Internet Harassment

[montanafan]

A friend of mine is having all kinds of problems with a former boyfriend and I''m wondering if there's anything she can do to protect herself.

How difficult would it be for someone to get into someone else's hotmail account? He tries to convince her that he can hack into her email accounts and computer and messenging, but I really don't think he's that knowledgeable, though some of his friends may know some things. I know that at one time it was pretty easy to find out someone's hotmail password, but I thought that had been fixed. I think he's just found her password or she let it slip. She has a new address, but he keeps telling her that he can find what it is by hacking into her friends accounts and then he'll be able to get into her new one.

How about this one? He said he hacked into her computer and got her ICQ history and read through everything and that's how he found out about a guy she'd been talking to and that he ended up calling and threatening. How difficult would that be?

And lastly, he said that he can read what she's saying on MSN Messenger. I don't think that one is possible. If you're signed into Messenger and someone else tries to sign in with your name and password, it doesn't let them. Is there anyway he could be doing that?

She's just so upset about it all and I'm not too thrilled myself because the guy was going in and reading and deleting all her emails and making her afraid to talk to any of her friends on the computer.

How likely is it that he can do all the things he says he can and what can she do to protect herself in email and chat?

 

[SmiZ]

Seriously, file a criminal complaint.

Regardless of whether he can do what he says he can, this isn't healthy. Your friend needs to get this situation under control. I had a lot of friends through high school with crazy Ex-boyfriends, and I saw what they went through. Stop this duche bag before it turns ugly.

 

[StageLeft]

Just what SmiZ said. Don't think about this again; call the police right now and ask them what they will do about this. This guy has ADMITTED to hacking, a serious crime. Fry his ass.

 

[montanafan]

SmiZ and Skoorb, I agree with you 100%, but she won't do it. She's afraid that if she does something like that, he'll get so angry that he'll move from just messing up her email and chat to messing her up. I've talked to her and talked to her and she absolutely will not do it.

 

[harpomx]

He could have back orifice installed on her computer. It would be simple to install - he would only have needed to be in front of the PC for a few minutes, maybe while they were still together. Actually, she could have installed it by an email.
Back Orifice allows remote access to your computer. For instance, if I installed Back Orifice on your computer, as soon as you connect to the internet, I could "log in" to your computer and take control of it. I could open/close/delete folders, launch applications, anything that I could do if I was sitting right in front of it. Or, instead of making my presence known to you, I could just "log in", and lurk - just watch everything you do. I could see everything that you could. The first time it happened to me, I was freaked, because my computer kept doing things on it's own! Luckily, I worked in the internet admin side of our ISP, and I was able to do a trace back to the guy's IP. He was one of our customers, too!

What she can do to find out if she has back orifice?
Non- techie: Any virus scan that's less than a year old should pick it up. Update your virus program just in case. Usually that's just a matter of getting a couple of /dat files from the company's website.

Techie: Go to the DOS prompt, type "netstat /a/n"
IF you see a UDP port 12345 with status LISTENING, you're infected.

Hope this helps.

 

[SmiZ]

Buy your friend some pepper spray, tell her the only thing that's gonna make this any better is if this kid gets hit with some serious police problems. Tell her to call the police now, if they have documented cases of his harassment from this point, they can be tougher on him if he tries anything.

This isn't going to get better until he sees that she's serious about wanting to be left alone.

<edit> typo </edit>

 

[kranky]

Is File and Print sharing disabled?

Is she absolutely sure she hasn't been infected with NetBus, BackOrifice, Sub7, or the like? Those are programs that allow someone to remotely access another person's machine. If she's infected with something like that, most of what he claimed is possible.

Either way, if it was me, I would (1) get a firewall program like ZoneAlarm; (2) change all passwords, not using the same one twice, and making them impossible to guess (like rt7u8A4). It's a pain, but an easy way to do it is to keep them in a file along with a printed copy, and when entering them in the file, subtract 2 (for example) from each digit in a password. That way even if someone grabs them, they still won't have passwords they can use. You just mentally make the adjustment when typing them in.

Chances are she has a weak password that he guessed (or found, as you suggest).

 

[montanafan]

Thanks harpomx, that sounds like the sort of thing he might be using. I remember talking to him once and he said something about a friend &quot;nuking&quot; him once and when I asked what he meant, he said that the friend had a program that would let him control other people's computers. I didn't believe him at the time, but that sounds like the sort of thing he meant. I doubt that she even has virus protection on her computer, but I'm going to buy her Norton's for Christmas if it'll help.

