Anonymous mail to police

[AnonymousMan]

Hi. I would like to send an anonymouse e-mail to police. I created a special Protonmail account for this. However I am not sure if they can track me somehow. Is it enough that I use free ProtonVPN to hide my IP? I would do this from the place where I live as there is the damn coronavirus quarantine in my country.

Thanks.

[icecream-guy]

well, now that you signed up for an account here, and asked that question, a good detective could find you out.

[AnonymousMan]

Email assigned to this account has nothing to do with the email from which I will be sending to police.
So, has anyone a good answer to my question?
My main consern here is this: is it possible to track my real IP even if I use ProtonVPN (free version) ?

[deanwebb]

Email assigned to this account has nothing to do with the email from which I will be sending to police.
So, has anyone a good answer to my question?
My main consern here is this: is it possible to track my real IP even if I use ProtonVPN (free version) ?

Yes. While the VPN may hide the IP address, the provider of the email address will still have to surrender records pursuant to an investigation that would indicate the owner of said email. Local ISP login/logout data can also be correlated to the message itself, giving an idea about possible matching accounts.

Basically, if you want to do something anonymously, don't use the Internet.

[dlots]

So it's not impossible to find you, but VPN to Country A, sign up for an email who's company/servers are in country B (A and B aren't friendly to US)

[deanwebb]

So it's not impossible to find you, but VPN to Country A, sign up for an email who's company/servers are in country B (A and B aren't friendly to US)

But, at such a point, we have to ask if this person is engaging in criminal activity. If so, we have to draw the line here - we're not advocating legal circumvention - and it's important to underline that *it's not impossible to find you.*

Consider that the SilkRoad guy got taken down, and so have other people who supposed they were able to remain anonymous on the Internet. ***If you want to remain anonymous, don't involve the Internet!***