Before I launch into the details below I want to stress that I am NOT looking for nor want any links to any hacker/cracker/black hat sites or software be posted in the forum.

Our younger daughter is getting divorced (for the third time) and the bloke is being a real cunt about it. He’s hacked into her hotmail, myspace and facebook accounts. He’s not gotten so nasty as to send mail from the accounts or alter them in any way but he reads all her mail and then throws the content into her face and takes otherwise simple friendly discussions and twists the word to believe she is having sex with others (both sexes) behind his back.

Her passwords were about as secure as a baby’s nappy and written down under her keyboard so we did the usual “you should have known better” routine. She changed her passwords to something stronger, didn’t write them down but the bugger still accesses her accounts.

The final straw happened today when he told her of the contents of Mrs Oldwilli’s hotmail account and said he had all the mail accounts mirrored on his PC. Mrs Willi was using a medium strong password that should have been difficult, but not impossible, to hack. Her new password (set up by me) is now 14 characters strong - my own mail password has always been 16 characters strong so I don’t expect to hear about our mail from him again.

My question is this: Is what he claims truly possible? Is it possible to “mirror” mail accounts and see all the activity even after password changes?

And, in the “Defense Against The Dark Arts” class, if this is possible, how does one stop it and/or monitor if such access has taken place?

Remember, I don’t want to compromise the forum by having any “Dark Arts” posted in the forum but some defenses are probably good stuff and OK to post. I’m off a-googling for answers on my own now ...

Cheers! ......oldwilli

Hey Oldwilli, sounds awful.  I’m not as technical as some of the others on the forum, but I reckon the best way to stop him going in to all your mail accounts would be a very heavy hammer blow to the back of his head.  Simple yet effective.

Hope things sort themselves out.

have to agree with Humper here. One baseball bat to the back of the bead works wonders. For that sort of work I prefer a wooden bat instead of metal. Kinda old school on that for me. Sides I like the sound the wood makes

Willy..

Change all passwords into random characters and random numbers…and then see..

He could be bluffing for a lot of what he claims.

Be sure to write the new passowrds down and store away securely.

Then scan her PC for any keyloggers/Viruses

Switch off any ‘remote access’ from the ‘control panel’...and check to see if he has installed any ‘remote access’ software on her PC..

I’m reckoning that’s what he has done…‘cos i’m reckoning he ain’t that clever to do it any other way…

Run a FULL virus scan as well…try one of the online ones like BitDefender or TrustMicro…

He had access to her PC…

Who knows what he planted on it for future reference…

DB

(PS…Don’t foget…ALWAYS LOG OUT when finished with email)

Dowse him in pertol as he sleeps. Stand above him naked holding a blow torch screaming “never read my emails again”

Always does the trick

I’m with Meshan and Humper on this one, but you seem to be a more civilised man OW, so I’ll leave it to the more technically minded TCers.

DB’s theory sounds about right though, as guessing passwords is quite difficult unless they’re completely obvious.

By the way, he sounds like a complete cunt and I’d like to wish your daughter good luck for the future, which will no doubt be far brighter without that piece of shit blighting her life.

I’m not sure how legal it is to tape somebody without their knowledge but I’m sure if you record him admitting what he’d done, then his boss/immediate family/friends would love to hear it…

Great advice from DB - it does seem like he’s installed a keylogger or some other form of spyware on the machines allowing him remote access. I’d be tempted to back them up and rebuild them - pain in the arse but it’s the only way you can be 100% certain that anything comprimised on the actual PC is secured.

As far as I know, Hotmail etc will only allow you access if you have the valid password so I suspect his claim of having all the email accounts mirrored on his PC are false (unless his keylogger sent him the new password for the accounts of course).

He does sound like a complete cunt. I’d add him to the list if I were you.

Guys, I would love to exact some physical violence on him, like handing him his nuts on a necklace, but the kids are about 2300 miles away so that’s not practical.

DB, the daughter has had her system wiped, reformatted and rebuilt. The friend who did it did find a keylogger and “linktome” installed before he wiped the machine and I suspect she didn’t make her passwords strong enough after the rebuild.

The mystery last night was how he got into the missus’ account. I scanned her machine with everything I could find in case he sent her a trojan email attachment and it came up clean. This morning she admitted that “just maybe there was a wee possibility just once” she might have given the daughter her password. D’oh!

She hates the new password I’ve set for her. I use acronyms of song titles as the basis so I come up with stuff like W@lIâ¥$ - we all live in a yellow submarine.

oldwilli

meshan - 13 January 2009 04:26 PM

Dowse him in pertol as he sleeps. Stand above him naked holding a blow torch screaming “never read my emails again”

Always does the trick

speaking from experience?