Can we please stop ignoring the 900lbs pink elephant in the room?

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.

Post in question.

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.


Comments


[16 Points] 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.


[13 Points] xxx4reddit:

remove the dumb mod


[9 Points] ItsAllJustPretend:

Also, did we forget about Rule 41? It was literally passed only last month. Are you really going to relax OPSEC in a time where the government just got more legal power to arrest you with less proof?


[4 Points] 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.


[6 Points] BFCDNM:

It is a weak attempt at a rejoin by MDMAngel with her fake ass "don't objectify me!" attitude while posting pictures of her little ass in thongs.


[3 Points] None:

[deleted]


[3 Points] hhayn:

Never tumbled, still don't think a mod should be campaigning against the use of tumblers.

De-mod? Maybe. Straighten this out and have a community consensus of best practices? Yes.


[6 Points] murderhomelesspeople:

I mean it seems like a lot of people have moved from exchanges in their name straight to DNMs. But what we don't know is if this is applies to all markets and exchanges. We would need some conclusive tests to see which markets the exchanges are successfully tracking.

u/Seraphim_X should remain a mod for now but should definitely consider responding to critics instead of either remaining silent or continually disengaging the conversation. It'd be great if everyone could start being nicer :(


[2 Points] samwhiskey:

I have never tumbled and most of the time I'd go straight from circle to the market.

Do it or don't.


[3 Points] None:

Is it necessary a really good goddamn idea to tumble/clean your coins before sending them to a DNM? Yes

Are there ways to do this that don't involve blindly handing your coin over to an unaccountable third party? Yes


[3 Points] None:

[removed]


[2 Points] fu_onion:

tl;dr Like lots of other life choices, tumbling is not an entirely rational matter so discussion between the more assertive faithful on both sides is likely to be ugly in the grand old tradition of religious fundamentalists. Reddit is my witness.

Coins I buy are linked to my IRL ID so I move sub-transactions through fresh addresses from intermediate wallets I destroy after use, and I tumble everything into my DNM account for each purpose. I do not want my IRL ID to be associated with the purchases and I am willing to pay to lower my risk exposure.

I regard tumbling as inexpensive and uncertain insurance against something that has never happened yet. I do it because the block chain is permanent and the chances of some mathematician solving some very hard graph problems that might compromise my IRL ID are definitely not zero.

As always, YMMV but ultimately it boils down to questions of belief and faith. Best we can hope for is civility rather than fundamentalism.


[2 Points] ForLol_Serious:

Why does it matter...no one actually purchases illegal drugs here anyways.


[1 Points] weedandsyrup:

I haven't ever tumbled and have used BTC for 2+ years so I'd guess it's not necessary in my case.


[1 Points] None:

Yes vote from me


[0 Points] -thuggy:

i buy btc from a seller on lbc that has his wickr name on his profile, i never had to make a lbc account. i hit him up on wickr, i state the amount i need, meet up and pay him cash. everything is done with a burner phone.

so why do i need to tumble?


[-2 Points] GotMeSomeAlpandMDMA:

this is not a witch hunting post

But let me try and start a witch hunt for the new mod.

People make mistakes homie, just because someone makes an oversight doesn't mean they're a bad moderator. The other mods chose him/her for a reason, and I fully trust the other mods

Also tumbling is not necessary in most cases, like when you already bought the coins anonymously. I fully urge you to tumble every time you transfer to and from the markets if you are a vendor.


[-1 Points] zerointegrity:

Literally no point in tumbling at al


[-4 Points] MoneroIsTheWay:

OH HEY!


[-2 Points] exmachinalibertas:

Calling for him to be removed as mod is too much. The purpose of his post was to inform people about having appropriate threat models for their own situation, and to know when tumbling is probably necessary and when it is probably overkill. You may disagree with his assessments and want to err on the side of "rather safe than sorry", but his post certainly wasn't advocating bad opsec. I think he was trying to help people by explaining why we tumble, so people understand their overall opsec and make a better decision about why, and thus when, to tumble their coins. Sure it's safer to just always tumble, but it's also more effort and more costly, and you are just moving your point of trust from the exchange to grams (or whoever runs the tumbler).

I happen to agree with grams' counter, and even though it is right to point out that of course he will say you should tumble, since he makes money off it -- even so, I think his points were valid.

So while I too mostly disagree with Seraphim's post -- I would err on safe than sorry -- he certainly wasn't wrong in anything he said, and knowing when you don't need to use a tumbler saves a little time and money. Removing him as a mod is simply not warranted. He didn't give any bad advice, you just have a different threat model than he does.