I've had to make many hard decisions in my time as DPR, and this is one of the hardest. A few days ago, the vendor known as BlueGiraffe (BG) came to me and confessed that he had been saving the addresses of his customers. He said he did this for convenience when reships were in order. As is always the danger when data is retained, the data was leaked when the list of addresses was sent in clear text over tormail (edit: the addresses were sent with weak encryption, not in the clear). We are now fairly certain that tormail has been compromised and BG has done the right thing and warned all of his customers of the data leak. On the one hand, BG committed a cardinal sin as a vendor that has always led to loss of vending privileges in the past. However, it was not done in malice and he did his best to minimize the damage as soon as he knew what happened. He put his customers ahead of himself in the end, and did so admirably. Part of his behavior must be punished, and the other part should not be and should even be encouraged. I've decided to take the following action: The BlueGiraffe vendor account will stay demoted. It's official record and reputation will end. However, within the community, BG's good actions will not be forgotten and he will be allowed and even encouraged to open a new vendor account and continue serving the Silk Road community. I think we can all see how sincerely sorry he is for what he did and trust him never to breach his vendor contract again. I encourage his customers to give him a second chance and buy from whatever new account he sets up to help him get back to good standing as a top vendor on SR. BG has set an excellent example of what to do and what not to do and I thank him for his contribution. I have no doubt that his reputation will quickly be restored and that his loss of business as he starts over with a new account will be adequate punishment, but not too severe. It would be nice to hear from BG regarding this decision and to hear what we can expect from him going forward along with the name of his new account if he chooses to set one up.