Does an OS exist that provides a user with a private session. I mean no history, logging or tracking? I'm a journalist working on a sensitive story and need complete safety/secrecy. I already have TOR for internet but was wondering if there is a completely private OS.
You could try Tails OS [1]. It is specifically designed for anonymity and privacy, and can be booted from a usb stick to avoid leaving any saved state. There is a recent feature summary at [2] and an older, journalism-focussed article at [3].
Have you checked out NONOS? It ticks all those boxes. Runs on RAM, written in a "safe" language (RUST), does not log usage and uses encrypted networking. https://nonos.systems/
From what I know, most modern devices have hardware backdoors, and most TOR nodes are compromised. If you're working on a sensitive story, you'd likely need to physically remove access to internet, bluetooth or any other signal, and not bring any other devices to that place.
Everything is its own VM, you can run apps in secure environments and when you close them it get rid of them.
You can even create networking VM's have that connected to a VPN and then make your other VMs go through it for a secure connection. There is a lot you can do with it for privacy.
Also in windows pro you have windows sandbox, when you close the sandbox everything is deleted. It is a tool lots of people don't know Microsoft offers and it is a sandbox, I use it for testing all the time.
[1] https://tails.net/
[2] https://dev.to/aniruddhaadak/tails-os-a-security-focused-pri...
[3] https://freedom.press/issues/help-support-the-little-known-p...
* Cross-Platform
* Multi-Language
* Offline
* Room Protection
For extra security, you can use an external data disposal tool [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivetti_Lettera_22
[2] https://geekyget.com/products/hand-shredder/
https://www.qubes-os.org/downloads/
Everything is its own VM, you can run apps in secure environments and when you close them it get rid of them.
You can even create networking VM's have that connected to a VPN and then make your other VMs go through it for a secure connection. There is a lot you can do with it for privacy.
Also in windows pro you have windows sandbox, when you close the sandbox everything is deleted. It is a tool lots of people don't know Microsoft offers and it is a sandbox, I use it for testing all the time.