I have been watching this play out... I sort of have a policy of the reverse of Reagan's maxim about "trust" -- Instead of "Trust. But Verify" -- My position is "be suspicious... but try to give the benefit of the doubt". I had some weird experiences here in Canada with surveillance and the State. If you google CSIS and First Nations Splinter Group, you will see why. I belonged to a First Nation that asserted that we had never given up our sovereignty since no Treaty had ever been signed and as such our sovereignty was still intact... I was the communications point person in this group. The spooks were on me.... That's a fact. Their own reports said as much. I only ever saw direct evidence of it once... But that was enough for me. Knowing that it could happen, and that it had happened, was enough to make me cautious about what COULD be happening without my being aware of it... And then, quite aside from all THAT kind of political activism, I think I ended up on some other watch lists because of my involvement with the attempt to create a Data Haven Co-Location on my Indian reserve for Sealand.. (just google "sealand wired data haven") -- anyways... that's all neither here nor there. I just want to emphasize that I do believe in spooks... and I do believe in the surveillance state being a sinister force that 99.99% of the population is completely unaware of... THAT being said - The main thing I see that has happened between you and V2V is he does not agree with you about some things and you have taken that as proof he's probably suspicious. I have to be honest and say... running head long into a complex network of people and yelling and pointing fingers saying "She's a spook and he's a spook... and they're spooks too... and fuck you if you don't agree with me, that likely means YOU are a spook also". Do you follow me here? I come from a tradition of security culture... which means EVEN IF YOU THINK SOMEBODY IS A SPOOK -- UNLESS YOU HAVE ACTUAL TANGIBLE CONCRETE PROOF, running around and calling people out for being spooky is counterproductive. Why? Because even if they are spooks, it's not like they are going to admit it. AND Once you have alerted them to the fact that you think they are spooky... and will make no bones about calling them out for being spooks... they only have one way to deal with you... which is to ignore you and marginalize you and do what they can to limit your influence in the social network. The other thing I learned from spending 3 years on the alt.current-events.clinton-whitewater usenet group back in the 1990's where there were absolutely spooks, fbi, secret service, ex CIA, and all manner of political operatives -- (I was there to circulate as much information as I possibly could about the crimes and perfidy of the Clinton Crime Syndicate) -- Anyways... what I learned was this -- (this was a conclusion that the cyberwarriors of that era learned intimately...) At a certain point, it sometimes does not matter IF somebody is actually a spook or not... ALL that matters is 1. How good is their info 2. Are they a net positive to the purpose of the group, or are they distracting from the purpose of the group.... WHat we observed was that there were sometimes people who would show up in the trenches of this cyberwarfare who even IF they had the very best intentions involved... if their behavior was disruptive it did not matter whether they were a spook or not... because THE RESULT WAS JUST THE SAME AS IF THEY WERE... Do you follow me? Now... here's where I sit on this whole scene.. watching this play out. YOU - Mindhawk... you have posted VERY VERY VERY good information. If you are a spook, you would be getting into trouble for posting the info you have done on the privacy workshops. Hence, I conclude.. especially since you have committed that information to the blockchain... forever and ever... amen. So... what do I conclude? I conclude, you are not a spook... and you are NOT a disinfo agent. I will keep following you and reading you because I value the information you have posted. The info you have posted is invaluable. But this other stuff.... well -- shit man... I think you and I would need to have a lot more trust between us, and a little bit of privacy before I think it's even a good idea for me to comment on this other stuff. Suffice it to say this... I have not made up my mind. I first heard about Suzi because of the tiff she got into with Barrett Brown. I've been trying for 6 months to get Barrett here on Steemit. He only just friended me on facebook a month or so ago. Anyways -- he got into some beef with suzie -- because Barrett was critical of Julian Assange... I have to be honest... the first article I read of hers here -- made my spidey sense tingle. I felt like there was something just "off" about it. Nothing tangible. But I agree with you that the claims about the FBI harrassing her in New Zealand has not been vetted enough and some of the descriptions that I have heard or read that she's described .... well.. I don't know what to make of them. I think she thinks they happened. And I will be honest with you. I am convinced that YOU believe that all the cop infilitration you have spoken about here, happened. To your credit you have been a lot more honest and open about it than Suzie has been about what she claimed happened to her. I believe your accounts of what happened to you, more than I believe 80% of what she's described as having happened to her. And this is only because when I had similar experiences years ago -- the surveillance/disruption techniques were subtle... I was never harrassed by the State... only surveilled with a minimal amount of disruption that was done in such a subtle way that it could very easily be explained away with loads of plausible deniability. In short -- I don't think the pros at this are as easy to spot as you make them out to be... IF they are pros. It could be that in the 18 years that has gone by since I experienced this kind of thing that the spooks have gotten a lot more sloppy and stupid... but I just don't know. And to be honest -- I don't want to find out. I really do not want a target on my back for this kind of thing... especially if it really is as pervasive as you are claiming it all is now. I really wonder what Barrett Brown would make of all this... There's a dude that knows a little something about the behavior of Spooks in a verifiable quantifiable way. Anyways... I'm trying to be as careful and kind and gentle with you as I possibly can... because I do like your stuff and I do want you to keep posting more privacy related info.... and I think you are a valuable part of this network. Here's my TL:DR -- I think you sometimes need to consider, just the possibility that it IS entirely within the realm of probability that people can disagree with you, and that this doesn't make them spooks. I can see why if the experiences you have had have made you a little over-sensitive to this... AND I am perfectly willing to concede that I could very well be the one in error here. Maybe this place on steemit IS really crawling with spooks... I just have not seen the evidence that convinced me that the problem is quite as bad as you've laid it out. But I could be wrong... So here we be. Trust - but verify AND Be Suspicious but try to give the benefit of the doubt. I'm doing that for AS many people as I can... I hope that's good enough for you. Cheers mate.