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This is semi-related to other threads I'm in, but I thought it would be good to have a record. I'm gonna come up with all the ways I can think of to hide materials on your computer, at least theoretically in this case, hiding magical and religious materials from roommates, partners, or parentals who might be set off by them. Anyone else who's got what I don't, feel free to jump in.

I know a method of hiding files without having to install anything except for winrar(which can be gotten here: rarlabs.com).





Taken from:
http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-hide-secret-documents-or.html


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Good plan with the winrar. If you don't want to go through the whole embedding process, then a simpler solution would be to password protect your rar archives of sensitive material. Simply use the create archive... function, and select encrypt with password, and encrypt filenames, to keep it totally secure.

You can get winrar from www.rarlabs.com, btw.

Places to hide papers:
The inside covers of books. Inside sleeves of jackets. Folded up in jeans pockets. Under furniture (wardrobes are great for this, some bookshelves are too. You can make a simple flat bag and tape it to the bottom of a piece of furniture or the bottom of a lower drawer or the part right above a drawer that you can'd really see, and hide books or materials there. An obvious, but classic place is between the top and bottom mattress. If there is a spot in the house where cuboards go up higher than you can see them, putting things in the top shelf out of sight may work. Older houses may have spots in the house itself you can put things- slipping them in the walls, behind cuboards, above ceilings, under wtw rugs, ect. The best place of course is in plain sight- having as many things as possible that don't look at all suspicious. You can pin thin things inside hung-up clothes that aren't worn very often. Some places are better than others, depending on the situation. A parent that puts clothes away will notice things in drawers- a parent that cleans often will notice things put in out-of-the-way places. There may even be places in the yard that would work- a shed corner, in a waterproof box under overgrown, never-trimmed bushes.

Other ways of hiding material objects:

Behind books in bookshelves. This works best if you have several larger volumes you can tuck something smaller behind.

If you are a crafter, many magical supplies such as stones can be tucked into boxes of craft supplies with no one the wiser. You can also hide thin objects such as candles in skanes of yarn. Just keep them away from any kind of heat source.

Headboards make great hiding places, as does the space between your bed and the wall.

Copy electronic files to CD, then hide them in cd cases. No one would suspect to find a BOS in a Cris Rice CD case, especially if you have that lovely program that lets you burn images onto cds. [Edit: Lightscribe. Lovely program I wish I had.]

You can hide things like candles in extra pairs of shoes or boots.

If you're like me and collect empty boxes (those decorative ones from JoAnns, or just small jewelry or nick knack boxes) you can hide small objects in there.

Girls, if you have a lot of plushies on shelves around your room, you can hid things behind, under, or even in them.

Elixors and potions can be hidden in clean, empty perfume bottles.

I dry herbs in the back of my closet, behind all my clothes. The clothes smell nice, my mom doesn't complain about the smell (she thinks my room stinks and it makes her think it's cleaner than it really is), and the herbs stay hidden and out of the way.

Hollow books are your friend.

Hide things in the messy places, like under the bed or in your closet.

The best place to hide anything is in plain sight. Don't want mom throwing out ritual candles? Put them with the every day candles. Need to hide your BOS? Put it with other notebooks or sketch books. Afraid someone will tamper with your collection of resource books? Scatter them on the book shelf (don't put them all together).

I never had much of trouble in this respect, to be honest, since my folks only used the computer for work and never had much time to snoop around. So, simply having a folder titled "(My name) Stuff" was all that was necessary.

However, I do know some simple ideas (though some have probably already been covered):

1.) Just name the folder something really mundane, like "School Stuff". As a secondary measure, name your documents school-ish names. This would deter someone just grazing over things. "Oh, it's homework. Okay."

2.) I wouldn't recommend using a hidden folder, because you can usually click on it and it says "The files in this folder are hidden." That's a HUGE red flag for the snoopy parent. Passwords are equally suspicious, and they may make you open it for them.

3.) As far as print items, making your BoS a simple binder may also trigger the "school supply" response from your folks. Common hiding spots such as under the mattress or bed are bad ideas. As someone said earlier, empty book safes are your friend. smile

4.) Sensitive spyware/malware programs are a must if your folks are hyper-stalking and install keyloggers and the like.

5.) If you're checking out books from the library, be sure that your folks don't have access to your check-out logs. (Or, if you're me, don't be careless and leave the receipt out in the open. >_< Took a nice little story to get out of that one.)

6.) Many ritual items can actually be substituted with normal, everyday items. If you're big on knitting, save some yarn for knot spells. If you like making your room smell nice, scented candles can also be used for candle spells. Love rocks? Keep some general crystals handy. Lots of multi-purpose herbs are probably in the spice cabinet.

7.) If you're not allowed to have a Tarot around, there is also a cartomancy method that uses a normal deck of playing cards. Put one aside for that usage. Bibliomancy also uses an ordinary book (but usually a work of literature/poetry or a holy book like the Bible) and could prove a reasonable alternative.

My meager bits of information are hidden away in a folder, often of which are in plain sight for just about anyone to look at. Nobody has, or I'd certainly be getting an earful right now.

So maybe a good place to keep it hidden is right where everyone can see it? sweatdrop

Heh. There's a VERY simple solution to a password file your parents tell you to open.
Say you forgot it.
Or, alternatively, comply, and type the 'password' in, but actually type something completely different. When it doesn't work three or four times and say you must have mis-spelled it when you originally did it, then try several different spellings of the 'password'. Most people will just give up; even if they are suspicious, there's nothing they can say. They may make you delete the file, but if you're smart, you'll have back-up copies.

My mom's stance was that I could BE pagan, but not DO anything pagan. Nor for religious reasons, but because she was a control freak. I could pray to the goddess, but not loud enough that she might hear me or she'd make fun of me. I couldn't burn candles or incense because it was a 'fire hazard', even outside or in containers of water. I could own books, but I wasn't allowed enough money to buy them, I wasn't allowed to go to the library, and I wasn't allowed to borrow things from my friends because I might 'break them' and be unable to pay. I couldn't meet with friends and do anything, much less actually (gasp) go to a pagan festival or eve (double gasp) join some sort of group. When I was going to start a group with a few friends of mine at a friends house that was, literally, three blocks away from my own, she almost didn't let me go because it was too 'dangerous' to walk there. In broad daylight. With other people. This, despite the fact that she had no problem sending me to the corner store alone at night. She then warned me that I might get in legal trouble if I wasn't careful (this despite the fact that I was still under 18 at the time). Then she proceeded to tell me about how this was a phase I was going through (although I'd been doing it for years at that point, and wasn't doing it as a rebellious 'stick it to 'em' thing) and that all religions were bad, and that there were a lot more nasty people in paganism than other religions, and that if I really wanted to know about it I should just e-mail her 50 year old friend in England who I had met a few times when I was a child and ask for advice, and that she wasn't sure she should let me go when my grades weren't the best. She actually made me late with this speech. And then, after that, I was somehow grounded so I couldn't go to any more meetings at friends houses.
I'd almost prefer a religious parent.