Before you ask: no, I'm not "up to no good in my neighborhood" - just that given the toxicity of the world out there, I simply want to use the best tools to protect my privacy as much as possible (ie. plan ahead).
I know many registrars have the usual 'privacy shield' options (sometimes for free) that will provide an anonymized whois listing (with custom registrar-provided email address for forwarding, etc.), but I'm wondering what other, better tools others might provide (for example, I've seen one that offers full snail mail and fax forwarding as well).
I'm also looking for something that, ideally, has a track record of providing strong protections, either through security, and/or through their processes. For example, I wouldn't want to use a registrar where an employee could easily be bought out to expose private information, or one that would do so without any proper vetting or pushback (if, say, a troll decided to be a nuisance and put in unwarranted requests for that info).
Of course, I fully realize that most, if not all, registrars will ultimately require valid identity, and would have to comply with valid and warranted requests, should these ever occur.
What registrar(s) do you use or would recommend, and what tools and features do they have to enhance privacy?
From [2] it looks like they already cooperate with bunch of websites which some powers would like shut down.
In [3] Gottfrid Svartholm (co-founder of thepiratebay together with Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij) claims he's hosting all kinds of naughty contents.
In [4] Peter describes some loopholes he's using to achieve his goals, for example registering a religion to use existing privacy laws in his favor.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26326795
[2]: https://njal.la/blog/we-dont-have-enemies/
- do you lean toward liberal or conservative?
- what is your threat model? twitter users or do you plan on pissing off a nation state? also, what country are you in?
- do you have the knowledge to acquire or use cryptocurrency?
- how much would you trust a registrar?
- are you trying to buy one domain for a blog where you will potentially offend someone, or are you looking for an all in "form offshore limited company and have the domain and hosting purchased by that"?
- can you afford paying 3-8x what a normal domain would cost to pick a "better" registrar?
Though from what i have read i have liked cloudflare's stance against free speech. Piracy is another matter though. That is if they get a court order they will likely boot you off, Though pirate bay has had success running on cloudflare for a long while.
If you plan to host something risky, cloudflare is probably not your bet, though if you were just being cautious cloudflare is good enough