In Chapter 1: What “dangerous” act is Winston about to undertake and what is the possible punishment?

Winston has a bought a diary and was about to write in it;

"The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp."