Before I leave I wanted to make this topic, it has been something that I pondered about for some time now.
Since I joined the nexus there has been a huge influx of new members all wanting to contribute and all wanting to become a full member.

In order to do so most have the feeling or desire to post as much as possible to make sure they get seen and voted up. All is very logical and there are no worries there. Yet in your enthusiasm it might happen that you when you joined you forgot to take notice to protect yourself.

Since a year or so there have been an increasing number of “dmt bust” in the media. And now the dragon is out, there is probably more to come.
My worries are for those that log on from the same ip address and first go on to post their pictures of their dog and cat on face book and then a minute later of their extraction on the nexus. By doing so your taking a small but potentially very serious risk, with far reaching consequences.

So for all new members please protect your identity, the nexus can only help you so far.

To get you started read up on TOR, proxies and vpn and what they can and CAN’T do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_%28anonymity_network%29

To get you started there are some easy options to read up on, (be careful the easy way is not the best way)
https://www.torproject.org/
https://tails.boum.org/

Take care.
expandaneum

I think busts mostly happen, because people overreach the amount necessary for their personal use. As soon as you are starting to manufacture for other people, busts are likely to happen.

Infographics on:

* How to TOR
* How to VPN

here:


But don't get fooled by false privacy:

81% of Tor users can be de-anonymised by analysing router information, research indicates
Thoughts and Concerns about Operation Onymous

That's good advice. I wonder how many people who've unwisely made youtube videos of extractions have been aprehended. They don't even try to be discreet.

And infographics on:

* How to Stay Anonymous Online
* Why Private Browsing doesn't exist

here:


Because I can't post 2 spoilers in one reply.

Thank you Ufo for the noob friendly schematics

You're welcome, but don't thank me, thank whoishostingthis.com. I just found their infographics today and I thought this is the appropriate thread for sharing.

Thanks for posting such useful advice...

So, a noobish question maybe, but I am curious.. How safe is being a member of the Nexus in general? I've been reluctant to ask but it seems like an appropriate place to ask..

Don't break your local law and the Nexus is a safe place. But don't assume that the billion dollar data centers are there to protect you from terrorists. And encrypted connections can be circumvented, no need to attack the math.

Let's phrase it differently: if the agencies are able to take down and demask silk road services, they probably can do this with Nexus members as well. I assume the Nexus abides to local law, so that's the reason we can have this conversation.

You guys do know that using TOR automatically makes you more suspicious, right? If they have infiltrated the ISPs like a lot of people believe, then they already know when you are using TOR just by tracing the IP's of all the TOR nodes (which is super easy to do because TOR itself tells you them! And, you are aware that the government really does not care about hippies extracting less than a kilo.. If this was truly the case they'd have made mimosa and acacia illegal. If you are really that worried about your safety then just don't post illegal things.

***Disclaimer! I live in the USA, I cannot speak for other territories!***

I live in a place where drug laws aren't as bad as in most places, and I only have very basic knowledge on computer security, so take what I say with a grain of salt...

Nothing is 100%, but the security of the Nexus is as top notch as it gets. The powerful encryption used is on an individual basis, so even in the unlikely scenario that the information from one user would be decrypted, that would not compromise the rest of the users since each uses a different 'key', kinda like bitcoin wallets.

There has not been a single case, as far as we know, of someone having legal troubles in the nexus (neither other of the main forums around?) from having their online information compromised through breaking encryption. It has always been due to an 'offline' security error, such as people importing plants in countries that consider such plants as scheduled substances, or people getting caught for other things and leading police into these other substances in their house, or people selling substances which we always warn against, and so on.

I think people should be specially careful with who they talk about in real life about psychedelics and extraction, who they bring to their home, not importing plant material from outside the country if your country is very restrictive, etc..

Law enforcement has a LOT on their hands already, they simply do not have the resources to go after minor users of substances since there are millions or billions of us out there. There are a lot of way worse people online or otherwise, there are other forums where people are actually selling substances or extracting large quantities and bragging online about it, people talking about synthesis of commercialy viable compounds and watched substances etc etc. I think in terms of priority, someone extracting a gram of dmt here and there and growing a couple of plants for personal consumption while not releasing any other personally identifiable information online, is very very low on that list. At least thats my personal speculation.

Also as mentioned before, TOR itself can call attention of ISPs.... Plus, TOR can be exploited with man in the middle attacks and other kinds of vulnerabilities (though AFAIK in the legal cases related to the dark web we have seen so far, people seem to have been caught by other offline mistakes or mistakes unrelated with TOR security and encryption itself)


That being said, you should be as careful as you want to be. Be informed, be safe, do your part in being careful, don't be naive.... but neither let that paranoid fear creep into your heart and prevent you from doing what you feel is right, otherwise they won.

Think about it this way.... We provide them with FREE research. We do all the leg work, post about it, and then they know what's going on. It doesn't cost them a dime. If they start busting us, we stop providing information. and most of us are broke as hell, so they won't bring in a lot of money from busting one of us.

I think we are more of an asset to the LEO than a threat. I could be very wrong, but I think that we're ok as long as we aren't doing the things that drawl a lot of attention.

I don't think I have the right to post this, but I believe this video is well worth your time.


This Video

I got to attend the webinar live. These are the guys that do security for ALL major assets worldwide. From military to NSA, even the DoD.

Check it out.

I align more along endless's camp here, but i have thought when I've read some of the 'druglab' bust media stories we've all seen and rolled our eyes at, i wonder whether the LEOs are getting info from here. Just as local agencies have people crawling CL, I'm sure they have people in their employ checking other places looking for cutting edge drug culture info.

Of course, they never really get it right. Seeing statements along the lines of there being a risk of explosion capable of 'leveling an entire apt building' from a simple DMT extraction shows us that.

That being said, with limited resources to hire people with the necessary skills, i doubt there are any local LEOs attaching real names to posts. They are just using info they find online to push an agenda of cognitive criminalization, and twisting fact into disinformation.

In other words, biz as usual for the drug warriors.

I agree with almost everything you said except 1 major thing. Security of the nexus is shit. The Traveler does a great deal to keep us anonymous. But there is a line between being anonymous and being secure. And this is hardly a secure site.

Also, that bit about individual keys: Superb job on describing every password ever. Base 64 is still used very openly even in late 2014.

I wouldn't use words like shit, but the password problem is known. The question is, what can you do about it? You seem to have some good insight into computer security, maybe you can help the Trav out?

Uhm, base64 is an encoding and not an encryption. So I'm not sure what you mean with this line.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

Hey 1ce, I'd also like to understand what you mean by this. Base64 aids basic data integrity. Things like PEM etc used Base64, though encryption is carried out using asymmetric techniques.

Peace

Macre

I think what he means, is that you receive your PW via unencrypted email. If someone spys on the Nexus mail server, he gets the PW & the username.

That why you should have a sincere and valid Security Question/Answer with your account.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

That doesn't prevent the spy from reading the mail in plain text.