Hi all,

Long story short - Kids want to hook up their Xbox 360 to play online.Never done it before. Right old performance trying to sort it out,they're wanting to change internet settings here there and everywhere.Banging on about 'Mac filtering' or summat. Obviously us,ie mum + dad are over 18, so must be thick... our (main) pc freezes,but that's another post...
(anyone got an idiots guide to setting up either wireless or ethernet cable xbox 360 )

Anyway, they finally got online,temporary, (ours went off...great ) so they start messing with the settings at the xbox end.....jeez.
Right, to my question:

Kids are saying Microsoft need our email address, to report our kids if they're abusive etc..Fair enough,seems ok. "well they need the password also"

Me "EH??! They'll have control of our entire email account, do banks ever ask for personal passwords etc? if so, why bother with passwords? "

"you don't understand dad.................etc etc etc"



Sigh, so we give them an account rarely used,after deleting all the messages.

Should you EVER give your password out,even to Microsoft?

Seems ridiculous to me

Cheers, Dave.

* oh, sorry if in wrong (gaming) section, but I'm more bothered about the security aspect thus far,thanks *

Should you EVER give your password out,even to Microsoft?

NEVER!!! And I can't see Microsoft, or any reputable company asking for it either. I think there's a misunderstanding somewhere. If me, I would access that account and change the password immediately, assuming your password is still good.

If you don't have a router, I recommend you get one. They start less than $50USD. Setup your network - that's everything (except the game console) on your side of the "gateway" device, typically the modem, and make sure it works fine, and all users can access the Internet, print, etc. This will require minor changes to the firewalls on each computer - and we can help there if needed.

Don't forget to change and protect (don't write it down) the router's password - the kids (or guests) don't need to know it. If you don't have a secure place to put passwords, I recommend Password Safe or for PDA or smartphone users, SplashID which includes SplashID Desktop, an excellent Windows password manager that "Hotsyncs" your encrypted passwords with the PDA or smartphone.

Once your network is running, and secured, then you can "allow", as the network administrator, the XBOX to connect to your network, and access the Internet. The Microsoft guide, Windows XP: Connect an Xbox or Xbox 360 to your network is good. If you buy from the list of compatible routers on Microsoft's Compatible Home Networking Equipment site, you should not have to open any ports. But if any router configuration changes need to be made, you should do it. The router is your network's primary front line of defense against badguys. Every cable and DSL user should use a router to establish a network, even if only a network of 1 computer.

Cheers Bill, thought I was going nuts there for a while!

Originally Posted by Digerati

If me, I would access that account and change the password immediately, assuming your password is still good.

We did indeed do this as soon as the kids got hooked up to the 'net.

We have a router, a Belkin, but we can't seem to get it running right. Even when my daughter goes on her laptop it makes ours freeze, just a white page... I'll post in another part. I also think it could be the firewall?

Anyway, cheers, I stood the kids in front of your post and they just went quiet lol.

Hang on. You are misunderstanding the Xbox thing. A former room mate of mine had one he connected and to get an xbox on the net they require an MSN account entered into the xbox its self. You can create one here. What you do is either create a hotmail account (@hotmail.com) or use an existing email account to create whats called a .net passport. The difference between the 2 is that when you sign up for a hotmail account you are actually getting an email account. The other way you are just using an existing email address as a user name for an account with them. That is the email address and password that they are wanting. If you tried to use an email address that you didn't use to create a .net account it would probably say that your account doesn't exist. Now if you are concerned about them being able to open the email account of what account you use to create the .net account just don't use the same password. I wouldn't use the same thing anyway because the password is shown on the screen as it is entered in and it is stored on the xbox. When entering in the .net account information into the xbox you are just authenticating your account with information that they know anyway. They use this account to control how the xbox connects to their system because there are a couple of different access packages that you can get and one costs less than the other; I don't remember if either are free. Does this help?

Hang on.

No, don't hang on! @Townsbg, I appreciate the input about Xbox but please don't counter the advice given by staff - ESPECIALLY over security concerns.

If we are talking about "signing in" to an account (or creating a new one) , then I agree, a password is needed. But the information we have here is,

Kids are saying Microsoft need our email address, to report our kids if they're abusive etc..Fair enough,seems ok. "well they need the password also"

No one needs your password to your account to send you an email. I opened with this "sounds like a misunderstanding". Until the misunderstanding is cleared up, my advice stands.