Can someone trace your computer activities?

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I am wondering, is it is possible, without my knowledge, for someone to trace the sites I visit and/or the e-mails I mail on my personal computer without my knowledge?

Like maybe someone I know could put some software on my computer to trace my activities.

I do have Norton antivirus software in place.

I hope this does not cause anyone to loose sleep over what they have been looking at on their computer but it is a serious question I have.
 
Yes, it's totally possible for someone to have any kind of logger on your laptop. If someone other than you has physical access and an admin password there really isn't any limit to what they can do with your computer.

OTOH, your ISP knows what sites you visit and what's in all your emails unless you take steps to prevent it.

BSW
 
What he said^^^^^^

You and your online activities can be watched and logged.

Heck, there is software that will hackers watch you on your laptop camera without your knowledge.
 
Originally Posted By: callbay
How can I prevent this from happening anymore? If it is now?


It depends on your situation. If someone else has access to your computer and admin password there isn't anything you can do to be 100% sure that you've gotta everything. It's pretty easy for someone to install a keystroke logger that's darn well unfindable. If it's someone that's decent at computers, they can install a virtual machine* for you to use while they keep actual control of the computer. Even a full reformatting of the hard drive and reinstalling the OS won't help because the VM will just tell you it's doing all those things, but in reality the underlying computer stays in control.

The only way to be 100% sure about a compromised machine is to wipe the HDD and sell it. Use the money to buy a new computer that you keep sole access to.

As far as your ISP seeing every step you take and every move you make, get a decent VPN**. That will stop most people short of 3 letter agencies from seeing what you're up to.

BSW

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine
**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network
 
Originally Posted By: callbay
How can I prevent this from happening anymore? If it is now?


Disconnect your computer from the Internet, both physically and wirelessly. I'm being totally serious. This is known as "airgapping".
 
Google, facebook and Amazon do this all the time. Example: I was looking at oil drain pan plugs on Amazon this morning, now I have Gold Plug ads on Facebook. A couple months ago I was emailing a cousin back and forth about a certain product, yep google was looking into my emails and providing ads about that product.

A good Virtual Private Network like Nord VPN can help secure all wifi AND internet traffic. I run NORD VPN on my cell phone and my laptop. With a quality VPN your nosy teenage nerd next door and the criminal faking an open Starbucks or Hotel wifi system only sees an encrypted data stream.

Another must is a solid antivirus suite running along side the free version of Malwarebytes. I do a full antivirus scan and a Malwarebytes scan every Sunday

There are tonnes of anti keyloggers out there but I think many are suspect. buyer beware in my opinion.

You can also use an encrypted email server like ProtonMail.
 
Originally Posted By: callbay
How can I prevent this from happening anymore?If it is now?


Every time you go online, use a credit card, use a debit card, use a rewards card, the deep state is watching you and they know where you're at.
 
Originally Posted By: bsmithwins
Originally Posted By: callbay
How can I prevent this from happening anymore? If it is now?



The only way to be 100% sure about a compromised machine is to wipe the HDD and sell it.


Like he said, keyloggers can be very tricky to find. Replacing the Hard Drive is the only sure way to know that you have a clean system.
 
You can get a keylogger with a prebuilt system:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/keylogger-found-in-audio-driver-of-hp-laptops/

If you're that paranoid get (ubuntu) linux, use a strong password, don't use social media on it, and consider a paid VPN from the Isle of Man or wherever is the hot "privacy country". Windows 10 purportedly has a keylogger. Use different search engines randomly so noone can build a complete picture of you.

That all said I also find the targeted ads creepy, especially if I look up a friend's disease then google thinks *I* have it.
 
Can you be traced? Yes. Are you targeted by criminals or the authority? Not likely on the former since you behind a good anti-virus and firewall, and presumably, on recommended OS settings . On the later, not likely either unless your targeting kiddies on FB or Google searching, "How to obtain plutonium".

Data mining is a different story. Pretty hard, if not impossible to stop. As far as software keyloggers: check for strange or duplicate processes in your programs and task manager.

Here's a good article on the whole subject. It's a little paranoid but informative nonetheless.

Online Privacy
 
buy a second hand computer from an unknown. Use open wifi for internet. Dispose destroy laptop after usage. Avoid cameras, your MAC address will be captured if you use an open wifi.......
 
Only thing I found that worked was the web browser called Tor. I am a computer hardware tech and was stalked online by relatives and coworkers and was doing nothing wrong. I believe they had a connection with a person who worked in my isp, also extremely knowledgeable network employees. For example if I was viewing stuff on the internet that a 30 something single guy might look at my mother would call and ask what I was currently doing. And I was at home. How messed up is that. And there was plenty of gas lighting mental abuse to mess up my head, if you ever heard of it. Anyway, I used Tor, it is encrypted as soon as it leaves your computer. I also used bitlocker to make sure no one would be able to come in to my house and do whatever they like. I reinstalled my operating system many times and that doesn't work in extreme cases like mine where your attackers break the law blatantly and don't care. They could also see who I called on my home phone. Stalked me with the gps on my cell until I got one without gps. So yeah the two things that I know of is Tor and to just keep off the internet, and maybe bitlocker. So I am saying if you have people messed up in the head enough and enough people connections they can make your life heck no matter what.
 