SmiZ, there's no way I can talk her into it. It's gotten to that point where my trying to get her to do something like that was almost as upsetting as what he was doing to her. I can't go against her wishes and do it myself either. Besides, we live in such a small town that if you even mentioned that it was harassment over the internet the local cops would just throw up their hands and say they couldn't do anything about that. They barely do anything about domestic violence, they say it's a family matter. Seriously!

 

[montanafan]

Thanks kranky. She knows even less about computers than I do and I didn't know that about BackOrifice et al. If she gets ZoneAlarm will that keep her being infected or just let her know when it happens? Would that be more effective than some sort of virus scan? Would it stop him from being able to access her computer if she installed it?

The thing that really makes it difficult is that I can't be sure what he's doing because she knows so little about what's possible and what's not. For example, I figured he just had her password and was getting into her email and so she decided to not save any more of her sent mail, but then she told me that he had read one and commented on it. I asked her why she had saved it and she said she didn't think she had, but she must have; otherwise, how could he have gotten it? That's what made me think that maybe he really did have some way of hacking into her computer.

 

[montanafan]

Since he doesn't have physical access to her computer anymore, then I guess if he knows what's going on in her new email account, he has to have something like BlackOrifice installed on her computer, correct? How does she get rid of it?

 

[StageLeft]

I think any recent anti-viral (heh) program should be able to kill Black orifice, er Back O

 

[harpomx]

Skoorb's right - a recent version of Norton or McAffee will clean out BO.
I have heard of Zone Alarm causing connection issues with ISP's. I know that our region's ISP, Sympatico(Dial) and Mpowered (ADSL), may not dial through for you if you have firewall software.
Of course, if it is Back Orifice, you can always format your computer - that'll get rid of it, and everything else too....

 

[montanafan]

Thanks guys! I'm getting her Norton's tomorrow and installing it for her myself. Hopefully that'll take care of it. Not everything I know, but at least it'll take away some of the helplessness that she feels and give her a little bit of control back.

Thank you so much for helping me to help her!

 

[harpomx]

Shucks, ma'am, twarn't nuthing to it.

 

[montanafan]

Oh, harpomx, why couldn't she have met a guy a like you instead?

 

[rahvin]

Get Norton internet security, includes anti-virus and a firewall, should cut him out totally. Also tell her to change her passwords, make sure they include 8 alpha-numeric charactiers. This means it must be 8 chars long, and must have at least one number in it. It should not be similar to ANY password she has used in the past.

 

[kranky]

I'll bet that will do it. Symantec has an on-line security test that might detect a problem also.

And you should stop by more often, montanafan!

 

[harpomx]

Yes, montanafan, come back anytime, I'm still blushing from the compliment!!

 

[blurredvision]

About the thing where you were questioning whether or not she deleted an email, some email accounts also have a deleted folder, where it will hold deleted messages for a couple of days before it completely removes them. Most have an option on how long they will stay. You may also want to check that.

 

[montanafan]

Thanks rahvin, Norton Internet Security it is. I'll make her change the passwords while I'm there and make certain that they make no sense whatsoever.

Kranky, thank you for the link. I'll go ahead and get her the Norton's too, but maybe we can find out from it today if she is infected.

And thanks for noticing Kranky. I haven't had the chance to visit much lately, but when I thought of who could help with this, AnandTech was the first place that came to mind, and I knew you would be here to offer a helping hand as you have every time I've needed it. I always picture your icon over there wearing a white hat. You are appreciated.

Nice to meet you, harpomx!

 

[montanafan]

Woodchuck Charlie, Ohhhhh, I'm smacking myself on the head. Of course that's it, she didn't empty her trash when she deleted some of her emails. That would explain some things. Thanks!

 

[bigbootydaddy]

harpomx

is that orifice like vnc or pcanywhere?? could this be why?

 

[Rigoletto]

Bingo, montanafan!
However, I can't give much sympathy to those who won't take reasonable steps to look after themselves. Couldn't you arrange a talk with a policeman for her without anything going to file? Might help her see sense.

 

[harpomx]

Yep, BO is kind of like VNC, but it doesn't show up in the systray or Ctrl-Alt-Del screen.

Nice to meet you too, montanafan!!!

 

[blurredvision]

Not to stray too much from the subject, (sorry montanafan), but is there a program like that that I can use with a home network, where I can control the other computer from another room on my computer??

Hope you get everything worked out Montanafan. If not, I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who's brother-in-law's sister's mother-in-law's son who can take care of all this for ya