I don't think I'm saying anything the criminals don't already know. This guy was the head of cloud operations, he knew what a VPN is, how TOR works and how crypto works.
If you're a criminal reading my comments and learning anything new from them, let me tell you this: if you needed this info, you're not smart enough to evade the FBI. Go find a real job or something.
I'm glad the ass got caught and I hope he'll get what he deserves. However, I believe that the common modus operandi for criminals shouldn't be a secret because it will get out anyway. The "solutions" I propose are obvious and basically handed to criminals by the FBI analysis.
Good opsec for crime is incredibly hard, which is great in cases like these. I don't think I've heard of some super smart hacker that's managed to stay away from the authorities unless they live outside the relevant jurisdiction. Even then the FBI will find ways to get you into a country where they can arrest you, legally or otherwise.
A lot of "crime" in some countries, like China or Russia, is just doing the right thing in my opinion. You might very well need this kind of opsec if your goal is to help teenagers learn about homosexuality in many of the more bigoted countries, for example, or get the truth out about COVID without suddenly finding yourself falling out of a window.
I don't think the "true crime" style comments help criminals in any way. Documentaries about how murdered got caught aren't very good manuals and the advice of random people who've been in contact with the police aren't either. If they're dumb enough to follow the advice of some random guy here on orange reddit, their criminal career won't last very long.