I am more cynical than most, leading people to think I am an asshole. They may be right, regardless, knock on wood, I have never gotten in any legal trouble for anything related to drugs. I have good OPSEC in real life too and use common sense.
I am worried that a lot of the "new" users are LE or just kiddies who have heard about this shit reading wired or some shit. (This should make you say "no fucking shit dude, duh") Either way - DONT FEED THE TROLLS! When someone's first post on a (used to be) smaller, nonmainstream market forum is "where can I get the best heroin?" I find reason to be troubled. The newer vendors, tripping over each other for sales say "HERE! HERE! IVE GOT IT!" and others, seemingly more experienced (just dumb I guess) will point them in the direction they seek.
What Im getting at is if they can't figure out for themselves how to find it, they shouldn't be using the DNMs - they are likely running TOR on Windows from their unencrypted home network and telling everyone they know about how they can get drugs online. Or they are low level LE (most of them are about as dumb as the kids). This is what will bring down the markets.
Be careful what you say, where you say it, and who you say it to. Yes we have a thin blanket of anonyminity but that is under attack every day from people with far more resources than we have (individually at least). I love this scene and I love that it was fairly exclusive for a while. It needs to go back to that with true invite only markets and smaller communities with active forums. The size and popularity is a necessary evil, as it was guaranteed (can never spell that word :/) to happen...it just sucks now that the smaller markets that had lived in the shadows are now blown up (BB seeing at least 1k+ new members a day) and I feel like my chill little coffeehouse just got turned into a fucking starbucks.
The legit vendors dont have more product , and I would advise them to keep at their same level or at least just what they are comfortable with...though this brings in the opportunity for shit vendors and scammers on enter, but the markets police themselves pretty well if we as customers are smart.
Sorry for the rant, been thinking it a while and had to get it out. Bottom line be fucking smart, be safe, use trusted vendors only who have good stealth, and dont answer dumb fucking questions - at least make them work for it, who knows they may learn something.
Oh, all this on top of the ever present threat of exit scams :/
How else do you plan to run TAILS if not on Windows from an unencrypted home network?