then the other example we had was the temporary emails, which in my opinion can be very, very useful
in so many scenarios.
Like we said, they don't require any personal information to sign up.
There is no sign up.
You literally get an inbox straight away and you can use it so you can have unlimited number of emails
because you're never asked to sign up.
They are more private and more anonymous than the normal email providers.
They do use JavaScript, so again, they're not as secure as possible.
They might be log in you.
But the cool thing is some of them offer a hidden service.
So you never need to exit the Tor network when you're using them.
And they also use HTTPS to add an extra layer of encryption.
So this is a really, really good option if you know what you're doing, if you just want a temporary
email to send, to send something quickly, to receive something quickly, and this and this will actually
be destroyed once you're done with it.
So it can be anonymous enough.
It can be great in so many scenarios, again, if you're trying to just bypass a registration form and
so on.
The next email providers that we had to look on were the privacy focused or what I called hybrid services
so they can communicate with clear net and darknet services.
They they have a lot of nice features.
What really differentiates them from the common services such as Gmail, Yahoo and all of that is the
fact that they will not track you.
They won't be log in your movement.
They don't require personal information.
Like I said, these are privacy focused.
Some of them will even have a darknet address.
So again, you can access them without exiting the Tor network, which will improve your privacy and
anonymity.
Some of them use end to end encryption again.
In our example, Protonmail uses end to end encryption.
So like I said, even if they wanted to see what you're doing, they won't be able to see it.
The only problem with these providers is the fact that they are real, proper companies.
They have servers on the clear net and they have complied to court orders and disclosed information
about their users previously.
Now, like I said, they keep no logs and they require no personal information and they use end to end
encryption.
So the amount of information they can share is limited because they don't know a lot.
But again, the fact that they do comply sometimes puts them in second place in terms of anonymity.
The other thing that you want to keep in mind is the fact that they require JavaScript.
So when you use them, you need to have your security settings in the Tor browser to medium, which
is not very secure.
But if you're using Protonmail or any other reputable email provider, and if that email provider is
used in https, then it is secure enough to enable JavaScript and the medium level.
But again, this is still not as secure and as anonymous as possible.
This led us to the last email providers which are completely available on the darknet.
They have no clear net addresses.
So again, when you use them, you never exit the terror network.
This increases your privacy and anonymity.
They also do not require JavaScript, so you can put your security settings to the highest where JavaScript
and all of the other features of the browser are disabled that can be used to reduce your security or
anonymize you.
Some of these providers allow you to communicate with both clear net and Darknet addresses, such as
Elude.
And we also had an example of Tor Box, which is a provider that only allows you to communicate with
Darknet addresses.
Now this is great because like I said, it keeps you limited and it keeps you as anonymous as possible.
Now it goes without saying that none of these services track you.
None of them keep logs because they run as onion services.
They make full use of the privacy provided by Tor.
And on top of that, some providers such as ELUDE provides end to end encryption and even personally
encrypt the storage that stores your emails.
And again, because these are Darknet services, the location of their servers is unknown and they're
less likely to comply with court orders or to get influenced by government agencies and so on.
Now, like I said, the examples that I'm giving you in here, these are just single examples of the
categories that we see here on the left.
So do your own research if you want to learn more about each one of these categories and don't just
take my word for granted.
Go read the privacy policy, read the history of each of these companies.
Make sure that this company or this provider is the best for you, for your scenario, and only then
start using it.