current privacy/security setup

I'm not sure where this belongs, so I'm adding it here

All of my IRL personal and work data (except email) now reside on my Windows 2008 x64 Server in RAID10. For using that data, there's a Windows 7 Ultimate x64 VM in Hyper-V.

Everything else resides on Ubuntu 10.04 x64 servers, with RAID5 and encrypted LVM, in VMs on Oracle VM VirtualBox. There's one VM reserved for my IRL email and casual browsing, one reserved for accessing bank etc. websites, one reserved for hierophant, and others reserved for my other identities. Each of the hierophant etc. VMs runs an appropriate VPN, and is otherwise fully firewalled.

When I have time, I'll share more of the specifics. It was actually quite straightforward Most of the Ubuntu servers are old Windows boxes, maxed out with 1 TB WD RE3 SATAs.

 

I'm still new to privacy concepts and software, but is there any information, like MAC addresses, that ends up being the same across all your VMs? Would anything like that, such as a unique MAC address or constantly using the same VPN service and ISP negate the point of having so many virtual machines? Or does that just prevent someone gaining access to all but a small portion of your data? And how do you remember that many passwords?

 

I don't believe so. And perhaps someone will correct me. MAC addresses for VMs are assigned by the host. When you clone a VM, the clone gets a different MAC address.

I only have one physical connection (ADSL). However, each identity uses a different VPN account, and only uses that one, with no overlap. This one (hierophant) uses a XeroBank account. Others use accounts with other providers.

The isolation is mostly to prevent information leaks and malware attacks among identities.

I have a mnemonic formalism, developed over the years, for very long passwords.

Also, there are multiple layers. Most importantly, there's the LVM-decryption password. The user-account passwords are relatively unimportant, because they can easily be reset. The VM files are stored in TrueCrypt partitions, which are secured by keyfiles. And finally, the Ubuntu VMs have encrypted home directories.