HACKER Q&A
📣 Kuifeng

How would you register a domain anonymously?


Not with the intention of using it for anything illegal. Your threat model is not the US government or any three letter agencies. Let us propose that your adversary is a determined media organization or some other corporate entity that has the budget to easily approach an employee or employees of a domain registration company with something an offer of something like $50-100K or more in return for the name of the domain registrant. All it would take is for one employee to take that offer.

So how would you do it?

  👤 el_dev_hell Accepted Answer ✓
I remember Njalla (https://njal.la/) being popular a few years ago. They seem to take cryptocurrency and require no details past an email address.
👤 __d
Get a DID from from a SIP provider. Use that number to confirm a GMail account. Use any DNS retailer to buy a domain using a false name, your new GMail account, and a debit gift card.

But really, then you have to host it, and manage it, and ... the DNS is really not the hardest of your problems when your adversary has "$50-100k or more" to spend on finding you.

👤 dlsa
Alex Jones, is that you?

The degree of censorship in play right now is breathtaking. I've spoken to some youtube content creators and they are wary of multiple keywords. One mishap either deserved or not can nuke your channel. Without much explanation. Or recourse to resolve it in any useful way.

Domain registration is just one element. Next you'll need web servers, email etc. Hiding details as seen by WHOIS is an obvious protection that isn’t rare anymore.

👤 ianpurton
You can buy domain names from namecheap using bitcoin.

You can then use a fake email for registration and fake address details.

👤 Sevii
Just use IPFS. Domains won’t even be revocable for much longer.