If you’re on target with the NSA, they won’t think about breaking down the individual barriers of your defence, because if it’s built with your head, all they have to do is look for flaws in you. In you, or in your configuration. If the configuration is really good, then your OPSEC, for example, might be rubbish.
You need to start much earlier than the network connection itself.
For example:
-Dedicated hardware, preferably Linux, open BIOS, hardware that is not suspected of having backdoors.
-Dedicated computer for “work” (something not connected to you as a person), e.g. buy for cash in a place without cameras. Remove the microphone, cameras, etc.
-Linux system, preferably some Debian or other non-commercial system made by the community. Debian does not have many commercial system tools, most are GNU.
-Dedicated virtual machines on this laptop
-Internet, a separate source from the one you have at home in your own name (i.e. a separate place with Internet, modems or access points in places without cameras, Internet from a neighbour, etc.).
-In general, you need to treat the hardware as ‘work’ and the location as ‘work’. Then you have separated the two worlds, your normal one and the one where you are, being targeted by the NSA. As if both mix in one place NSA will find you easily even if you are using 10 VPNs and 8 onion routes 
-If you already have to connect from home, I would buy dedicated servers, one or two, for crypto and have VMs on them. Connect to them in a secure way, and do all the stuff on these servers.
-Then I would buy a dozen cheap VPS servers in the same anonymous way for cryptocurrency that is not tied to your identity. I would have servers in multiple locations around the world to put private VPNs on. And for dedicated workloads, I would buy a VPS and set up a VPN on it for the duration of the operation.
-I would follow hardening guidelines for all servers, laptops, systems and services I build and use.
Then I would break each of the above into small steps to look for the threat in each. For example, buying cryptocurrency, buying a computer, faking data and having a backup, all encrypted on another server that would only be used as a backup.
Now you are ready for the steps with the connection. It all depends on what you want to do and what you want to achieve. If you are an assassin, you will probably need a camera to document your work and send to the person you are hired by, and a secure communication channel.
If you’re a darknet market owner, you probably don’t need a phone, just a server and a secure connection. If you are a hacktivist, you would need additional tools or devices. So it really depends. But let’s go back to our standard basic steps.
I find it a bit funny to always hide behind seven vpns and seven proxies and Tor on top of that. Sounds a bit like that fairy tale from a long time ago, behind seven mountains and seven forests…
I don’t know if the people who suggest 3 vpns, 2x Tor plus proxy have ever actually used such a solution and opened a website for it.
Tor is needed for pseudo anonymity, a VPN (but ours, which we set up ourselves) can help us hide Tor from the ISP if we don’t have a dedicated connection, and by using a VPN we hide Tor from the provider, then our plan is already low budget. VPN for Tor helps you browse the web without captcha and blockers, it helps you look like a user logging into the bank, for example, from a location close to your daily activities. But a socks proxy is better for this, and it has to be configured and hosted by you too. You can’t trust free proxies list or proxies/vpn providers.
Maintaining anonymity costs money, and a lot of it. Oh and a lot of knowledge. Then you need invest more money and more knowledge.
Finally, it all depends on what you want to achieve, without an example of what a bad person you are and what bad things you do, there is no golden rule. And even with that information… there will be no golden rule, lol.
Now, and most importantly, by asking questions like this, no one can ever link your nickname from this forum to your villain profile.
You can never brag about your accomplishments.
You can’t appear richer than others who know you.
No one can ever physically see you at your ‘work’. Things you can’t do yourself, you outsource.
And others like it.
I hope my chaotic entry has caused more confusion than help. But I hope it will give some insight for thought in the bigger picture and not just a small snippet.
Plus insights and comments from people above. Because they are valuable.
