Password Problems

We get an awful lot of complaints of 'nation hacking' where people have guessed others' passwords, or where people have used a public computer and their nation's had auto-login switched on.

So here's how to prevent your nation from being nicked by some chancer:

Should you ever log on to your nation using someone else's computer, or if someone else uses your computer to play NationStates, make sure that your auto-login is off. Or they'll immediately be able to access your nation, change your password and do, ooh, terrible things. You should also be sure that no-one logs into your computer with their UN nation if you've got one too. Otherwise, it'll show up on our scans as a cheat. Usually it's easy to tell the difference between cheaters and family members, but it's not infallible. And the mendacity of your general NS cheat means we have to assume the worst.

Now, the ideal password is something which is:

1. Not a real word, nonce-word, foreign word, or slang word.
2. Has letters of both upper and lowercase and numbers.
3. Easily memorable so you don't end up having to write it down on a piece of paper which either gets lost, or worse, discovered.
4. not a sequence of letters or numbers (qwerty or 123 and stuff like that. And no, putting them backwards is not clever).

And finally, DON'T MAKE THEM GUESSABLE! This means don't name your password after your favourite TV programme, your pet, your mother, your nation, region, or anything else. Don't use the word 'swordfish' either, everyone tries that.

And for crying out loud don't use 'password'.

Should anyone be interested in this article for less than honourable reasons, I remind you that if you steal someone's nation, we will find out about it and you can expect your nations to be deleted as punishment.

So, I hope this has helped a few people! Maybe it'll stop potential problems eating up my spare time in the future too!