You have to keep in mind that a lot of those highlighted "trivial" series of mistakes can be just the result of parallel construction, and what evidence really "did them in" can be completely different from what's stated by the prosecution. It is very easy to find tons of small mistakes once you already know what you have to look for thanks to an undisclosed huge exploit/honeypot/technically-illegal-seizures that you can use.
Proving this is hard by design, but a good example of that would be how they used the Hansa market as a honeypot by running the market themselves for months.
The entire investigation around Alphabay and how they got to the owner is a bit shady, too, and there have been tons of rumors of the entire official case being based on ad-hoc parallel construction.
Shortly after he committed suicide I pulled up the French language technical board where he had linked an alias to a real email address. Which mirrors the same mistake as the Silk Road operator.
When you dig deeper into these cases it’s clear that they aren’t properly washing the money. There’s no placement or layering. They go straight to laundering on a public ledger and cash out under their own names.
The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.
I think my comment was not really clear. Yes, the apparent mistake Alex made was glaring and obvious, but the entire operation was very weird. They shut down alphabay right before turning off The Hansa, which they had been operating for months at that point. It was the coup de grace, basically trying to get as many people to sign in to the Hansa before it also goes off.
To me that indicates they have been able to turn off alphabay for a long time, considering how easily and well timed they did it. That also means they have had tons of time to build the case. Of course you can argue that the simplest explanation is the best one but considering law enforcement literally operated the biggest DNM for months, completely under the radar I'm not sure why "they found an email he used for a few weeks 4 years ago" would be more simple.
You can read what DeSnake, another admin of the website had to say about the takedown. He's extremely security conscious (he hasn't been caught yet afaik which is another can of worms) and he's adamant that it was not a simple bust. Actually, the whole thing was kind of a mess, with some mods getting arrested (even without making obvious mistakes like Alex did ). You can read up on the confusion here:
https://www.darkowl.com/blog-content/alphabay-marketplace-re...
If I had to guess, some mod/admin informed on him (maybe even snake!) hence why they had access to an early email. But who knows? Now in cases like the silk road I'd agree that it was simply trash OPSEC but the Alphabay/Hansa takedown was so sophisticated that anything is possible
> You have to keep in mind that a lot of those highlighted "trivial" series of mistakes can be just the result of parallel construction, and what evidence really "did them in" can be completely different from what's stated by the prosecution.
If you had such capabilities, the moment it is known you have it would immediately neutralize any value you derive from that capability.
What is the logical course of action?
Deny. Deny. Deny.
Disavowing, deception, secrecy of such capability is what gives them the edge.
Again, there is no proof that Satoshi Nakamoto was some good hearted criminal/spook.
Proving this is hard by design, but a good example of that would be how they used the Hansa market as a honeypot by running the market themselves for months.
The entire investigation around Alphabay and how they got to the owner is a bit shady, too, and there have been tons of rumors of the entire official case being based on ad-hoc parallel construction.