I am not a security expert, but because of the Tate case, I want to share some tips on how to stay anonymous if you're involved in any semi-illegal activity. My background as a software engineer has taught me a few simple things about cybersecurity that can keep you out of 99% of trouble.

If you're doing anything illegal, you need to keep these things in mind so you don’t get caught. Unlike the Tates, as soon as you start making money, you need to take care of these things.

Your Devices

The first thing the police do is seize your devices. As we’ve seen from the Tate case, mobile phones, laptops, routers, and cameras are immediately confiscated. So, keep in mind that having an iPhone and a MacBook is completely foolish.

Remember, you're not a hacker; you just want to give the police as little evidence as possible. Even if you're not guilty, they can still make accusations.

My computer of choice is the System76 Lemur Pro or any System76 computer with the new Intel Ultra CPUs, which offer performance similar to the MacBook M3 chips.

Secondly, throw away your iPhone because, despite what Apple claims, it has zero security. My recommendation would be any OnePlus phone with a custom OS, which I'll discuss later.

Operating System

For your computer, you have two choices, and I recommend the second one for maximum security. First, you can install Whonix on your computer, which is completely encrypted and routes all traffic through Tor. However, in a police interrogation, they can make you unlock the computer or somehow obtain the passwords.

The best choice, though, is to use Tails on a self-destructive USB stick like the Aegis Secure Key 3.0. That way, you carry all your data on a USB stick in your pocket, and if the police are about to catch you, with the click of a button, everything is destroyed.

For your mobile phone, install a custom OS—my choice is LineageOS on a OnePlus phone. You could also go with GrapheneOS on a Google phone, but I don’t trust Google at all.

Another thing you need to change, which many people don’t take seriously, is your router firmware. Proprietary router firmware is really bad and has zero security. I recommend using OpenWrt on a custom router instead of the one your internet provider gives you.

Now that we're done with the operating systems, let's move on to the software you'll use and how to use it.

Software (Messaging, Email, Cloud Storage, etc.)

The first thing the police did to the Tates was to check their messages. Telegram is not safe at all. Even though Telegram won't give them your messages, they can just unlock your device and open the Telegram app.

Your best options here are either Session or Status—both are great choices and decentralized. They're also fully encrypted and can only be accessed with an encryption key, which should be stored on your self-destructive USB stick.

Avoid using Telegram, Signal, or any other non-secure platform like Facebook Messenger.

The next most important thing is to use a password manager. I recommend spectre.app, which is a fantastic and secure password manager.

The only thing you need to remember is your password manager's main password. Create a long password in your head that you don’t have written down anywhere else. For example, “ISellFood@John7%.” All of your passwords will be in this password manager—just don’t forget your main password.

Email is your weak point. Even if you have an encrypted email, if the other person uses Gmail, it doesn't make much of a difference. My go-to here is ProtonMail, which is fully encrypted and uses Tor as well. So, exchanging emails from Tristan to Andrew is really safe with ProtonMail.

For cloud storage, I would choose Nextcloud hosted on a VPS with 1984 hosting, or even better, on Privex, which uses the Tor network.

For DNS, this is an easy choice: I would go with NextDNS, which also blocks ads.

Clean Up

Last but not least, after you've followed all the steps above, there are still messages, accounts, videos, and social media profiles from your past that connect you to your identity. I would hire a cybersecurity expert to run an OSINT investigation on yourself and find and delete any databases that might have your name. Basically, delete your name from most public databases or any private ones if possible.

That way, the police won't be able to use old messages as evidence.

Conclusion

I'm not saying that if the Tates had done all these things, they wouldn’t have been chased down by the police. But if the police have zero texts, messages, or videos on you, it’s really hard for them to build a case. They would only have tweets to go off of, and to be fair, Tate has been much more careful with his tweets after getting caught.

But remember, if "the Matrix" wants to get you, they will, and it will be really hard to escape. But you can always make their job harder.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you found this article helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at x@sotergreco.com, and I will respond.

You can also keep up with my latest updates by checking out my X here: x.com/sotergreco