[Dismas]

Don't do stupid shit, and the government won't bother you.
If you REALLY wanna hide from them, you have to start at the hardware level. Stolen or strangely-purchased 4G hardware hidden with a solar panel in a tree that you SSH into over Tor.

That actually sounds like a fun thing to make.

[w00t]

A lot less so than you'd think. Plug a 4G dongle into any chip that takes USB, then run sshd.

Always assume a VPN logs. A good way to think of a VPN is just as an alternate ISP.

The first priority in any type of security shoukd be keeping a low profile. No government agency can justify the expense of tracking you if all of your actions aren't connected to a single identity( such as when you feel super 1337 and post all your hacks on a forum ).

[Satan]

A lot less so than you'd think. Plug a 4G dongle into any chip that takes USB, then run sshd.

Always assume a VPN logs. A good way to think of a VPN is just as an alternate ISP.

The first priority in any type of security shoukd be keeping a low profile. No government agency can justify the expense of tracking you if all of your actions aren't connected to a single identity( such as when you feel super 1337 and post all your hacks on a forum ).

How in the world did that word even come to be. "Dongle". Ew.
& unless you're hacking corporations, oil lines, committing fraud, or government, I really doubt they have the funding even if you post all your hacks for leet epeen support.

[Null_Byte]

honestly do the tree idea to an extent. A raspberry Pi with a wifi card and a 3G/4G usb dongle. Put it in a hard case with a rechargeable battery that uses solar power and boom. Pretty much make your own proxy via hardware. it easily runs under $100 sans the solar panel

[Losi]

I just use the Tor Project bundle. It works best with fast internet and a good pc because its bouncing your ip across the globe. its definitely worth it. And its free.

---

Heres the link to the Tor project page: https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

[xornull]

I just use the Tor Project bundle. It works best with fast internet and a good pc because its bouncing your ip across the globe. its definitely worth it. And its free.

---

Heres the link to the Tor project page: https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

I'm not a computer illiterate, I know what that is...

I'd agree though, it's nearly decentralized and free.

[superMAUS]

How in the world did that word even come to be. "Dongle". Ew.
& unless you're hacking corporations, oil lines, committing fraud, or government, I really doubt they have the funding even if you post all your hacks for leet epeen support.

It only takes a few giant jelly beans to buy @Reiko

[Prism Break]

Short answer would be NO. Leave aside Free VPNs. Some Premium VPNs keep logs while others don't (I for one personally don't trust much VPNs). VPN alone ain't safe!

Here's something you could do to achieve maximum or atleast near to maximum anonymity and security:

• Sandbox the browser with for example Sandfox.
  
• Use Proxychains with Socks5 or set up transparent proxies with Tor socks.
  
• Make sure to isolate your environment with either virtual isolation or physical isolation with for exampe Whonix or PORTAL pi (Personal Onion Router To Assure Liberty running on raspberry pi).
  
• Set up some inbound or outbound defenses on your network and get your traffic through a box on the local network to act as a physical firewall before it enters through the Ethernet to your computer.
  
• Configure tor to run at least 8 instances together (Meaning you'll go through 8x3 nodes = 24 nodes).
  
• Make sure computer is less vulnerable to fingerprinting by spoofing user agents, referrer headers, screen resolution and to make maybe even uninstall all of your fonts and then installing the most common fonts.
  
• Harden your security, set up IPTables and disallow malicious traffic like port scans and other various attacks, harden your kernel, get AppArmor and get a few secure DNS server (Or route all dns with tor).
  
• Install DNSCrypt to encrypt your queries. More about those things in the Paranoid security guide (Google it, oh actually don't use Google use Duckduckgo.com).
  
• Prevent traffic analysis by setting up cover traffic through for example BitTorrenting (Don't do it on TOR though, I2P is good for that or VPN) and also make sure to run an internal TOR relay on the same computer, this will give you kind of plausible deniability if the feds is sniffing the network (It will make it harder to determine which of the TOR traffic is actually yours).
  
• And of course, run a vpn either before tor if you want to hide the fact you're using tor from ISP or run a VPN at the end to increase anonymity (Make sure to purchase VPN with laundered Bitcoins. Localbtc is a good place to get it. Run it through a few mixers before sending it. Make sure you have Socks5 proxies during the purchase. You can get them at vip72.org).
  
• If you want to stay even more secure, send all of your traffic through an ssh server as well to start a ssh tunnel. Set your configurations to change tor circuits every 10th minute (This is possible through for example proxifier).
  
• Don't visit the same sites each day and don't visit any sites frequently at specific times a day since this will create a pattern and timelines (For example: Relay to visits Reddit every Thursday 8 o clock) this is called time correlation attacks. Also one thing I mentioned earlier was to spoof your user-agent, you can use a self rotating user-agent that changes at each http request. This will make it harder to keep track of your movements.
  
• If you're using a laptop, remove the battery and only use the cable (if the feds raids the place all you have to do is to unplug it and it will shut down instantly. This could increase your chances of the forensics investigators from gaining access to ram data but yes it's still possible. Also obviously it will be decrease the chances of them catching your red-handed with your hard drive encryption unlocked, yes encrypt your hard drive). Speaking of encryption, encrypt your swap but really it's best to not use it at all.
  
  
  And oh, if anyone in here say TOR is unsafe. I just want to say that it's only a conspiracy to scare away ignorant people from using it. It has it's flaws but those can be fixed with configurations and hardening. It's a lot more safe than using a puny VPNs who will cooperate with law enforcement whether they are forced or not.
  Never trust a VPN, first of all they need to keep logs whether they say it or not (Mostly just for administration purposes like error logs and error diagnosis), live surveillance can be done, they could be forced to put in a backdoor, it's only a one hop circuit which makes it easy for feds to find you. VPNs ISP could keep logs as well. But most important fact at all, don't trust a VPN unless you know the VPN operator is willing to go to jail for you.
  Also for more info on how to set up defenses on the network layer, check out full disclosure: http://cryptome.org/2013/12/Full-Disclosure.pdf
  
  Here's a cool tor set up btw. The deep web proxy!
  
  Spoiler:

  
  
  And a good example on a well set up operating system:
  
  Spoiler:

  

[MiS]

Short answer would be NO. Leave aside Free VPNs. Some Premium VPNs keep logs while others don't (I for one personally don't trust much VPNs). VPN alone ain't safe!

[wall of text]

I'm liking you the more and more I see you around.