That is a very good view to take, regardless of whether it has a grounding in reality or not. Quite simply you should be acting at as though any marketplace you're using is compromised from the outset. Doing so ensures that you never get comfortable. Getting comfortable is the greatest enemy you could have when engaging in acts that have been deemed 'illegal' by government oppressors, whether that is online or in the real world. Getting comfortable generally leads to taking shortcuts (holding convenience higher than security) and are generally lulled into an entirely false sense of security. The reality is that if you're taking your security seriously it wouldn't matter who is running any marketplace, whether its somebody who you trust with your life of Law Enforcement. Take charge of your own security - never rely on a third party to do this for you. Take charge of your own encryption, your own bitcoin tumbling, your own funds, and never risk more than you are willing and able to lose; as hard as the team here works to secure the site one simply never knows what might be around the next corner. Anybody who looked after their own security on the previous Silk Road were entirely secure even though the FBI had been imaging the servers. Those people used PGP, they tumbled and mixed their own deposits and withdrawals and they operated under the assumption that it was compromised fromthe beginning; acting under the assumption that the site had been compromised from the beginning ensured that when it compromised they had absolutely nothing to worry about. Libertas