Please help me

[hraghuvir]

Hi all,

This is my first post and I'm really sorry to sound like an attention seeker but i really need some help and even my local Apple store guy has difficulty understanding what exactly is wrong. Firstly, I would like to say that my Mac OS X Tiger PowerPC G5 has been serving me very very well for a long time and for a long time I always fancied the Windows OS but recently I came to know and appreciate Mac and I really love Mac. In fact I will be studying Computer Science in Carnegie-Mellon soon and I hope to work for Mac. Anyway, I'll cut to the chase and tell you experts what exactly my problem is.

You see, recently, I pulled a stupid and unnecessary prank on this kid in my school which I shouldn't have done of course but the rigor of college applications just got to me I guess. I was on my Mac and on a bogus MSN account pranking this kid. He then suddenly dropped a bombshell saying he would track my IP. I quickly exited but unfortunately he emailed the bogus account saying he had tracked my IP using my packets and that he was going to crash my com.

Frankly at that time I thought it was stupid and never thought he could pull it off but turns out this script kiddy could. I know that Mac's software is beyond excellent and that it is pretty much unhackable. Now forgive me for being not so well versed in this network and computer jargon and all that but he tells me that although my software cannot be hacked, he can send some virus or some command through my wireless network router and into my Mac which will super-accelerate my hard drive and permanently fail my computer forever.

Now the thing is that I am a pilot trainee in the Air Force, and although we fly up in the sky, we are taught (believe it or not) hostage negotiation and thus I apologized and now I have brought the entire episode to a close. Yet I honestly believe (and we are taught this in the Air Force) that negotiation only allows one to buy time and I would like to ask you lads here sincerely how can I protect my Mac and what I can do. This kid told me my entire history of website for the past 3 years which shocked me entirely, proving that he has had access to my router or my Mac. What can I do to protect my computer? Just to let you know, there are a couple of other windows laptops connected to this network.

I have turned on my Firewall in Mac, downloaded DoorStop X Firewall, a second user account without admin privileges, encrypted my hard disk, set password for my router and my Mac and enabled some added security features in System Preferences. Now I know you guys are very good in this kind of things and as a fellow Mac user, I would like to ask you for your help. Please help me

Sincerely,
Your friend

[bbloke]

To be honest, I think the kid is bluffing big time. I think he can do enough to try to scare you, though, and he then hopes you'll believe the rest of what he says.

He could use a packet sniffer to intercept network traffic, true. I don't believe he'll accelerate your hard drive and make it fail. If such a virus existed, why do we not see it in the wild for Mac OS X, with someone trying to claim dubious bragging rights about what they were first to "achieve."

With regards to knowing your web site's history, he could have used a site such as http://www.archive.org/index.php to try to convince you he has access to your files.

Ensure that your router is password protected (and don't use a guessable password), make sure that your wireless activity is encrypted, enable NAT on your router and restrict port forwarding, and I'd also go through OS X's firewall options (eg. stealth mode, etc.). After that, I'd essentially call this kid's bluff...

If you are still worried, though, have a look at the following:

http://www.novajo.ca/firewall.html

http://www.macos.utah.edu/documentation/security.html


Good luck.

[Natobasso]

He probably thinks you're on a pc.

[Mikuro]

Originally Posted by hraghuvir

This kid told me my entire history of website for the past 3 years which shocked me entirely, proving that he has had access to my router or my Mac.

Well now that's really odd. Could you be more specific about exactly what he told you? Do you mean he knew what sites you had accessed?

You have to look at whatever information he has and ask yourself where he might have gotten it. The thing is, your Mac or router would not, under normal cicrumstances, record three years' worth of web history. Have you verified that the information he gave you is actually on your computer?

Was this done over a school network? Maybe they keep logs of activity, and maybe he somehow accessed those logs (by hacking the school's computers, not yours).

I think the bit about making your HD fail is just talk. There's no death switch that can be flipped through the Internet. Anything that could do something like that would have to go through software, which he says it wouldn't, so....I call BS on that.

[Natobasso]

The information he has is not hard to get, example for macosx.com on DMOZ:
http://www.whois.sc/dmoz/macosx.com

[hraghuvir]

He just told me one particular website I had been to (so no verification). Anyway thanks a lot guys for all your help! This kid is definitely bluffing then lol.

[lbj]

So this...

"This kid told me my entire history of website for the past 3 years..."

went to this...

"He just told me one particular website I had been to..."



What is the Air Forces' first core value again?

[hraghuvir]

sorry for that miswording. he told me he knew my entire history but quoted just one website. typed that pretty fast sorry