cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/12515826

I’m looking for an email service that issues email addresses with an onion variant. E.g. so users can send a message with headers like this:

From: replyIfYouCan@hi3ftg6fgasaquw6c3itzif4lc2upj5fanccoctd5p7xrgrsq7wjnoqd.onion  
To: someoneElse@clearnet_addy.com

I wonder if any servers in the onionmail.info pool of providers can do this. Many of them have VMAT, which converts onion email addresses to clearnet addresses (not what I want). The docs are vague. They say how to enable VMAT (which is enabled by default anyway), and neglect to mention how to disable VMAT. Is it even possible to disable VMAT? Or is there a server which does not implement VMAT, which would send msgs to clearnet users that have onion FROM addresses?

  • Synnr
    1·
    10 months ago

    What you’re looking for isn’t possible unless the email service is also running tor. .onion is not a valid .TLD, so DNS lookup would fail, ending the chain there. You can have mailhost.onion sending and receiving emails to users from mailhost.onion.xyz, and you can have mailhost.onion sending and receiving to and from mailhoster2.onion, but you’ll never achieve Gmail receiving or replying .onion. It’s just not possible.

    • freedomPusherOP
      1·
      10 months ago

      so DNS lookup would fail

      DNS lookup on the onion address is only essential on replies to an onion recipient, not reception by a clearnet recipient. I expect replies to not work in general. That’s actually the point in some use cases. I am happy to tell my comrades how to reply.

      First and foremost w.r.t Google, I do not require Google to receive my email. I made no mention of gmail in that post because my question is not particular to any specific receiving server. But regarding gmail, I have sent lots of messages to gmail recipients using spoofed FROM addresses in the past. Gmail is fussy sometimes but Google does not expect the FROM address to resolve to the domain of the sending mail server. It’s a moot point as well because I’ve lost interest in emailing recipients in the walled gardens of Google or Microsoft.

      I have also sent email with absolute rubbish nonsense in the FROM field. IIRC, the RFCs only require that the FROM addresses be a syntactically valid email address. It need not function for the purpose of facilitating in-band replies.

      you’ll never achieve Gmail receiving or replying .onion. It’s just not possible.

      Actually it is technologically feasible. Google chooses not to configure their server to handle email outbound to onion recipients, and that’s fair enough. My workflow is very deliberately not influenced by Google’s decision making, apart from recipients losing the option to receive email from me. I will not dance for google or go through google’s hoops.

      • Synnr
        2·
        10 months ago

        I used Gmail in the example because they’re the largest free email host. Replace gmail with yahoo or AOL or hotmail or mylittlevpsmail.com.

        Of course it’s possible if they chose to implement tor, but that’s a moot point, it’s such a niche case that any email host is unlikely to ever get that request once in their career. And you will not be able to send those random FROM: president@whitehouse.gov emails any longer with any host domain that has set up proper SPF/DKIM, which is now required to send to any server that does want to have their emails inboxed to any large provider. Best case is you can an email or three through, but it will have a big red “WARNING: This message did not come from whitehouse.gov” warning.

        So, what are you trying to do? Let people email others on your own .onion domain, but not from/to clearnet? That, plus the ability to email to/from other .onion email services?

        I’m trying to understand what exactly you want to do, because in your initial post it was worded in a way that, to my understanding of your question, isn’t possible unless the internet gets together and starts implementing emailing to/from .onion which is simply not going to happen. You can register an anonymous domain with njalla to use for your clearnet proxy domain, but if it’s not an invite only service, expect to get real familiar with spamhaus and co.

        You may want to look into i2p mail as well.

        • freedomPusherOP
          1·
          10 months ago

          which is now required to send to any server that does want to have their emails inboxed to any large provider. Best case is you can an email or three through, but it will have a big red “WARNING: This message did not come from whitehouse.gov” warning.

          I assume by “inboxed” you mean the best treatment. It would be nice to reach inboxes, but (depending on the situation) making it to a spam box is often good enough so long as it’s delivered. Loud warnings are fine as well. False positives for spam reflect poorly on the service that failed. If I tell a Google recipient “oh, you didn’t get my msg? Check your spam.” That’s still a positive because it informs a Google pawn that they chose a service where the nannying caused a legit msg that they would have wanted was treated as spam.

