Tolzien is throwing pretty well all things considered <| sep |> The fact that auction sites , as well as more nasty sites , routinely get taken down , should suggest to you that you may not be getting the whole story . These are the results of security failures by site admins . Hidden services are difficult to get right as there are many ways to screw up and it only takes one mistake to reveal its real location . There are tools such as rahonionscan that automatically look for common mistakes , and the developer of that is finding new techniques all the time , such as this Host header t r i c k webdiarieshostnamehacking a couple of weeks ago . It might be possible to completely hide yourself , but there are enough highlycompetent hackers and site admins currently in jail for it to be clear that doing so is very hard more than simply a matter of installing a VPN or running TOR and thinking you ' ve ' gone dark '. Which highlycompetent ones are in jail ? There is definitely more to it than using just using Tor , but basic things like not posting your real name and email address in public are pretty basic steps . But a simple look at reports on cybercrime and policing should make clear that if they really want to get you , they ' ll probably find a way to do it . You don ' t hear stories about the ones that haven ' t been caught . The obvious counterexample is Y a r d b i r d effectiveusenettradecraft , and most of his group , who were being targeted by at least three different Governments , had their entire innercircle compromised and are still a free . Sure , Tor alone isn ' t enough , you also need good opsec .