My Ex was living with me and bought a spy program using MY credit card with out my knowledge. She put it on my computer…fast forward 7 months after she’s gone and sadly NOT forgotten and this program is STILL on my computer. She now lives in another state but emails me once in a while with the report this program sends her about whatever I am doing on my computer. I contacted the company that makes this software and explained the circumstances but they just emailed HER and told her I was trying to get it removed.
I am NOT a minor nor is this woman any relation to me other than an EX-girlfriend. Is there anything I can do to get rid of this program? Are there any legal alternatives I can pursue?
Until you figure out how to remove it, you can use a firewall to prevent that program from sending out reports. ZoneAlarm is free, and it will notify you whenever any program tries to access the internet, and you can specify that the spy program can never gain access, so the the ex will never get anymore reports. Her’s a link for a free download:
I have Win 98 and I have ZoneAlerm. The problem is according to the literature at the company that makes this programs’ site is that this particular program sends it’s reports via my own email. So Zone cannot help for this. I have checked though and I never have seen anything being sent spontaneously without my specifically sending something else…but this could very well be a feature of the program that it sends the report whenever I send something else.
I can tell the name of the program but not sure whether this is acceptable here.
I have Win 98 and I have ZoneAlarm. The problem is according to the literature at the company that makes this programs’ site is that this particular program sends it’s reports via my own email. So Zone cannot help for this. I have checked though and I never have seen anything being sent spontaneously without my specifically sending something else…but this could very well be a feature of the program that it sends the report whenever I send something else.
I can tell the name of the program but not sure whether this is acceptable here.
Damn, that’s tricky. It may not show up under the task manager, either, so that’s out. Go to the control panel, select ‘add/remove programs’, and see if it shows up there.
I don’t have any advice for you, Darren, but welcome to the SDMB!
And Dude, you really know how to pick 'em. Here’s a hint: if you ever get a “free” telephone cards in the mail for like $10 or $20 or whatever, don’t use it. The person who pays for it gets a record of every number called using it - I’ve heard of over-zealous ex’s using these things to keep track of what’s going on… :eek:
Well, from a possible legal standpoint, you can report the claim to your credit card company. Have them go after your ex for fraud in using your CC without your permission (although, this might bring bunnies into your kitchen pot if ya know what I mean).
This may reverse the charges on your C.C.
This might get the company that has the program to at least stop sending reports since they didn’t get paid for it.
It’s not a complete solution, but it could be a good temporary patch.
I also wonder if ad aware software might get rid of this…considering it might be caught as spyware…hmmm.
Well, let’s start at the beginning. I’m not sure how technical you are so I’ll try to keep it basic (relatively anyway). You figure the program has to start when you start you computer, right? So let’s look at places where it could be starting from.
It could be running under your startup folder (start -> settings -> taskbar -> advanced -> click the + next to programs and highlight the startup folder. Thats pretty obvious though and not a likely solution.
A better place would be the windows registry. The most common place to start programs is the run folder under windows. To get there, start -> run -> type “regedit” -> once in the registry, click the + next to hkey_local_machine -> software -> microsoft -> windows -> current version -> two folders here you want to be concerned with “run” and “run services”. Highlight each and check out what is on the right half of the screen. If you aren’t sure what anything is, we can probably help.
Also, in the registry, you might want to check under hkey_current_user -> software -> microsoft -> windows -> current version -> run.
Those are some starting spots. Now some questions for you. What is the name of the program? Second, does your computer ask you for a username and password every time you turn it on or does it just start up and your ready to go?
I’m going to reiterate what a few others have said:
Reformat and reinstall
If you don’t have the technical chops to do it, then learn. There could be all sorts of other crap installed that you don’t know about. And then you might consider informing the police of ex’s behaviour. What she’s doing is definitely against the law.
Useful background material for reference, you might be able to get law enforcement involved. Usually they require some kind of “threatening” behavior but it also notes that “cyber stalking often leads to physical stalking and should be treated seriously”
As an aside, I was under the impression that there were laws in place for theft of information or bandwidth. Might be able to hit that route too.
I would be very curious about the name of the software, if us dopers knew, maybe we could find a way to defeat it.
Perhaps a certified letter to the software company DEMANDING that they remove this program from your computer, or you’ll go to the prosecutor, the State Attorney General and the FTC (or is it FCC for computer stuff?). Or perhaps a lawsuit threat FROM a lawyer would do the trick.
If you can’t afford a lawyer - reformat and reinstall.
Here are some of the things I have tried already. I have downloaded about 10 different ANTI-spy programs…they all SAY they detect the spyware AND they ALL say they removed it but when I try another one…it ALSO says it found a spy program and mentions it by name so I know it’s not finding other things.
Maaan for the longest time whatever these programs did by taking out part of the spy was really screwing up my computer too. It had virtually no system resources and I had to reboot at least once an hour or I would lock up(I could stop almost everything except the most necessary things and STILL I would not have enough free memory to reboot…not even con/alt/del)
I downloaded two different programs that supposedly tell me what is starting with everything else after a reboot(even things that normally wouldn’t show up) but they NEVER saw anything… this program is really hidden.
I got a couple programs that check registery for any leftovers figuring while those anti spy things didn’t seem to clear my computer they SAID they removed SOMETHING and maybe it would show there. Nope
I did a search figuring this program had to be generating a log to send and it ought to show there and if I didn’t use my email for awhile the log file would get to a size where I could search for an inordinately sized log file…nope…I think but not sure that it breaks the log file up into smaller parts with some bizarre extension that I cannot open without their specific program.
I did other things as well but this will do to give you the idea of what I tried. The spy programs’ name is eBlaster from Spector and you can find it at www.spector.com
I am not a newbie but this is beyond me and any advice would be appreciated.
Oooh, I have a friend whose parents installed Spector on his computer. It takes screenshots too. Sadly, I think you’re up sh!t creek and you’ll need to reformat.
There are many spyware eliminators available, but you say you’ve already tried them without success. I’ll second the recommendation to reformat and reinstall everything from scratch - who knows what other backdoor or trojans you’ve got on there?
What e-mail account does the spy software access? Can you cancel it and get another one, or would the software know about that, too?
I’m assuming you don’t have another computer networked to the first one, or any other easy way of backing up your data. If you did, reformatting should be a no-brainer.