This is kind of beating a dead horse here, but Despammed.com was my baby (still is, in an embalmed and pathetic sense) for six years. And we had Web-based anonymous email for real, written into our policy. We tossed the logs every day - the only way anybody could get fresh logs, before tossing, was to subpoena us for them. One - exactly one - law enforcement agency did that, for a user who was using us as a dropbox for credit card fraud. The Italians never managed to get us a subpoena for the freedom-of-speech abrogation they attempted. And nobody else ever tried. They'd bluster a bit, but when it came to getting us paperwork, they went away.
I don't understand the disagreement. Can someone explain to me why "web-based anonymous e-mail" can reliably exist ? (short of having your mail server at home, of course)
They (claim to) use some sort of asymmetric encryption scheme such that they literally do not have access to the data on their own servers. I'd love to have a crypto expert explain to me if it's legit.
They still have to deliver your mail, unencrypted (besides TLS) through POP3. Which means that at some point, your mail is unencrypted in their machines. But they would have to be outright malicious to intercept your messages at that point, so I think we can trust them on this.
Anyway, there is more than just your e-mail: there is your connection logs, the quantity of messages you receive (and from whom), retrieve (and when) and sent (and to whom).
Plus, the relevant authorities could compel them to surrender your logs. You may prefer that they (have to) ask you directly. (EDIT: Vivtek says this happens very rarely, if you care do ditch the logs, so this may be a small issue.)
I don't think we can get closer to truly anonymous web based mail. That may be sufficient for most people, though.
