How to keep your passwords secret?

[Daryl G]

A friend of mine is an adult but his mother is making his life terrible by somehow getting his passwords and hacking his AIM and Facebook to block anyone she doesn't like. It's unethical and wrong so I'm trying to help him.

What can he do to protect his passwords better. For example if he used Google Chrome Incognito mode would that prevent his stuff from being tracked or is there better ways to do it.

[Lateralus]

Get his own computer and password protect his account, or move out of the house already.

[valkoth]

ummm he probably shouldnt tell his mom his passwords. or in that matter have them saved on his computer.

[Emi;)]

Change his passwords to something she'd never think of, then just don't tell her! I dont know how else she'd get them other than him telling her...

[gto69judge]

First off, he needs to change all of his passwords. His mom obviously has gotten hold or or guessed his current one(s).

For a new password, use something that is alpha-numeric (contains letters and numbers) and case sensitive. The longer the password, the generally more secure it will be.

Do not chose anything about himself that his mom will know- birthday, middle name, anything he is known to like. A sample of a good, secure password might be 15yEllow6.

Never write the password down or save it to any kind of computer file. Commit it to memory and don't share if he doesn't have to.

As a final though, if your friend is using a shared computer it is possible his mom may have a parental key logger installed. These programs record everything that is typed on the computer. In which case the most secure password in the world won't help any.

[Grondaivor]

well theres only 3 ways that she is getting the passwords..

1. keylogger: this is software on your computer that will recorder every site that is visited along with the Usernames and passwords entered. to bypass the keylogger start the computer up in safe mode with networking.

2. Cookies: if they are saving there passwords for next login then all they have to do is goto the site themselves and login regardless if they want them to or not. the best thing to do here is NEVER SAVE YOUR PASSWORD!

3. only other way someone could get the password is if someone told them it. NEVER SHARE YOUR PASSWORD.