Hiding Stuff From Your Parents

by hybridDarkness

This is for people who live with their parents and are sick of them going through all their shit. I have a mother who goes through all the shit in my room, and calls it tidying. This really sucks, because if I have anything "bad", like forged absence notes, or whatever, I have absolutely nowhere to put them where my mother hasn't looked. So I came up with a way around this, and I think it might be useful to some people.

Before we start, this works best if the parent that goes through your stuff, doesn't know anything about computers. If you have another parent, who knows about computers, but doesn't rummage through your shit, then that's pretty safe.

- Step One : if you don't already have a computer OF YOUR OWN (no one else may use it), then go and buy yourself a cheap second-hand one, and set it up IN YOUR ROOM. It's important that other people are not going to be using this computer, and that it won't be out where other annoying family members or friends will feel like touching it

- Step Two : make it very clear to everyone that you are going to be working on your computer for a while, and you don't want them to mess it up.

- Step Three : buy yourself a disk caddy. Disk caddies are these things, that are about the size of a CD drive, that you put into your computer. You put a hard drive into a disk caddy case, and then you can put this case into your disk caddy, and the disk caddy will read the hard drive (so you can use multiple hard drives). Don't set up the disk caddy until you read step five.

- Step Four : put all the stuff you want to hide, in the disk caddy case. It has to fit into the case, and, if possible, not make any wierd sounds when moved - but that's not important.

- Step Five : when you set up the disk caddy, DON'T actually remove your hard drive or plug in the disk caddy. You just want to place the disk caddy in there, so it serves to hold the disk caddy case. Now put the case into the disk caddy, and if it has a lock on it, with a key, use that to lock it.

Now as long as the disk caddy case is in the disk caddy, you can be fairly confident that your parents won't touch it. It's like a little safe deposit box. It's great. Too many times have I stressed about forgetting the constantly changing places where I hide things, because they change for a reason, and that reason is that it isn't safe to keep it in one place. It seems pretty suspicious to ask if they can keep out of certain areas in my room, but they know I'll bite their heads off if they touch my eight-year-old Pentium 233 that I never use.

Please note, that I think it highly likely that if you keep disk caddy cases with stuff in them loose, then stupid parents are likely to move them in the course of tidying, and might notice the sound of movement within them, or if they know anything about computers, the light weight. While it's possible to keep them loose safely, it is a bit of a risk. If you actually have multiple hard drives that you wish to use in the disk caddy, it might be safe to leave them loose, but make sure that they are in one distinct position, all together and out of the way, where they won't be moved.

Thank you.

Feel free to redistribute, or whatever, as long as you don't modify this in any way, or charge any fee at all for this.

-Vernandos Luce (hybridDarkness)

"vernandosluce" at "gmail" dot "com"