> I purchased iPhone8 from the store using cash. I gave fake name to print out receipt.

Did you buy this from the Apple store? What precautions were taken to avoid their obvious & hidden cameras

> I purchased empty sim card from eBay with cash at $5 value

Now the dealer you bought said SIM from has your name, address, and email, plus some card details from PayPal.

> Finally on my way back, I picked up $500 pre-paid card from Wallmart. The lady at checkout wanted my ID because as she said "the purchase is over $500 with cash" (I had few other items) but I complained that this is BS and she probably doesn't like my accent, and she let me go without authentication.

Uhh, Walmart shares their security camera feeds with multiple private companies: http://fortune.com/2015/11/09/wal-mart-facial-recognition/

They may also be sharing them with law enforcement.

> I brought all this home when I have whole house covered with VPN from one of top 5 VPN providers (altho I connect thru USA - any connection from outside makes life much more complicated, like multiple verification screens etc)

So now your VPN provider is a failure point, as they can totally screw you over: https://invisibler.com/lulzsec-and-hidemyass/

Use Tor if you want (as close as your going to get to) bulletproof anonymity. Youtube even works over Tor!

> The sim card company website gave me some issues using prepaid card; but as I remembered that gift cards should not be used for ongoing charges, I just unchecked "autopay every month" and it went thru.

The cell carrier and anyone interested can do a Home Location Register lookup (aka HLR) and find out which tower and cell your phone is registered on. Worse yet, your carrier or MVNO can use certain E911 features to locate your phone down to a few hundred feet.

> I fired up new iPhone with new empty sim card. I went thru setup process using new email. Here it was harder. iTunes did not like my prepaid card. I had to use my VOIP app (not Google, an app I use from Netherlands) to call iTunes and complain. I think it was a matter of one flag because it took them five seconds. I had verified complete iTunes account with valid payment method on it.

Don't bet on the country of origin to protect you. Most VOIP providers do jack to protect your calls even part of the way in transit, and that call was definitely intercepted since it came a provider overseas: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/bush-lets-us-spy-...

> Of course I turned off as much localization/icloud/blahblah stuff I could

Not that this will save you, these are essentially "user comfort" toggles that turn off features, but don't stop the data your looking to protect from leaking. Intel and AMD both do this too with Computrace and their various management engine implementations.

- I decided not to use my new phone and new number for incoming or outgoing numbers due to number matching techniques "they" use; instead I use a VOIP app to call my people.

So back to my prior point, since you picked a foreign VOIP carrier, your ensuring the NSA has all of your calls recorded!

- I did sign up to my regular mailbox but did it from BlueMail iPhone app, not the native one.

Apple puts much more of an emphasis on end user security than nearly any other company, which is part of why Siri is still garbage and their neural network/AI based offerings all center on operating on device. The built in mail app is likely more secure than BlueMail.