Now there's always the question of: should I set up a PO box or just have the vendor send to my home/apt address. I heard a po box removes plausible deniability, and that's not good. Now I'm nervous about sending a vendor my home address because what if they're secretly a fed or undercover agent.. what are the signs to look out for?
Obviously I know you never send your home address unencrypted (no PGP) because if the marketplace gets seized, there's evidence of a transaction. I guess my question is, is it safe to send the vendor your home address? I guess if I'm too worried I shouldn't order anything but yeah
there's always going to be a risk. Using your real name and address is the safest route because 1) its the least likely to get flagged by LE, 2) you have plausible deniability absent any other evidence that you ordered the pack. Conversely, using a fake name + your real address, or a vacant residence, or a PO Box, etc. is riskier because 1) it gives LE more reason to suspect a package and more grounds to obtain a warrant, and 2) makes deniability less plausible -- say you rent a PO Box, well only you have access to it, and it's not where your regular mail comes, so any package going there is almost certainly something you ordered.
Vendors are almost certainly not undercover LE. The more likely scenario would be that LE has been monitoring and building a case against a vendor and they intercept some of the vendor's packs and obtain a warrant. If you're ordering personal amounts, the only reason LE would contact you is to get you to give them info about the vendor. They're not going to spend resources doing a controlled delivery on someone ordering a personal amount.
Vendors are almost certainly not undercover LE. The more likely scenario would be that LE has been monitoring and building a case against a vendor and they intercept some of the vendor's packs and obtain a warrant. If you're ordering personal amounts, the only reason LE would contact you is to get you to give them info about the vendor. They're not going to spend resources doing a controlled delivery on someone ordering a personal amount.