[Oni]

It's like the AnonOps IRC / VoxAnon IRC case wherein the chat rooms were being logged by federal agents looking for easy fruit. The simplest and best way to explain it, is that, if you want to code exploits, advertise 0days and whatnot, that's public domain. Like all forums we are indexed by Google and anything posted here is free to view by anyone. If you want to sell PII, government intrusion proof of concepts, etc., there are places you can go that facilitate that on the deep web. The so called "shadow market" of access to unauthorized material doesn't exist on sinister.li as a shield from federal interaction. That isn't to say that I am making the claim that the FBI hasn't or isn't around looking for suspicious activity, but it was growing into an issue. It does however present a challenge because it spills into legitimate posts at times. It's a good move for the forum. Just be careful what you say because violating the rights of one person can trickle into the entire forum and eventually, that garners a lot of unwanted attention.

I agree. The majority of content posted was already public domain, easily accessible from other sites via a quick Google Search. However, as you mention questionable content has a habit of spilling into legitimate posts at times, and the lines do get blurred. What is already a public database from our perspective, might be considered confidential by other parties.

As you say, we are indexed by Google and essentially clearnet. There is no "shield from federal interaction" and anyone is welcome to join. I've known about federal observation before. It is beyond naïve for anyone to assume they are not being watched on forums (clearnet or otherwise). This move eliminates any confusion.