Can people see what you do on your PC?

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Hi. I'm a paranoid cluster-**** and I have an ex-friend who's a computer super-geek. I'm always worried he's looking in on what I'm doing with spy ware. What do you think??? Is it likely or really possible? I surfed the net for several months without spy ware (I know, idiotic, but that's beside the point.) Well?

I doubt your friend is doing that. Google is likely doing more to track your activities to profile you.

The CIA and NSA are already doing this to everyone (getting everything you do), but the question is if they have the means to analyze the data for any meaningful information.

Does your friend get direct access to your PC? If not, I'd be amazed that he would bother to try.

lol this could make a lot of people freak out the way you wrote it (or maybe it's the way I quoted it?). Just for clarity they don't actually look at what everyone's doing on the net they have programs that recognize patterns of behaviour that may be associated with terrorist or other illegal activities which red flagflag users who display such behaviour. Or something like that. They're not watching us




I hope

..

Last edited by FaithHopeCheese on 30 Dec 2009, 10:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

Greshym, you might want to take a look at the "privacy tools" on the following web-site
http://epic.org/privacy/tools.html

Short version:

"Yes, entirely possible, but unlikely."

Long version:

First off, we need to clarify what spyware is. There are many different types, and the tools that would let someone directly watch what you're doing on your PC are not usually referred to as spyware. I'll go by what they do:

1) Some spyware watches what web sites you visit.

2) Some spyware monitors what you type on the keyboard (in other words it's looking for you typing your credit card details.)

3) Some spyware trawls through your machine's storage (in other words it's looking for your credit card details.)

4) Some spyware does all the above, trashes your operating system, randomly spams emails to people and plays the harmonica badly at 3am (in other words the above categories are by no means exclusive!)

But there are also programs which will let you directly watch what someone else is doing on their computer, or directly control another computer. These programs are not spyware in the usual sense of the word, but technical tools (or hacktools if you're using them while wearing a black hat). Typically they're used to troubleshoot problems with a machine, or to control how a machine is being used. Here's different examples of what they do:

1) You, the user, specifically ask someone else to control your machine over the internet; they can see your machine and directly control it if they need to.

2) Without asking you, they can open a session with your machine - that is, they can log on to it as a user - without you knowing it. While logged on they can do whatever you can do.

3) Without asking you, they can see what you're doing on screen and directly control it.

I use variants on all of these at work. Most spyware doesn't need to provide that kind of function, it just wants to find your credit card details and send them to Russia. ^^

If your ex-friend had access to your computer, it's entirely possible he could have set your machine up so that it would allow that sort of thing. But he'd probably have needed to plan that in advance.

Try running this against your machine and see if it picks up on anything nasty. (it probably wouldn't indicate if your machine had remote terminal access turned on, though)

Yes, "watch" is a little misleading. All information that goes across phone lines and Internet is copied for later analysis. In that sense, everything you do is trackable. The question is if they have the ability to make sense of every person's use of telecom technology or can only focus on a handful of people at a time.

there are programs that can capture your keystrokes...so in that case, yeah.
Short answer...if he really wanted to...pretty much...depends on what he'd find.

Every IP packet of information that goes in and out of your system contains a source and destination address...so it wouldn't be hard to see where you're going.

can anyone recommend a good free proxy site with decent data transfer

Uncertain.

I know they exist, but I question the legitimacy of them. It'd be just like the NSA to set up such a company just to track people trying to evade the system.

After all, people who launder money for drug lords don't advertise in the Yellow Pages.

Want an easier process?

Use a cheap laptop/PC that has nothing of YOUR personal data on it for surfing the Internet. Never use it for personal data. Use an assumed identity for acquiring online service and e-mail accounts.

Your activity can be tracked, but there's a good chance it won't be linked to your real identity without a very deliberate effort by someone who wants to know.

yes it's possible, someone did that to me.

Youtube uses s.ytimg.com to watch you on your webcam and
listen to your microphone. Cover your webcam and microphone,
or disconnect them if possible while on youtube. Firefox refuses
to block s.ytimg.com. IE doesn't block ANYTHING EVER.

IF you somehow succeed in blocking s.ytimg.com , you still
can watch videos. Somewhere there are settings on Youtube
for turning off s.ytimg.com, but it seems to be like installing a
light switch on a tree in the forest. It doesn't DO anything.

Google, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Youtube, and RSS all
link anything you do on them together with your IP address,
name, and computer. Who knows what else does... everything!
Yahoo did it before Google. AOL before Yahoo.

Well they can see what you do online with IP address.

What about internal webcams and mics on laptops? Aside from the build in mics which don't, the camera lens has a light next to it that lights up when the camera is activated. Does this matter, even?

And I believe that the government doesn't monitor us for anti-terrorism reasons. I just think they want to be superior over us, and have complete control. I've heard Mormons spy on their fellow members, one admitted to this, in fact. What makes you think the government doesn't do this to us?

And listen to the spoken word track "Omega" by Stone Sour:
"CLASSIFIED MY ASS THAT'S A F***ING SECRET AND YOU KNOW IT. Government is another way to say 'better. than. you.'"
--Corey Taylor

I make my living remoting into people's systems (legally, of course, and by permission..
the technology's there...

Oh yes, google has seemed to do that to me, type in "superboyian" and it actually comes up, even on google images, even THIS avatar but i doubt that Greshym_Shorkan's friend is actually like that? My friend did that to me and now knows i'm an aspie which didn't bother him, thank goodness **phew**