this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
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No Stupid Questions (Developer Edition)
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This is a place where you can ask any programming / topic related to the instance questions you want!
For a more general version of this concept check out !nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
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No, but accounts are free and it's easy to sign up.
It is not easy for privacy-conscious users in my experience. They have gone back and forth multiple times on banning registration/login via tor. And whether it's tor or a common VPN provider, they often will immediately ban you upon first login. Many common private email providers are also blocked. Plus for people that don't want to give anything to Microsoft or their AI training in the first place, it's already a non-starter.
It's still relatively easy to sign up for a major email provider anonymously.
You don't need to access it through Tor or a VPN to maintain anonymity.
The question was about creating an issue. That's going into the AI whether you logged in or not.
In my experience, it is actually impossible. Either you get blocked (IP/ASN ban, endless captchas) or it requires SMS confirmation. I have not been able to sign up for any major email provider anonymously. I'm pretty sure that's by design.
Last I tried Outlook/Office.com/whatever it is now was still possible. Obviously don't use a VPN etc.
Or just get a burner phone of you're really that paranoid.
To me this kinda defeats the point of being privacy-conscious.
Why? There's privacy conscious and then paranoid. Using a VPN to sign up to an email provider you're using to sign up for another website is definitely the latter. What do you think is going to happen?
I know that my ISP sells my data to third parties, so I prefer not to give it to them willingly. I don't consider that paranoid.
I made a burner gmail semi-recently (in past 2.5 years) without giving them a phone number, but things might have changed since…