TL;DR A moderator made this post advocating for looser OPSEC and saying that almost nobody should tumble. I made a post yesterday calling this out and asking for the moderator to be removed, as I believe no moderator should be making such posts that undermine the OpSec of anyone who listens. Although the post generated a lot of discussion with over 100 comments, most of which agreed, the post had been shilled to 0 points and stayed on the second page of the subreddit. Below are more details and quotes from various users
Original Post
This is not a trolling post, this is not a witch hunting post, this is not a post with the intentions of harassing.
But can we please have a discussion as a community on whether or not we should entertain a person that advocates bad OPSEC practices as a community moderator?
It irks me that anyone would give the advice that tumbling is not necessary in "most" cases. It is necessary in all cases.
Can we take a vote on if we this person should be a moderator here? This is not to attack their character, but only to point out the bad advice they continuously post that is given legitimacy by being a moderator.
People will always give bad advice on this sub, but it should never come from a moderator.
Quotes from other users
from /u/SaintVengeance:
You're completely in the right here. Regardless of the opinions, here are the facts:
1) All (or least almost all) of the items bought on the darknet are illegal and carry some sort of jailtime, depending where you are.
2) We should all practice good OPSEC as a result and should ONLY encourage our friends/community to do so.
3) It's been proven that you can track all illegal activities using the technology from several years ago. In fact, you don't even need to know which wallets belong to the darknet markets- cluster analysis can easily pinpoint which ones do.
4) It's also been said, flat out, that had they tumbled, the chain would have been broken and it would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, to actually track them.
5) If you don't believe you'll be caught because you're not a big enough fish, fine. People have been caught with CD's for small amounts as well. Your safety, your opinion. But it's been PROVEN that your purchases on the DNM can be directly tracked back to you IF YOU DONT TUMBLE.
Another vote for demodding here.
From /u/hhayn :
I don't really care who the mods are as long as they do the fucking job. Part of that job means recognition of the reality that a lot of people reading this sub are going to perceive them as experts (whether or not they are/aren't or want/don't want to be seen as such). They definitely shouldn't be condemning something that they haven't shown to be ineffective or unnecessary.
From /u/ItsAllJustPretend:
No mod should EVER advocate for looser OPSEC. Whether anyone does it or not is up to them, but all advice should cater to be always to be as safe as possible.
Upvoted for demodding.
SQS for moderator, but you know what, I don't even want to be a mod, I'd rather not end up on someone's watch list, I just want what is best for the community, and she is not.
While I agree that mods tend to be viewed as experts, regardless of accuracy, it doesn't mean they aren't entitled to taking a controversial stance.
It's healthy for the growth of the community to discuss controversial topics.