Is anyone interested sharing an email domain FOR privacy?

nerolniwroc · 4 Nov 2022, 03:17 AM

I know it sounds odd, but hear me out.

There's this concept called "linkability", where organizations and 3 letter agencies can connect your identity across multiple accounts/services once they can link it to you. The easiest example is the one where you use the same email address across all services. When you extend to the use case where you have multiple email accounts on your domain, this is still possible but harder.

What I'd like to do is to make this even harder and share a single email domain across a few users (maybe between 5-10).

I know that this comes up with it's own set of issues, but if anyone is interested in using this to see if it works, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Where will we host the email? I don't have a great answer, but primarily I was thinking that we used a third party service that we all can use easily instead of something self hosted (Think pobox, but we can consider cheaper options too)

Thoughts? Anyone interested?

ioneja · 16 Nov 2022, 11:59 PM

I like the idea in theory, I've done something like this with extended family before. Something like this requires a high degree of trust if any important accounts are involved. But yeah it's doable among people who know each other and trust each other. However, I will say that every time I've tried to do something like that, the effort fizzles and the group fades.

Also this potential "linkability" factor you mention can be associated with that group anyway... thus adding a potential dimension of profiling which is probably not desirable either, even though it may help obfuscate other dimensions of profiling as you point out. Ultimately, I'd say the trust factor and group association aspect (plus the fade factor I've experienced) combine to negate the potential benefits.

I think you'd do better to take advantage of the many domains that are available at some hosting providers such as FastMail (which has dozens of optional domains for aliases) or use something like SimpleLogin and use their domains, and/or mix it up with some of your own domains spread around at different providers you trust.

The profiling algorithms are very complex and track all sorts of info about you, as I'm sure you know, down to your computer/device fingerprint, so you'll never 100% get away from it, but you can spread yourself around and use services that have better privacy policies, use blockers, VPNs, etc., and use various alias options out there and it can help to some degree. Good luck with it and let us know what you decide to do!

4 Nov 2022, 03:17 AM	#1
nerolniwroc Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2013 Posts: 19	Is anyone interested sharing an email domain FOR privacy? I know it sounds odd, but hear me out. There's this concept called "linkability", where organizations and 3 letter agencies can connect your identity across multiple accounts/services once they can link it to you. The easiest example is the one where you use the same email address across all services. When you extend to the use case where you have multiple email accounts on your domain, this is still possible but harder. What I'd like to do is to make this even harder and share a single email domain across a few users (maybe between 5-10). I know that this comes up with it's own set of issues, but if anyone is interested in using this to see if it works, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Where will we host the email? I don't have a great answer, but primarily I was thinking that we used a third party service that we all can use easily instead of something self hosted (Think pobox, but we can consider cheaper options too) Thoughts? Anyone interested?

16 Nov 2022, 11:59 PM	#2
ioneja Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 713	I like the idea in theory, I've done something like this with extended family before. Something like this requires a high degree of trust if any important accounts are involved. But yeah it's doable among people who know each other and trust each other. However, I will say that every time I've tried to do something like that, the effort fizzles and the group fades. Also this potential "linkability" factor you mention can be associated with that group anyway... thus adding a potential dimension of profiling which is probably not desirable either, even though it may help obfuscate other dimensions of profiling as you point out. Ultimately, I'd say the trust factor and group association aspect (plus the fade factor I've experienced) combine to negate the potential benefits. I think you'd do better to take advantage of the many domains that are available at some hosting providers such as FastMail (which has dozens of optional domains for aliases) or use something like SimpleLogin and use their domains, and/or mix it up with some of your own domains spread around at different providers you trust. The profiling algorithms are very complex and track all sorts of info about you, as I'm sure you know, down to your computer/device fingerprint, so you'll never 100% get away from it, but you can spread yourself around and use services that have better privacy policies, use blockers, VPNs, etc., and use various alias options out there and it can help to some degree. Good luck with it and let us know what you decide to do!