Originally Posted By: 99Eclipse
Only thing I found that worked was the web browser called Tor. I am a computer hardware tech and was stalked online by relatives and coworkers and was doing nothing wrong. I believe they had a connection with a person who worked in my isp, also extremely knowledgeable network employees. For example if I was viewing stuff on the internet that a 30 something single guy might look at my mother would call and ask what I was currently doing. And I was at home. How messed up is that. And there was plenty of gas lighting mental abuse to mess up my head, if you ever heard of it. Anyway, I used Tor, it is encrypted as soon as it leaves your computer. I also used bitlocker to make sure no one would be able to come in to my house and do whatever they like. I reinstalled my operating system many times and that doesn't work in extreme cases like mine where your attackers break the law blatantly and don't care. They could also see who I called on my home phone. Stalked me with the gps on my cell until I got one without gps. So yeah the two things that I know of is Tor and to just keep off the internet, and maybe bitlocker. So I am saying if you have people messed up in the head enough and enough people connections they can make your life heck no matter what.


Sounds unlikely. ISP will not release your personal information without a court order. It doesn't work like that.

TOR network is "the onion" it provides multiple layers of encryption on all communication, relaying traffic through various anonymous servers so it is not traceable back to you. This is largely overkill for anyone, you don't need it.

Reinstalling your Operating System is nonsense. Bitlocker enrypts the local hard drive, and that will slow your performance while the system decrypts every file it works with.

It is useful for laptops carrying very sensitive data, because if the HDD is removed the data is still encrypted.

At the home level you probably don't need this either, unless someone is breaking into your home to steal the drive, then pulling data off it.

If you are afraid of your ISP logging the naughty sites you visit, you could just pay for an anonymous VPN with different geolocations. $30 per year and you are done.

You can even put a VPN service on a home router, and it will run all your traffic through the vpn, and it will not be seen by the ISP.

This is typically used to get around geo-location restrictions, such as watching British streaming TV in the states, etc.

In closing, may I suggest some psychological counseling, if you are serious about what you say then you have a problem.
 
There is no privacy anymore. Some camera somewhere is going to pick up at least some part of almost any activity that goes on in cities big and small. That is the price we have paid for some modicum of security.
 
Yeah, I know it was unlikely. It is still hard to believe for myself. I read articles online that said the odds it won't happen. Why would someone go to that much trouble just to mess with someone with nothing to gain but the happiness they get from screwing around with someone and enough illegal activities to send them to jail. I wouldn't believe it either before that happened.

I did the most I could do and it wasn't enough, that is the point. People don't follow the law. I know most people won't believe me but I wanted to chime in and say yeah, you can't do much if you have the wrong people after you.

Not only at the height of it anyone would need counseling. Not only that I called one of the "help" lines. almost suicide lines. The first time I reached the right people. The day after I had my stalkers calling and acting like they were the help line and messing with me. The number was different.

Bitlocker did exactly what you say. I wanted it in case someone broke in and stole my HDD from my desktop. That was possible. It still doesn't slow down my ancient I7-920 and AMD 7970 video card. Also kept a spare backup hard drive in a safe.

Reinstalled OS in case spyware/malware was installed.

I thought about VPN but never did that, my fault, I worked with what I knew at the time, your obviously more knowledgeable.

So in closing... I didn't really mean to tell much about me on the first post, that wasn't smart. Thank god it is over for me and it no longer depends on if someone believes me or not. If I posted this topic here like the poster callbay I would want me to know they are not safe online if they have certain people after them. Who knows if he does? I probably should have stuck with looking for info online about my oil drinking daily driver that I have had for 15 years. At the time I didn't see any replies that actually were from people that had such things happen and how to help.
 
"Can someone trace your computer activities?"
Yes, it's as easy as clicking on my username on this post and then clicking "View posts" in the drop-down menu. It's disturbing how much a careless person might say about himself on a public forum.
 
Originally Posted By: 99Eclipse
I did the most I could do and it wasn't enough, that is the point. People don't follow the law. I know most people won't believe me but I wanted to chime in and say yeah, you can't do much if you have the wrong people after you.

I believe you; it certainly is possible. Yes, people aren't supposed to, but they do. We see it in the news on occasion, people misusing databases that they can access at work to hassle or simply snoop. A buddy of mine even had a utility person abuse the database to bother him.

If it were me, I'd be filing complaints where feasible, and I'd change providers for as much as I could, and at the very least use encryption, and sites with https; note that there are addons to facilitate that.
 
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