It is still possible to anonymously purchase on-line resources which will be useful for those wishing to frustrate Internet surveillance, evade Internet censorship or blow the whistle on something without risking the exposure of their identity.

Finding a pre-paid card that can be purchased in cash with no questions asked is trivially easy, any card or gift shop is likely to have them interspersed with Starbucks gift cards etc.

For this example we’ll choose a £50 VISA card which once you get to the till will actually cost £53.95. Hand over your cash and walk out of the door.

As you leave swing by a Three, EE, O2 or Vodafone store and buy a pre-pay data SIM. Three have a 1Gb SIM for £7.50, buy it with cash and walk out of the store.

By now the VISA card will have activated and should be good to go.

For extra anonymity you may wish to visit a local pawn broker like Cash Converters or CEX and acquire a phone, tablet or laptop so that the IMEI you use with the newly purchased SIM is not one that has previously been tied to your identity.

Open up your VISA card and you’ll notice it has an expiry date, the CVV code on the signature strip and the usual 16 digit credit card number.

Setup your 3G connection, optionally install TOR to bypass any ISP restrictions that may be present then navigate to your VPS provider of choice. I’d suggest DigitalOcean.com but there are many others.

Signing up for an account is easy, put in an email address and a password (the email address will have to be a real one as it needs to be verified and it’s where your root passwords are sent but try signing up to something like HushMail.com).

Once logged in you’ll be asked to verify your billing details;

Now it’s likely that your use of TOR and a prepaid VISA card will trigger anti-fraud protections; the account will be locked and a support ticket will be raised asking you to identify yourself

The people at DigitalOcean are very good and if you adequately explain your motivations (be it running a website you’d rather not have your name attached too, as a proxy for privacy etc) they are likely to accommodate you without requiring copies of ID or a credit card number tied to your identity. DO NOT ABUSE THEIR TRUST.

Within a few minutes the account will be unlocked and you can launch your virtual machine.

If you login to the VISA pre-pay system you’ll be able to see if the pre-authorisation passed and that you’ll be able to continue paying for your server resources.

You can now host your whistle-blowing blog, a critique of public policy or just use it as a proxy safe in the knowledge that there is virtually no trace back to your true identity.