Intercepted Emails

[Fitz]

Hi Chandrika, I'm not trying to worry you even more .... but maybe I should; you are far too open. I thought long and hard before posting this but I do think you need to be very careful. You are telling the world *FAR* too much about yourself ... all online .... including here in this very forum. Photo, location, fairly unusual name (easily searchable therefore, I would have thought) now very personal info too, which some freaks out there (including the nutter you gave the WAP key to) might take an unnatural interest in finding. You gotta be more careful and I don't mean just with the WAP key. I would hope that you don't show completely accurate info, for example, on your profile and biog pages, contact info in links in your signature etc. Sorry to compound your worry but you're giving away far too much info online in my humble opinion.

Some credentials for you .... I did this series of large and comprehensive safety manuals for the UK police for use in schools etc here in the UK although I don't want to scare you even more by telling you any more specifics (it was regrettably related to and instigated by a well-known case) ... including large sections about online safety etc. Be careful please. When someone innocently asks for more info including things like the specifics of this WAP thing ..... think twice about telling [the world] any info about yourself like you've done here. Sorry if this worries you even more but you young ladies generally need to wake up a bit to the potential dangers of some of the stuff you're publishing online ... for just about anyone to see. Of course none of this is your own fault .... it's the fault of the few nutters out there that we even need to think this way.

But, if I were you, I WOULD tell the police about this guy. If it were my daughter I'd have her out of there pronto, and into a new place. Better safe than sorry. That WAP key guy has an unnatural interest; there seems little doubt of that. But if nothing else .... please generally give MUCH less personal info to the world e.g. on forums, facebook, in signatures, profiles, blogs etc. I'd even think about editing your post about the coincidences a bit (to take out the specific personal info) .... MOD is that possible?

[jannmirch]

I agree with Fitz! Online insecurity is one thing; offline is entirely another.

This guy is clearly overly-focused on you. Whether or not the police do anything now, you will have a record of what's happened thus far if things escalate.

My husband is always getting on me about being safety conscious. The cyberworld does absolutely collide with the real world; and not always in good ways.

Be safe. And let us know how you're doing.

[deepsand]

... I can not imagine he would have gone to alot of trouble to do so, but if it is fairly easy he may have done so just because he had nothing better to do...

Consider that his claiming to be temporarily without 'net connectivity may in fact have been no more than a ruse for the purpose of surreptitiously gaining personal information about you.

[chandrika]

I have taken on board what you have said about too much personal info about me being online, you are right and I think that over time it has just built up.

I dont know, I feel pretty insignificant in general and so I tend to think amidst the huge internet and millions of people online, that I am pretty invisible, but maybe I have been naive and I will review what info there is about me online.

Deepsand you could be right, in fact I think you probably are when I think about the circumstances.

I will do something about it....

[Fitz]

I also wondered whether you could perhaps contact your broadband supplier and ask whether it's possible for them to weed out HIS specific online activity from yours? That way you'd know for sure what he's been up to. ??

[chandrika]

I also wondered whether you could perhaps contact your broadband supplier and ask whether it's possible for them to weed out HIS specific online activity from yours? That way you'd know for sure what he's been up to. ??

It wouldnt hurt for me to give them a call and ask I guess. His computers name on the network was specific so maybe they can tell, I will give them a call, thanks.

[wige]

It wouldnt hurt for me to give them a call and ask I guess. His computers name on the network was specific so maybe they can tell, I will give them a call, thanks.

I would actually recommend against this. First, knowingly sharing your Internet connection with someone else could violate the Terms of Service of your ISP, resulting in your loss of broadband access.

Additionally, since you are both behind a router, it would not really be possible for the ISP to figure out traffic from one computer or another, unless the router was owned by the ISP.

[seopo]

Firstly I'd like to apologise as think I was one of those who said that I would share the key.

Not trying to scare you but he sounds like a proper weirdo, a psychologists dream.

I would definately want to report this to the police, but I don't know whether they would visit him and whether that would improve or worsen the situation.

If it's rented accomodation you may be able to get him evicted if you speak to the landlord?

On a side not change from WPA to WEP, if he has a computer degree he can probably crack the WPA anyway. I came across a service that promises to do that very same thing in about 10mins.

Thinking about it he sounds like he wanted you to know about what he was doing which is even stranger.

You have to also assume that he's reading this and your other forum posts,

[deepsand]

Before jumping to conclusions re. the character of the person in question, it would be wise to step back and consider all possibilities, rather than only the darkest ones.

E.g., it's entirely possible that any actions that he may have taken were motivated by simple curiosity, by a desire to test his own technical prowess, or a genuine and sincere interest in our fellow member.

That he may have acted in an inappropriate manner does not necessary evidence malevolent intent.

[chandrika]

Well I did call my isp who have a security department and they told me to call the police who have the ability to check what he had accessed. I am not actually going to do that as I kind of agree with Deepsand that I should not jump to too many conclusions about him.

My thought really is that probably if he had already the ability to do such a thing, maybe had done it before and had the facility to do so, then he may have just done so for the hell of it and it may not indicate any particularly malicious intent.

I dont know, I reckon he was just being smart with me though and although I am annoyed and the thought has occurred to me to be wary of him, I am not full on afraid of him as he has been alone with me in my flat, if he wanted to harm me he could have done, so physically I dont think there is any threat, obviously I will be careful, but it is probably just curiosity and he got lucky that the time he was checking my emails I was dealing with something that meant there was alot of info he would have seen, normally anyone looking at my emails would simply be bored to death, which is a good defense measure...

It has taught me to be more careful, I will take some time to better secure things, I think there is some saying that keeps coming to my mind, that you can let a thief in your house, as long as you secure your belongings..so thats kind of my attitude atm.....

My hard drive I am pretty sure is secure and in terms of email, as has been said, a wep key can be hacked in 5 minutes, so my intention is simply to encrypt all outgoing traffic, that way even if intercepted, there will be nothing to read.