Hi all. Long time lurker, first time poster. About a year ago I started poking around Silk Road and the other up and coming darknet markets. At the time, I didn't really need/want anything off of them; I was just curious about the whole scene and wanted to find out more about how it worked.
Fast forward a year. My only connect in my podunk-ass town dries up (always been a weed person - booze and other shit tends to make me sick). Well, now I start looking at places like Blue Sky, Pandora, etc. and start wondering about maybe doing more than just looking. I've done a lot of reading about the whole process. I know about how controlled deliveries work (more or less), read the stickied posts on the sidebar, know about mylar packaging vs. vac sealed, how to use pgp, the legal side of the whole process, and so on.
That being the case, there are some things that still concern me. For example, I know that it's a postal inspection officer that would typically make a controlled delivery (either that or they stake out a mailbox and wait for someone to take a package), but what about using a third party, like, for example, an apartment manager to make a bust? What if LE finds a package shipped through USPS, goes up to the apartment manager, and says "We want you to make sure X person gets this package. When they take it, call us and we'll arrest them." Are there legal reasons they can't use a non-LE intermediary to do that? Also, let's say that does happen and LEOs are busting down your door to stick you for that 5 gram of dank. I've seen a lot of people on here say "they can't prove you ordered it" and "just write return to sender" on the package and leave it for a day. Well, what if they dig through your PC search history for evidence that you'd been looking at these market places? What if they find out you bought bitcoins through something like coinbase and you can't explain where they went? Even if you eventually start using TAILS, going to a place with free wifi away from your home, and then making orders, you still have residual traces of activity on your computer of visiting these sites. If they can show that you've been visiting sites associated with the internet drug trade, isn't it easy enough to prove you placed an order? I guess what I'm asking is this: have my internet search habits and lack of foresight made it far too dangerous an endeavor to actually use these market places? Should I wait a while, save up for a new HDD, scrap my current one because its tainted, and then use some internet cafe, library, other place with free wifi, etc. to go about my business?
Sorry if these questions come off as extremely neurotic or paranoid. I think my aspbergers must be flaring up today.
Your history shouldn't affect you too much.
As far as controlled delivery, they more then likely will go for the big bait. You, Joe Shmo in NoTown, are not a priority target.
Remember that on open WiFi in public places, anyone can view your traffic. That being said, a VPN might be the way to go...
And finally, getting started with TAILS, I wrote a good guide for total noobs to help with that.
Good luck!