First of all I would like to say hello and I'm really glad I found this forum. While I am experienced in other hobby forums, I apologize in advance if this question is asked almost daily. I tried to search and read through quite a few posts but couldn't seem to find anything relating to the problem. I know each forum has it's own culture as well as do's and don'ts, so I hope I am not breaking any of them. I did read that I need to post a "hijack this" log. However I am at home and my girlfriends computer is at her house at the moment. I will be sure to post that tomorrow. So here is the story...
My girlfriend has a laptop that she believes has some sort of program on it that is is allowing her ex boyfriend to monitor what she is doing. Because of this she has been afraid to use it for the past two years. I want to help her find and remove whatever is on it. I will try to be as brief as possible.
In the past her ex had been dumb enough to show her that he was able to monitor all of his sons computer activity using what I believe was some sort of keystroke logger, although she doesn't know enough about computers to know what exactly it was. In addition, this guy had a friend who worked with computers for one of the local law enforcement agencies, and he was the one who installed it. It surprises me, but shady people seem to be able to work almost anywhere. I don't know whether they installed some generic program they acquired online, or whether this guy was good enough to install a more powerful tool that he had access to. She does know that this ex boyfriend was able to check her email and computer activity even after changing her passwords almost weekly. As a test, she wrote a fake email for court that was made to look like a letter to law enforcement and the FBI, but she never sent it. She placed it in a draft box instead. Sure enough, the next time she was in court, this ex boyfriend was citing this email and claiming she was making threats to law enforcement about him, but did not seem to be aware that she never actually sent it. All of this was done after she moved out. The letter was also written on another computer, from another house with a different ISP. So I don't know whether what he installed was tracking her emails, passwords or computer itself. While briefly looking at it tonight for the first time, I did find that it was set up for remote access, and wondered if that had something to do with it. While I am fairly capable with computers, I don't know much about software of this nature, and would really appreciate any help or guidance in this matter.
I did think of just replacing the hard drive, and reinstalling windows, but another problem for her is that she believes there are passworded documents and zipped files on it that would help her in other matters. I don't want to spill her story on the web, but he was a part of some shady business deals as well, where he eventually attempted to place the blame on her. So far, he has been able to rack up debt on her, and forged her signature in order to take her house away; which has worked so far. The matter still has not made it's way to court, so she wants to keep whatever information that may be on the laptop in case it helps her in the matter. So this is sort of a two pronged issue. She would like to find and keep this data. All I could come up with so far was to try a "brute force attacker" to crack these passwords, although I know nothing about them and don't know which program is reputable. I thought about backing her hard drive up on my external before wiping her computer, but don't know anything about these programs. I wouldn't want to infect my computer obviously. I commend you if you have made it through this long post!
I realize there are many questions here, so if anyone was willing to offer advice for even one of them, I would greatly appreciate it. She is a wonderful person and I hate to see someone as worthless as her ex boyfriend still have this much control and fear over her life. Hopefully when this problem is resolved, I will be asking less depressing questions. Thank you in advance!
My girlfriend has a laptop that she believes has some sort of program on it that is is allowing her ex boyfriend to monitor what she is doing. Because of this she has been afraid to use it for the past two years. I want to help her find and remove whatever is on it. I will try to be as brief as possible.
In the past her ex had been dumb enough to show her that he was able to monitor all of his sons computer activity using what I believe was some sort of keystroke logger, although she doesn't know enough about computers to know what exactly it was. In addition, this guy had a friend who worked with computers for one of the local law enforcement agencies, and he was the one who installed it. It surprises me, but shady people seem to be able to work almost anywhere. I don't know whether they installed some generic program they acquired online, or whether this guy was good enough to install a more powerful tool that he had access to. She does know that this ex boyfriend was able to check her email and computer activity even after changing her passwords almost weekly. As a test, she wrote a fake email for court that was made to look like a letter to law enforcement and the FBI, but she never sent it. She placed it in a draft box instead. Sure enough, the next time she was in court, this ex boyfriend was citing this email and claiming she was making threats to law enforcement about him, but did not seem to be aware that she never actually sent it. All of this was done after she moved out. The letter was also written on another computer, from another house with a different ISP. So I don't know whether what he installed was tracking her emails, passwords or computer itself. While briefly looking at it tonight for the first time, I did find that it was set up for remote access, and wondered if that had something to do with it. While I am fairly capable with computers, I don't know much about software of this nature, and would really appreciate any help or guidance in this matter.
I did think of just replacing the hard drive, and reinstalling windows, but another problem for her is that she believes there are passworded documents and zipped files on it that would help her in other matters. I don't want to spill her story on the web, but he was a part of some shady business deals as well, where he eventually attempted to place the blame on her. So far, he has been able to rack up debt on her, and forged her signature in order to take her house away; which has worked so far. The matter still has not made it's way to court, so she wants to keep whatever information that may be on the laptop in case it helps her in the matter. So this is sort of a two pronged issue. She would like to find and keep this data. All I could come up with so far was to try a "brute force attacker" to crack these passwords, although I know nothing about them and don't know which program is reputable. I thought about backing her hard drive up on my external before wiping her computer, but don't know anything about these programs. I wouldn't want to infect my computer obviously. I commend you if you have made it through this long post!
I realize there are many questions here, so if anyone was willing to offer advice for even one of them, I would greatly appreciate it. She is a wonderful person and I hate to see someone as worthless as her ex boyfriend still have this much control and fear over her life. Hopefully when this problem is resolved, I will be asking less depressing questions. Thank you in advance!
