STONES of PHILLY

Having an email account or two is pretty important these days. Yes, you have IM services, chat, mobile messaging apps, social media etc, but if you want to make it “official”, then you want to pull out that email address.

But before you can do that you will need to do one thing and that is open an email account.

That’s pretty easy to do and you can do it for free using Gmail or Yahoo Mail in just a few moments.

Unfortunately, if you were hoping for a private email account that won’t easily be traced back to you, then you can forget it. That’s not what you are going to get with these three providers.

Why?

Because one of the things they all ask you to give them if you want your new email account is your phone number.

Gmail does it:

Yahoo Mail does it:

Why Providers Want Your Phone Number and Why You’d Want to Create an Email Without Phone Number?

Why do these companies ask for your phone number?

There are a couple of reasons, including:

• To prove that you’re a human and not a robot.
• To give you an easy way to log in to your email account in case you forget the password.
• To provide them an easy way to contact you in case there is suspicious activity on your account.

However, there are also a few reasons why you might want to create an email without phone number.

1. SMS is based on outdated and no longer secure protocol.

SMS is based on the Secure Systems 7 (SS7) protocol from 1975 and the protocol is showing its age. Over the years, several vulnerabilities of the protocol have been discovered, including hackers being able to bypass two-factor authentication (2FA) or tracking mobile phone users.

If a hacker is able to access SS7, they can access any information that you receive via SMS, including in the case of an email, a verification code.

2. A hacker can reset the 2FA verification system.

If the hacker already has access to your email, they can also reset the 2FA verification that you are getting using a dummy phone number and take complete control of your email account.

How to Get an Email Without Phone Number?

So, is it even possible to get email without phone number?

Yes, and we will show you two ways. One is a workaround (and has a few problems) and the other is using an email service that does not require a phone number or SMS verification.

Telios is a decentralized email service that allows users to securely send and receive end-to-end encrypted emails over a peer-to-peer network.  So it ensures secure communication with encrypted data and email
keeping your privacy first with services and products that ensure users’ data privacy.

The “Workaround”

There are actually two “workarounds” to creating an email without phone number.

The first one is to simply pretend that you’re under 15 years old. The problem with this “solution” is that it’s illegal to pretend that you’re a minor.

The other solution is to use a fake phone number or SMS service. The problem? You can only use it once. If you forget or lose the password and have set up the phone number as the recovery option, you’ll lose the email account.

Using  an Email Service That Doesn’t Ask for a Phone Number

A better solution is to use an email service that does not require a phone number verification like CTemplar.

CTemplar doesn’t require an SMS or phone verification, even as optional, because we are more concerned about your privacy and security than keeping track of you or sharing your data with third parties (which we will only do if there is a valid Icelandic court order).

To sign up:

• Go to CTemplar.com.
• Click the Sign Up button on the top right.
• Select the account type you want.
• Enter a username and password that you want to use. Passwords are protected with Zero-knowledge.
• Enjoy your new secure email account.