nihilist@mainpc - 2024-05-02

Acquiring remote servers anonymously (non-KYC providers)

Sidenote: Help us improve this tutorial by letting us know if there's anything missing or incorrect on this git issue directly!

Finding out a non-KYC Cloud Provider and Email Provider

As we discussed previously, KYC is out of the question if you want to remain anonymous. So you need to find a cloud provider that allows you to rent servers without any KYC.

To find one you can go on kycnot.me:

the current one I use for my services is ServersGuru, as they can resell popular cloud providers like hetzner.

In our example below we'll use Cockbox. but first thing we need is a non-KYC email provider, to do so we could follow Privacy Guides' recommendation and create an account on Tuta, but for simplicity i'll use a temporary email from https://tmail.link (do not use it for extended usage)

Now that the account is created, we can also validate if we can receive mails:

Purchasing the server anonymously (using Monero)

Next we generate a SSH key to connect to the server:

[ mainpc ] [ /dev/pts/5 ] [~]
→ ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C ""
Generating public/private ed25519 key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/nihilist/.ssh/id_ed25519): /home/nihilist/.ssh/ssh-key-test
/home/nihilist/.ssh/ssh-key-test already exists.
Overwrite (y/n)? y
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/nihilist/.ssh/ssh-key-test
Your public key has been saved in /home/nihilist/.ssh/ssh-key-test.pub
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:hu1aO2qMU0XuaRDTRiVHH3Jl2hNP/0prlAnpPCTGECo
The key's randomart image is:
+--[ED25519 256]--+
|       o=+= o.+ .|
|      o.+= + * +.|
|    E .*  + * o o|
|     ..oo. = . +.|
|      .+S.  + = .|
|      .o+    + o |
|     + .o     +  |
|    o oo..   .   |
|     oo...       |
+----[SHA256]-----+

[ mainpc ] [ /dev/pts/5 ] [~]
→ cat .ssh/ssh-key-test.pub
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIHqt0O2ZbRt/7ikk0PdPRcb1GRBE5YNDdBHFCMGIdeHb

validate the VPS purchase with the Monero option:

Then here we send the Monero payment:

then wait 10-20 minutes for the payment to be validated by the network, and then you should recieve the mail with your server accesses:

Now that the server is provisionned, we can connect to it:

Accessing the server anonymously (SSH through Tor)

To access the server anonymously, you just need to ssh there through tor using torsocks:

[ mainpc ] [ /dev/pts/6 ] [~]
→ cat .ssh/config| head -n4
Host test-server
        User root
        hostname 185.216.68.156
        IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

[ mainpc ] [ /dev/pts/6 ] [~]
→ torsocks ssh test-server
The authenticity of host '185.216.68.156 (185.216.68.156)' can't be established.
ED25519 key fingerprint is SHA256:Od5FT4wcALDHXXK2B4t6lM8idsDmUfhqWpDFjStgBwI.
This key is not known by any other names.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes
Warning: Permanently added '185.216.68.156' (ED25519) to the list of known hosts.
Linux cockbox 6.1.0-13-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.55-1 (2023-09-29) x86_64

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.

root@cockbox:~# id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)

root@cockbox:~# apt update -y ; apt upgrade -y ; apt autoremove -y
	

And that's it! We now have access to a remote server, we acquired it anonymously, and are now using it anonymously as well.