In the discussion about Russian "collusion" yesterday, @everittdmickey brings up the possibility that charges against ANYONE could be brought under the justification that Mueller's staff made against the Russians for posting anonymously.

In my own research (I was going to study cybercrime when I first started my masters in criminal justice), I have run across more than a few sources (FBIAnon, for one) that state that you can be found if enough resources are brought to bear.

So let's talk about how to keep yourself
A)off the radar to begin with
B)over their resource limits

Put this on, listen to it in the background

Key Point - You only need to fuck up once!

Some general considerations

• Pay cash for everything! Do not even carry your credit cards (RFID chips)
• Use an RFID blocking sleeve on your ID (or don't carry your ID)
• Do not carry your phone or tablet with you, no personal electronics
• Do not use your own vehicle if possible, get a ride or take the bus
• Use a simple disguise (shave your head temporarily, wear a hat, dye your hair - which may take some time to fade, wear a different style of clothes, whatever)
• Don't do anything (prelim research, for example) from your home IP.
• Turn off and pull the batteries from all electronics when not in use.
  NEVER have the infowar electronics and your own electronics on at the same time...unless there are miles of distance between them!

Separate yourself from your activist activities

• Step One
  is to go to a different town, and buy a laptop with at least 2 USB ports. Buy a few USB keys (min 8GB). Finally, buy a wireless USB receiver or two. Look on craigslist (NOT from your own IP) for the laptop

• Step Two
  go somewhere there is no wireless access. turn off (even better, if you know how, pull the wireless receiver out) the wireless card
  How to do this in Windows

• Step Three
  reformat the computer...once, twice, three times a lady
  maybe this is overkill, because you won't be using the Windows OS, but you never know what the hell is on that PC

• Step Four
  Get TAILS, which is based on TOR
  TAILS
  TAILS - getting Started
  TAILS - subreddit

TOR was created so that American intelligence assets could communicate with America anonymously.

technology originally developed by the US Navy and now overseen by a nonprofit, helped to anonymize Internet use by routing requests through multiple servers, adding and removing layers of encryption along the way. When “dark” Tor-cloaked traffic popped back onto the “open” Internet, tracing it back to its source was difficult. Tor helps everyone who needs anonymity—dissident, drug dealer, and spy alike.
Ars Technica

If the origins of TOR/TAILS concerns you, there are other tools such as I2P.

• Step Five
  get a burner phone. You'll need a phone number to build your new personas. So far, I have been unable to find a good source of online burner numbers negating the need for the phone.

• Step Six
  Use a wireless access point that is not associated with you, coffee shops, McDonalds, etc.
  Consider the use of extended range antennas
  Use a different site every time!

• Step Seven
  create a complete , and separate, online persona to work from

Noise

Sanity says you can't add some personal details on your infowar persona, but then again nothing says you can't add fake personal data. Let them look for things that aren't there.

What are markers? How can they link you?

• IP addresses (where you log into the net)
• MAC address (your connectivity hardware - TOR automatically masks this)
• Browser profiles
• Time stamps

Patterns

Mistakes aside, leading a separate life has two great effects (before we get into the negative affects). One, you will likely diminish your ‘threat profile’ in your normal life. (Let me caveat this statement by going back to the Contrast factor of SPACE Analysis. If in your normal daily or weekly routine you speak with the same three or four individuals —your resistance, prepper, militia buddies, for instance —and then that communication drops off, then you’re showing contrast. You’re doing something different than you used to, which is a contrast to your baseline behavior or activities. You might be interested in continuing or slowly decreasing your overt activities with the same frequency, but stepping up your underground game at the same time in order to reduce contrast.) Diminishing your ‘threat profile’ won’t necessarily remove you altogether, but as regime analysts are looking for indicators that you are an unsavory character, the fewer indicators, the better. The second benefit is that you’re creating an unknown, and perhaps deniable, network outside of your family life. If and when the SHTF, and you need this network, then the people, locations, and associations are all unknown to the regime analyst. If he doesn’t know that it exists then it’s much, much harder to identify(a lot of brain power and a little luck), and even when he does identify it, then he’s starting from square one. Start and separate your underground life now.
OPSEC Considerations for Cell Phones - Guerillamerica.com - website down

Always, Always, Always

Do not do anything in your infowar persona that crosses over to your real activities!

This is how Dread Pirate Roberts got caught. His comm security was never broken...his poor OPSEC let investigators connect his Silk Road activity with his real identity

Ulbricht posted a request to hire an IT professional for a Bitcoin-backed venture, then encouraged forum users to email him at his real address. This is so amateur night that it is, quite frankly, astonishing Ulbricht would even attempt it.

But the larger lesson here is that one should be wary of soliciting help off of the internet. It's difficult enough to know whether people are who they say they are in person; doubly so online
Everything the Silk Road Founder Did to Get Caught

Keep learning! The more you know, the more tools you can use to increase your privacy!

Remember, there are cameras all over the place. Play your game with this in mind

Resources

Security Tutorials

Tips, Tools and How-tos for Safer Online Communications

A guide to online security for activists

So you want to be an InformationWar Activist? - Part One

Schneier on Security

Advanced Privacy and Anonymity Using VMs, VPN’s, Tor – Part 1