Beginning your Dark-Net journey? Read this :)
When we begin our Dark-Net journey; we are bound to make OPSEC mistakes and mistakes is what makes us more knowledgeable! Although ideally it's good to start of Dark-Net activities with ideal OPSEC, unfortunately not many of us begin our Dark-Net journey by having someone who could guide them. Therefore leaving many of the newbies doing try and error until they guide themselves to having proper OPSEC! One thing we should appreciate about ourselves is how we've come to this side of the Dark-Net where resources about OPSEC is freely available to us. Many other newbies went on the side where all the cool myths circulate which the LE have control over (Hitmen, RedRooms, etc) and unfortunately many others ended up being a victim of phishing as they weren't able to verify the legitimacy of markets/services. To those who are reading this post on Dread then please carry on with your Dark-Net journey as you're doing GREAT progress to be on /d/OpSec! The more early on you master the arts of OPSEC, the less you'll have to worry about the past and the more secure you'll ultimately be. Whether you're a lurker, buyer, wanting to become a vendor or something even more, it's always good to have good OPSEC! You might be a lurker but who knows where you'll end up be in the future! The possibility of you becoming something massive on the Dark-Net are endless, the Dark-Net gives you more opportunities than what is given in real life. The greatest opportunity you can have on the Dark-Net which you cannot have in real life is starting over, so take advantage of that early on in your Dark-Net stage! Another opportunity you can have is anonymity, being anonymous is a God gift as you can do so much with anonymity! Even if you never plan to leave a massive contribution to the Dark-Net, learning about OPSEC is a skill you can take into the real world and to understand the risks that are out there. OPSEC isn't just some Dark-net craze, it's also a real life skill!
Never slack off with OPSEC purely because you don't think you pose much of a concern to the LE as:
- That's not true at all. Statistically, the LE are more prone to capturing the low-hanging fruits than the bigger fish ;)
- Always remember, you have the possibility of becoming something massive on the Dark-Net if you put your mind to it :)
- Laziness is the mother of all evil. Laziness is what gets high profile people and low-hanging fruits arrested, don't be a victim of it!
If you're ever in a scenario where you started off with bad OPSEC and want to change that around, you most certainly can! We take /u/We_are_9000 for example who has been away for 10+ months to have a better OPSEC (all praises to him). Fixing your OPSEC is all about understanding what mistakes you've made, it's retracing your steps and visualizing yourself as someone who's curious to identify you. You've also got to understand that anything digital is a permanent footprint that you cannot fully erase. You can make it harder for someone to find those footprints which your goal should be if you want to clean up your OPSEC mistakes.
It's an ease of mind at a simple cost of your time. It's worth every second and you will never regret it!
Good luck and best regards to all the newbies out there! :)
Written by: /u/Aphrodite