best layers of protection

[BadaBing]

hey all I am a new member here. I have been studying and learning to hone my craft of being a home chemist of some sorts you can say. I am realizing I have had tunnel vision too long and I should have learned to layer myself with protection from prying eyes. I have a VPN but I am nervous because I have being using my personal email to send and receive emails for lets call it supplies. I don't sell nor do I send stuff in the mail I only deal with a bunch of friends and that's it not making large sums of money. by no means would I consider myself a UgL but in the eyes of law they don't care about the distruction they cause families. this is my hobby I am 42 years old and in the best shape of my life things are good I have a great job nothing worth losing. but I want to learn more on protecting myself in the cyber world. any input you can give would be great maybe I am a little spoked from reading the busted section in forum here but it is an eye opener for sure......

[Bullseye Forever]

First I would recommend a encrypted and safe email...don't use msn,hotmail,gmail,yahoo etc there are several private ones out there

[PAiN]

I moved this into the Computer Tech forum.

If you read through the stickies here and the other posts in this forum you will get a lot more information you can use.

Never use a personal email. All that is being logged in a database somewhere and will be stored. You never know who is reading all that information. personal email providers can send out searches looking for certain keywords you have used in a conversation once they get a hit they will be reading all of your emails. Others have been busted for this before.

Get a VPN. Make sure to read the TOS. If it says they keep logs or will cooperate with law enforcement or any legal action for any reason find another one. It should be encrypted anyway where not even the owners can read it.

Use TOR. The Onion Router is just one more piece of the puzzle to staying safe online.

^^^The two above will help to further hide your identity and also keep your ISP from logging everything you are doing and reading online.

Get a secure encrypted email. There is a list of them in the stickys here.

Read through the computer forum bro there are tons of articles on how to stay as safe as you can be online.

[aussieraven]

Could also try using phone apps like Wickr to send messages that self destruct