Taaki's a strange character IMO.
He gets alot of publicity, through very mainstream establishment channels, and always as a poster-boy for "darkweb anarchy" and "flaky drugged-up intellectualism" (somewhat like Bitcointalk users iamnotback, trainscarwreck and dinofelis; all meandering talk and no action). And I think that's because he's playing the perfect role that the establishment media prefer to present when it comes to self determined crpytographic tools (like Bitcoin) and anarchism; the BBC can put him on a news magazine as a talking head, looking strung-out and sounding jsut that little bit incomprehensible and incoherent. That's goin to be unappealing to some, and perhaps even frightening, and certainly elicits a "change the station" response from such people. I seem to remember Amir Taaki forming a part of a Guardian article doing the same. I have been comporting myself increasingly dapper and clean shaven ever since, I'm considering beginning to wear full on Carlton turtle necks and bow ties, not even joking.
Is Amir Taaki a knowing dis-info agent though? He'd have to be a fairly extraordinary actor if so, so I'd lean towards him being a "useful idiot", as the intelligence services parlance goes. Even still, it's yet another reflection of Plato's allegory of the Cave, which is fast resembling a hall of mirrors the more I look. At the least, Amir Taaki is a self selected shadow against the wall of the establishment-run theatre that imprisons our interpretations of the world we live in.