On 9/27/2016 9:57 AM, blobby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
I can't say about Gmail today (I hope you're not trying to use it w/ Tor, hoping for anonymity). But w/ other login sites that balked at Tor, forcing a exit relay in same country that you signed up from, sometimes fixed the messages like, "We've detected unusual behavior... Give us your home phone & address & we'll call you." :D Sometimes even Startpage, DDG, etc. will pop a captcha. I wonder why, until I look at the exit country & it's China or Uzbekistan or such. After I change that to a country less known for cybercrime, no more capthcas on those sites.This is exactly my issue. If I login to my Gmail or FB account then invariably Gmail or FB thinks I am a suspicious person hence "Something seems a bit different about the way you're trying to sign in. Complete the step below to let us know it's you and not someone pretending to be you" or worse "Google couldn't verify it's you, so you can't sign in to this account right now." In the FB case, I am asked to identify my "friends" half of whom have baby photos or the image is unclear.. Sometimes I get them wrong and am locked out for a few hours. And this is when connecting via the FB .onion address. IMO, and I am curious to know what Alec thinks, Google, FB, etc are creating far too many false positives. Googling "Something seems a bit different about the way you're trying to sign in" results in numerous cases where innocent users have been locked out. Two questions: Is there a way that using an exit node for Gmail, FB, etc will not be considered suspicious? Is that even possible?
Probably depends on the proxy. You could try, but I'm guessing that's what a lot of spammers & scammers try. Gmail has pretty strict rules to try & prevent fraud (keep a good reputation). They don't want to lose many users, or they don't get to scan the email & scrape the private data. Would be financial loss, so they don't want other ISPs or sites blocking gmail.Is it possible to use a different proxy way to access Gmail, FB, etc without being seen as suspicious? For example, one could use proxychains with Tor followed by a SOCKS proxy to login.
It's hard to sign up for gmail w/ Tor. They want SMS authentication, which is usually going to blow most users' anonymity. By contrast, if you create an acct w/ non-Tor browser, then access it w/ TBB, that accomplishes nothing - as for anonymity.
Only creating an acct w/ TBB & then *never* accessing it w/ anything else (& not having addons or plugins that might leak IPa) will accomplish anonymity. For Tor Browser email, it just seems a better idea to start w/ a provider that's both Tor friendly AND privacy / security conscious. That's not google.
Even then, I'm not sure. What if you get an email - via TBB, that mentions your real name, or is from someone in your town - using their real IPa - saying, "come on over tonight, to 123 Oak St.," or gives their phone #, etc.? Then the mail provider effectively knows which town you live in, at minimum. The right agencies can then cross reference that person's contacts - if they want. And then probably the national security agency know all that.
In both cases above (exit node and exit node plus SOCKS) we assume that the IP address more or less matches the "normal" non-proxy login. I am in Paris and use a Paris exit node and a Paris SOCKS proxy for example. Finally, thanks for participating in this discussion. It is rare to have people who work or used to work at the major webmail and social media companies from a) getting involved and b) providing a nuanced (not anti-Tor) perspective.
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