> There are really a few basic ground rules that always seem to be violated, even by those with seemingly sufficient experience, like Ross Ulbricht.

Well yes, for the people that get caught.

and then the DOJ always says "see! this proves you can't hide from us"

and everyone else on darknet is like "yeah here's the refined checklist implementation for how not to get caught and here's why" which should be like everyone's first purchase on any darknet market for $.99 and should be any vendor's primary first item for sale to gain reputation

I pretty much never see indictments that actually undermine the best practices.... you don't need to pay to understand the best practices, but it does save time to see what the tools are that implement those best practices, or understanding why some secret chat apps should be avoided versus others.