How to Be Secretive About Your Computer

It is sometimes preferable to instead of adapting your computer to be more private, reinstalling the OS, giving you a clean palette, wiping away all the junk that has accumulated., Add a password to your computer account., Password protect, and...

18 Steps 2 min read Advanced

Step-by-Step Guide

  1. Step 1: It is sometimes preferable to instead of adapting your computer to be more private

    A big mistake is to have a simple password, or one people can easily guess at.

    You should use a more cryptic password, a random hash of numbers and letters would be the best, but hard to memorize.

    Another good idea would be to write out a sentence for your password. "Gordon ate a fat newt" has no meaning to it, and would be impossible to guess.

    Do not leave a password hint, you should devote it to memory.

    If you leave a hint, make it cryptic, or make it seem to point to another password entirely. , For things of that nature, removable storage is preferable.

    However, to keep it on the hard drive, put it in a folder called "Projects"

    in a sub folder in it called "January 2008"

    in that folder "media"

    than "movies" and then "corrupted" and then "hot".

    Remember to password protect all the files, and encrypt them. , In Firefox, get the Add-on Tab Renamizer, allowing you to rename tabs, so "Hot chicks" becomes "Math Help". , If someone really wants to snoop, there are ways to find out what's been going on.

    Get the program "Eraser".

    It goes to the "empty" space, where all your data waits to be overwritten, and it writes over it with random binary, providing junk information. , Hit the windows and L key to lock your computer. , Do a Google search on them for more details
  2. Step 2: reinstalling the OS

  3. Step 3: giving you a clean palette

  4. Step 4: wiping away all the junk that has accumulated.

  5. Step 5: Add a password to your computer account.

  6. Step 6: Password protect

  7. Step 7: and encrypt all your files in a manner similar to the above

  8. Step 8: and put more sensitive files in places you wouldn't expect.

  9. Step 9: Know how to delete web history and cookies

  10. Step 10: and do so often.

  11. Step 11: Understand that when you delete files

  12. Step 12: they aren't gone because their data remains

  13. Step 13: and is allotted to be written over.

  14. Step 14: If you leave your computer for a second

  15. Step 15: lock it!

  16. Step 16: If there are files that must be kept private no matter what (even if you are being tortured to hand them over)

  17. Step 17: there are two programs called "FreeOTFE" and "TrueCrypt" that you can lock files in

  18. Step 18: and it is practically impossible to break the encryption.

Detailed Guide

A big mistake is to have a simple password, or one people can easily guess at.

You should use a more cryptic password, a random hash of numbers and letters would be the best, but hard to memorize.

Another good idea would be to write out a sentence for your password. "Gordon ate a fat newt" has no meaning to it, and would be impossible to guess.

Do not leave a password hint, you should devote it to memory.

If you leave a hint, make it cryptic, or make it seem to point to another password entirely. , For things of that nature, removable storage is preferable.

However, to keep it on the hard drive, put it in a folder called "Projects"

in a sub folder in it called "January 2008"

in that folder "media"

than "movies" and then "corrupted" and then "hot".

Remember to password protect all the files, and encrypt them. , In Firefox, get the Add-on Tab Renamizer, allowing you to rename tabs, so "Hot chicks" becomes "Math Help". , If someone really wants to snoop, there are ways to find out what's been going on.

Get the program "Eraser".

It goes to the "empty" space, where all your data waits to be overwritten, and it writes over it with random binary, providing junk information. , Hit the windows and L key to lock your computer. , Do a Google search on them for more details

About the Author

C

Cheryl Hughes

Enthusiastic about teaching organization techniques through clear, step-by-step guides.

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