Most of the Lemmy instances seem to require an email to sign up. That’s fine, except most of the places you would go to sign up for email want you to… already have an email. And often a phone number. And almost always a first name, last name, and birthday.
I promise not to do bad stuff, but I don’t want that sort of information able to be publicly associated with my accounts where I write stuff, when everyone inevitably loses their databases to hackers. Pseudonymity is good, actually; on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog, etc.
Is anyone doing normal webmail registration anymore? Set username and password, receive email for free? I don’t even need to send anything to sign up for accounts elsewhere.
This is why you should have an anonymous email for non-proffesional use. Or if you want to take it further, you could use something like SimpleLogin (and similar) that create a new alias for every mail. Or you could get a domain with a catch all.
If you want no email at all. Then why? Just because they’ve got your email doesn’t mean they have all the data your mail provider has. You could just open a free Proton or so if you’re worried about big tech mailservices. Unless you worry about the police getting themselves a court order to get that info, but then whatever you plan to post likely shouldn’t be on a public forum to start with.
Beside, most free email providers don’t require any info that needs to be verified, so you can insert bullshit. Or if you don’t trust any of them, host your own mailserver. But the fact that you’ll need a domain might be more telling than just using a mail provider.
If anything, the fact we use email to verify people in the west is already kinda dumb, as it’s easy to make a fake one to spam or for bots. In most of Asia I’ve been to they use phone numbers which is more secure, but less privacy friendly (altrough you could still get yourself a trow away prepaid sim).
The threat model here is someone getting access to all the services databases through now-routine “data breaches”, and then being able to link what I do online and who I actually am, despite not having any sort of legitimate law-enforcement-type power.
In that case, something like SimpleLogin would secure you from this specific treat model. The whole point of that is to have a unique email for each service.
A catch all on a domain could also, since people don’t need to know it’s a catch all and everything leads to your mailbox. But it would require a domain likely linkable to you.
If you’re worried about your mail provider getting a data breach, then you’re stuck to a free account with bullshit info and trow something like SimpleLogin over that. Most paid accounts require some sort of verifiable info.
There are no doubt more services that do the same aliasing kinda stuff, SimpleLogin simply comes to mind as an example of what kind of service you need. In fact, I dunno if it’s free or payable witbout tracking (ie likely crypto).
A bunch of fake bullshit emails on free accounts are also an option ofc. As in, one fake account per service you use. I guess that would be the hardest to trace, unless a hacker is getting into the providers servers and check logs for login time, IP, cookies, general browser fingerprinting etc. Or easier, into your device. But then, this also matters when visiting anything online including Lemmy instances. Of course, you can also try to secure yourself against this too, but there is always a next step or provider that cóúld be exploited.
Question is really, how far do you wanna go? Assuming everything cán be breached and shouldn’t be trusted without looking at the likeliness of the databreach(es) needed (as in some cases multiple servi es need to be breached to specific levels): does it seem likely you’re new boss (or whatever) will actually take this effort to look for and link al that data and how much effort is it worth. To go with your use-case, I doubt the average bus driver would be screened that harsly.
Not to forget most hacks still happen by social engineering. You could have the most secure set-up ever, then screw it up by saying something stupid once to the wrong person.
In the end, the savest bet against this is to stay of the internet. There is always something that could be a treat, be it difficult to exploit (or not).
I commend you for thinking about privacy like this tho. It’s a fun topic, no matter if it’s overboard for this use-case or not. It’s always good to look into what’s possible. Just don’t forget the “what’s realistic” and “what’s worth it” part (which also depends on the use-case).