If the United States government gets a hint that a one cent of funds was transferred to any terrorist organization using the Darkcoin network it's lights out.
I guess it's lights out for bitcoin!
http://www.coindesk.com/isis-bitcoin-donations-fund-jihadist-movements/Plausible deniability doesn't mean a thing when Amazon and every other provider in the United States complies with a court order and shuts down the masternodes.
Current DRK masternode distribution by operator:
http://drk.poolhash.org/darksend.htmlThe reason for there being so many on Amazon is that the first step-by-step guide was written using Amazon as an example. This should change when more guides are written. And especially it would change if such a shut down for US based operators should happen.

I'm not promoting cryptonote coins as they have plenty of their own problems. But they offer true P2P anonymity that isn't subject to having a masternode network shut down.
But CN coins must have nodes too so the clients can discover the network. They could be taken down as well, or what is it that makes taking down a CN node impossible and a DRK masternode possible?