          I don’t send email much at all in recent years but back when I did (2019), some of my contacts became accustomed to my email ending up in their spam box because I will not conform or yield to Google’s abuse of power. This is preferrable because it demonstrates to Google pawns that they have chosen a service where legit msgs don’t always reach the inbox. I am happy to risk my msgs not being seen because that is basically the case today anyway, where I am simply not sending msgs to gmail or outlook recipients.

          So, what are you trying to do? Let people email others on your own .onion domain, but not from/to clearnet? That, plus the ability to email to/from other .onion email services?

          There are lots of use cases here. Consider a bank or company who sends announcement emails. They use an address like “noreply@domain.tld” to send a msg that they expect no replies from. I would also like to send messages that expect no reply. There are countless scenarios here, but just to give a couple:

          • I boycott google and microsoft. A boycott no longer simply means not spending money on those suppliers because /data/ is worth money. When you exchange email with a gmail or MS user, you help a surveillance advertiser profit even if your account is not in those walled gardens. To boycott google and ms requires not sharing data with them, which by extension means not emailing people on those platforms and also preventing them from emailing you by withholding an email address. I’ve maintained this posture for the most part for ~5 years now. But without writing a book here on all the various situations, sometimes I have a slightly pressing need to reach someone and could use a middle-ground option. The compromise cannot allow the recipient to do an in-band reply because those users are the same people who are all too happy to let Google and MS profit from the data. So if they can reply, they can also liberally feed profitable data to Google and MS with total disregard. I will not facilitate that. So I would like to send them a minimal one-way message. If a reply of some kind is useful or needed, I can tell them how to reach me out of band.

          • Digital transformation is being forced on us by the public sector. We can boycott the private sector to some extent but it’s becoming increasingly less viable to interact with gov offices without email, and without sharing an email address. Gov offices have begun ignoring paper correspondence. This is an attack on people who want a right to be analog. Gov offices are also sharing and collecting email addresses with reckless disregard. So they cannot be trusted with your functional email address. There is a need to reach gov servants (who are often in Microsoft’s walled garden but not always) without giving them a way to respond via email. I have already had a situation where I contacted a gov office on paper without disclosing an email address, and then that office did some snooping to get my email address from someone else so that they could email me via MS for their convenience. The info they were emailing was sensitive so it came to the detriment of MS getting sensitive personal info about me. Had it been an onion email address that got leaked to them, it would not have been a problem.

          I’m trying to understand what exactly you want to do, because in your initial post it was worded in a way that, to my understanding of your question, isn’t possible unless the internet gets together and starts implementing emailing to/from .onion which is simply not going to happen.

          Most people neither understand privacy nor value it. So you are correct. But that does not mean that privacy advocates cannot carve out a privacy-respecting workflow for themselves. As it stands, I have managed to force lawyers, accountants, and some friends and family to reach me using some form of e2ee without exposing metadata to surveillance advertisers. It would be nice if everyone on the internet would do the same but my goal is not so ambitious. An onion email address sent to clearnet users would help expand my circle a bit and help bring awareness to the problem. It would give individuals a bit more of the control that they should have to begin with.

          You can register an anonymous domain with njalla to use for your clearnet proxy domain, but if it’s not an invite only service, expect to get real familiar with spamhaus and co.

          I appreciate the tip. If I were to go through hoops necessary to avoid SpamHaus mistreatment, I would then be doing exactly what spamhaus wants and I would then be supporting their bullying by playing the pushover. When Spamhaus’s list is used to block my connection, I simply do not email that address. Which in some cases means I do not reach that other person at all, or in many cases it means they’re getting snail mail from me instead. In situations where SpamHaus data is used to accept my msg but direct it to a spam box, that can be favorable if it’s someone I talk to in other channels. I can say in the next phone conversation: did you get my email? Check your spam box… It’s a good way to increase awareness.

          You may want to look into i2p mail as well.

          I didn’t know i2p had a mail mechanism… i’ll keep that in mind. Can you email clearnet users using it? What address appears in the FROM field?