Computer security

Recently a friend told me about a conversation he'd had with his
teenage son. It seems that the boy had been over here on several
occasions visiting with my nephew who lives with us, and apparently
the boy was bragging that they were looking at a few things that they
shouldn't have been looking at on my computer. I decided not to
confront my nephew with this until I had proof. So I immediately went
looking at the history on my computer. I recognized sites and Web
pages that I had in fact visited over the past few weeks, however it
shows nothing out of the ordinary.

I discussed this issue with a colleague who is much more computer
savvy than I am. (I'm probably boarder line incompetent on computers)
and he told me that if the kid first invoked "private browsing" there
would be absolutely no traces of where he'd been.

I had never heard of "private browsing" but I am now aware of this
feature on the Firefox toolbar. Indeed I did try it and after then
looking at the History I found no record of the web page I had just
visited!!

So can anyone just jump on a computer, look at anything they want to
or go to any website they want without there ever being a trace of it
left behind? This really disturbs me. If this is true what would the
police do in a situation like this? How would they get information off
a suspects computer if he hid his whereabouts from everyone?

But now my bigger concerns are how can I know if my computer, my
files, and all my personal information will ever be safe anymore? And
what if they were looking at something illegal for instance that left
some kind of traces behind that I can't see and that could somehow be
retrieved that could potentially get ME into trouble? This is really
upsetting. I'm really thinking about going back to carbon paper. You
can't hack that.

Can anyone please explain what this private browsing is, how it works,
and what it will and will not do? Can I disable it so that he won't be
able to hide his escapades in the future? I guess I'm more computer
illiterate than I thought. Thanks for any advice. Lenny

 

See here for info about Private Browsing:
http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/private-browsing-browse-web-without-saving-info

The Firefox add-on "Disable Private Browsing" may be of use to you, but
anyone with some FF know-how will probably be able to get round it
without too much difficulty.

This may be of help in locking down your PC:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-can-I-control-with-Parental-Controls

If all else fails, and you are the only one with Administrative rights,
you could always uninstall Firefox (and any other browsers), and then
reinstall but only for your account - not for any guest or other
non-administrator account. Don't forget to make your log-on password a
secure one!

 

--snip--

--snip--

Most important rule :

When somebody has physical access to your computer then there is no real
security if he really wants to circumvent it (and knows enough).
Its like having doors locked in your house, using correct tools thieves
can still get in from the door or thruogh windows ( walls whatever).
Locks etc just slow down the process.

ismo

 

Rule #1, NEVER, EVER let anyone else touch your computer keyboard.
Rule #2, See Rule #1.

You can't trust kids...or adults...see rule #1.
If kids could be trusted to use good judgment, the teen pregnancy
rate would be much lower.

If you must provide computing resources for others, get them their
own computer.
See Rule #1.

For $14 and the price of a hard drive, you can set up your system
so that you can swap hard drives. Lock yours up when not in use.
Let the kids play with theirs.

Malware is stuff that gets downloaded to your system while you're
doing something else. It can compromise your life.

But there's another class of stuff that falls into the category
of STUPID.
My favorite horror story is that of the girl who used a torrent
to download some music. She went off to college.
The music was still in the shared folder and available for download
by anybody who wanted it.
Some time later, dad got a notice from the copyright holder
with an offer to settle out of court for damages of $4000/song.
It wasn't malware. It was something the kid agreed to without
reading the fine print or considering the fallout.

See Rule #1.

So, what now?
You can ask the kids nicely to retrace their steps. That might
give you some idea of the risk. You're no worse off than millions
of other families with kids.

If you cared a lot about security, you'd restore a backup and lock
up the computer.

 

"Some time later, dad got a notice from the copyright holder
with an offer to settle out of court for damages of $4000/song.
It wasn't malware. It was something the kid agreed to without
reading the fine print or considering the fallout. "

My sister just got a laptop with Wimdows 8 for $300. Cheap but it works. Much as I hate to say it you might want 8, it's liable to have better controls.

About P2P, kids are not careful enough. The network is mined pretty heavily.. Apparently the RIAA is polluting it with bad files. Some arer quite worrsome actually. One has a female voice saying "This is an illegal download, go to something dot com to redownload the file. I wouldn't go there but I bet it's not a nice site and even if you do download the file there it's probably the same audio file that says it's an illegal download.

I can't seem to find YTD 3.9 anymore. I have it on one PC and it works welldownloading most of what yuo can get on youtube or a couple other sites. IDLed it for my laptop and it tunred out to be 3.4, and it fails alot of downloads.

Dealing with t he shared folder when using P2P is important. What I do is to only leave the really hard to get files in there. The RIAA is looking fornew stuff chiefly. I'd like them to threaten me for oldies because I will not settle even if I have to represent myself. I want to know where is my check from whoever bought these oldies out of public domain. I'm part of thepublis, where's my money ?

Basically, when the file has plent of sources and comes quick, remove it. Leave the stuff in there that took a month to get, oldies and rare stuff.

Anyway, when it comes to getting the history, there is spyware available. Iknow it sounds bad but spyware is good when you're the one doing the spying. In fact it is possible your ISP has one you could maybe get for free. They don't want to be guilty of pandering abscenity to minors.

My little horror story had to do with those 900 numbers. I was shacked up alittle while with a hillbilly broad named Louise. From Alabama. Left me a $300 phone bill. I didn't pay it, just the normal phone charges so eventually they called collecting. We told them she was under 18 and the silence was deafening. Nothing happened to my credit either, I could buy a new car ona credit card so they didn't do anyting there either. Suing me would be admitting that they pandered.