Hacking: (in the neopets sense of the word) any attempt or action of illegally (without permission) accessing another Neopets members' account, either by tricking the owner into giving up their password or by guessing the password in question. This is prohibited by neopets law, and will result in freezing the perpretators' account(s).

Some people call this by other names, like cracking, jacking, stealing, pilfering, cheating, or just plain makin' money, but I first knew it as HACKING, hence the name of my guild, and I don't really fuss about names as most people do.

This is the worst thing that can ever happen to you while you enjoy neopets. Having a ghost steal 50 np, or having a pets' gender changed, or getting your butt kicked in the Battledome is not as bad as losing your account. Yes, losing. Hackers usually will change your password and e-mail after getting into your account, and usually suck the account dry of anything useful. And usually, they will do illegal things on your account so it gets frozen. If you are hacked, there's usually nothing you can do, unless your password was NOT changed, in which case you can check your neofriends list and see if any new names have popped up. But that is often a)erased or b)useless because the account name is probably also hacked or c)hard to do. Man, I've got like 200 neofriends. I don't remember who I know or not!

The only thing we can do is prevent hacking. Here are the golden rules:

1. Don't give anyone your password. Or at least use your judgement. Why should you give your little brother that hates you your password? And why would you need anyone to get your password? Neopets don't need a babysitter. There are hotels for that! HTML work and images can be e-mailed. There is absolutely no reason to give your password out, so don't do it!

2. Use a difficult password. Don't use your username, pets name or real name. Use upper and lower case letters, with some numbers. Example: fidGitt590b is a great password. Who would ever guess that? If you have a bad memory, do something easier, like your uncle and grandmothers name put together: BobAngelica.

3. Don't fall for any scams. Unfortunately, there are no magical programs that Neopets wouldn't detect right away (and freeze you for) that make money or whatever. And if you are lame enough to want instant money, keep in mind that Neopets is a GAME. Would you steal Monopoly money? If so, you don't deserve oxygen.

4. Some people go way too far. I have seen people make a page EXACTLY like the neopets login page. You type in your stuff, and it gets sent to them. However, login pages do not just randomly pop up like that! And login pages don't have any ads popping up. And the login page has a url of http://www.neopets.com/login.htm. Just use that good ole judgement of yours, and you should be just fine.

I hope these rules will be followed by those who have read them: YOU. If in doubt, or you've something to add, contact me.