this is exactly the sort of thing you imagine in the shower to feel good about yourself

If you guys don't think the CIA can hack a Linux computer I've got a nice bridge you might want to purchase.

what does he do all day?

He administers his system.

Buy a thinkpad x230 and install heads. Write protect the flash chip. Put nail polish on the screws and take high resolution pictures to ensure signs of tampering. Do NOT use a HDD or SSD. They have DMA so a malicious firmware could do a lot of damage, use of USB is preferred since they do not have DMA. Completely remove the microphone, sound card, webcam and the WWAN card from the laptop. Remove the fan to prevent binary acoustic data transmission. Replace the default wifi card with a supported atheros card. Disable wifi when not in use, preferably by physically removing the card. Make your own independent Linux distro from scratch. Most Linux distros value convenience over security and will thus never have good security. Your only option is to make your own. Use musl instead of glibc, Libressl instead of openssl, sinit instead of systemd, oksh instead of bash, toybox instead of gnu coreutils to reduce attack surface. Enable as little kernel modules as possible. Use a hardened memory allocator. Apply strong SELinux and sandboxing policies. Restrict the root account heavily to make sure it never gets compromised. Disable JavaScript and CSS in your browser. Block all FAGMAN domains in your hosts file. Monitor all network requests. Do not use a phone. Never speak near anyone who owns a phone, they are always listening. Never use any non-corebooted technology made after 2006. Never leave your devices unattended. Tape triple layer aluminum foil all around your room as tempest shielding. Type really quietly as defense against audio keylogging. Use ecc ram to minimize rowhammer and rambleed. Encrypt everything multiple times with various different encryption implementations. Compile everything from source. Use hardened compilation flags. Always read through the source before installing something if possible. Only use the internet when absolutely necessary.

"Finally, we cracked it. What was he hiding in this thing?"

"Mostly ways to keep his data safe"

Like the feds would care about raiding the house because it was actually his parents’ lmao

And his harddrive isencrypted, so raiding is kinda useless.

Blob free capable computers are so old though. After trying one I don't know how I survived that era without even using ssds. Before that how the hell did live with Pentium 2, 3, and 4?

doing it the right way

I don't think the NSA or CIA has ever had any interests in my specific online activity, purely because the manpower is never that well utilized in our world, but in the age of automation that could all change soon.

feds: proceed to kidnap and torture the VIP target described in OP post for answers