I'm sorry to hear that. I don't think that Tor advocates do enough to stress the importance of separation of identities. Are you confident that your friends were doing the utmost to never associate their Tor activities and their real life activities with eachother?

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What do you think about VPNs operated by private organizations?

I'm talking about using the same username on the clearnet and the darkweb. I'm talking about having the bad luck of using a state controlled exit node, and then obliviously deciding to open another tab and check your email. I'm talking about casually chatting with airport security about your international drug trading website. I'm talking about discussing with one of your hacker buddies on a darknet forum how your own entry in a stolen database has some really quirky feature about it. I'm talking about purchasing Bitcoin in your own name, and then using that Bitcoin to try to buy child porn from an FBI honeypot. I'm talking about downloading files posted by federal agents on a random darknet booru.

And those are just the lowest hanging fruit. Tor is not a silver bullet. Tor can NEVER BE a silver bullet. Everyone wishes they could crack Tor, but the truth is that with all the attention and effort being put towards criminals and scoundrels, they often don't need to. It's surprisingly easy to craft impenetrable technologies. But the mentality required with secrecy is not so foolproof, even when one has the right to that secrecy. I see it as an inustice, even when a criminal is caught using such dishonorable tricks. That's why it's so important to know where our tools protect us, and where only our competence protects us.