3 HN users recommended this talk3 months2024score 3.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN people recommend it for a first-hand view of how Tor holds up in practice, from someone who had to rely on it.
A DEF CON 30 talk by Sam Bent, a former darknet vendor, on operational security when using Tor and the darknet. He applies the hacker mindset to staying anonymous and avoiding capture.
“Here is an awesome DefCon talk about this topic from the perspective of a darknet vendor. It's amazing” (HN, 2024)
The same person also gave a talk at Defcon: [this video] I'll echo the top Youtube comment here because it fits perfectly: > When the bald dude with a beard on stage introduces an even balder and more bearded dude to talk you know it's gonna be good.
Sam Bent gave a talk on Darknet opsec in which he recommends what you suggest, regularly changing alias and starting from 0. Quite an interesting talk. [this video]
Barely related, but reminded me that a recent comment here linked to this DEFCON talk from a former darknet vendor. He claimed to use WiFi from a house a mile away using a Yagi antenna [this video]
Former darknet vendor on using distant WiFi with Yagi antenna
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
6 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes