If you don't yet know how to use TrueCrypt check out this guide. I don't recommend using TrueCrypt's hidden container, though. Just execute it and you're ready for some crypto. There is really not much more in that tarball than the binary.
Hopefully we can keep this guide alive and update it for today's security needs so please comment any suggestions or corrections because of the character limit i will continue this guide in parts down in the comments. So please thank the original author sorcerer's_apprentice on the Crunchbang forums for his effort on such an awesome and detailed guide.
I TAKE NO CREDIT FOR THIS GUIDE I just wanted to be able to get this information more widely available as Crunchbang is no longer being updated so hopefully the bigger Tek Syndicate community will get more people enlightened on Linux and its full potential. Some of this may be a bit out dated such as Tor (can't recommend it since recent events).
Other than that the rest should be universal even Mac OSX and Windows will learn some things from this guide applicable to their privacy needs. Since this guide is based on Crunchbang the small percentage of you that aren't using Gnome Ubuntu may struggle to follow the debian package manager, if so please comment asking for help for your distro. Of course you can get into real tin foil hat level stuff and that's what this guide shows.
In the recent growth of Linux here on Tek Syndicate I wanted to just share this guide I found ages ago that really helped with knowledge of Linux all while improving general security and basic know how.