Taking into account this variety of information we have decided to put together a list of such methodologies with a short description, presenting for each technique their advantages and disadvantages, risk and threats involved. In this respect we will dedicate several articles to this subject – in each article we will present one or two such techniques.

We provide you with this information on E-mail and IM passwords recording techniques not to encourage you to use this information to steal passwords, but rather to inform you of the risks associated with such actions and methodologies. Whatever you choose to do with this information is up to you, and we will not be responsible for any activities you perform.

We have identified the following techniques:
- The Hoax
- Hiring Hackers to obtain e-mail and IM passwords
- Locally Stored Passwords
- Trojan
- KeyLogger Software
- Impersonation
- Sniffing
- Brute Force Attack
- Social Engineering
Lets start with the first:

The Hoax

The following so called technique is absolutely a hoax (meaning a fraud: something intended to deceive). There are many post messages on forums or newsgroup or web pages with something like the following (DON’T EVER FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS!!!! – IT IS A HOAX – IT WILL NOT WORK):

—————————————————————
: : : (([[THIS REALLY WORKS ]])) : : :

(1) send an E-mail to passwordrecovery@yourdomainhere.com
(2) In the subject box type the screenname of the person whose password you wish to find out
(3) In the message box type the next string: /cgi-bin/start?v703&login.USER=passmachine&class=supervisor&f={your aol password}&f=27586&javascript=ACTIVE&rsa
(4) Send the e-mail with priority set to “high”
(5) wait 2-3 minutes and check your mail
(6) Read the message.-Where YOUR password was previously typed, NOW, the password of the screenname will be there!

An automatic massage will be received from a password recovery service with the desired password.
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This is just a scam to steal the password from your e-mail account. In any circumstance you should never give your password to anyone. No legitimate web service or customer service representative will ask for your password or need it. There is no magic service or email address or a sequence of commands that will reveal the passwords of users.

The easiest way in finding, monitoring and recording information in a safe manner is using key logging software which records every keystroke. It’s not only a very effective techniques but it’s also very safe and legal if you are using a KeyLogger on your computer for recording keystrokes of other users while they are using it. You can find a variety of such solutions on the market: some of them are simple and others are more complex and rich in functionalities. In this respect we can recommend you as a first stop one of our solution: All-Spy KeyLogger or to visit an independent source such as: www.keylogger.org