Mahone

I agree with that, the reason I disagreed with your original post is because you made it sound to the OP as though it was definately a trojan - I just wanted to clarify that this isn't necessarily the case :) More details from the OP would certainly be helpful. We didn't really have much to go with and I don't think any of our questions were answered. Good point :)

That's possible but still doubtful. In my previous post I stated that I believed he was trying to scare her. People come to me all the time with scenarios similar to this. As I stated before, 95% of the time, it turns out they haven't done any "hacking" at all, they simply saw them type in their password. He most likely told her he had installed a program on her computer to scare her into thinking he was better than he actually is. Also, not every trojan contains a keylogger. There are many different reasons for trojans, a lot of them have no need for keylogging as that wasn't their purpose.

That's still making a big assumption. All that was stated is that her e-mails are being deleted. As far as we know, there is no evidence to suggest there is any trojan on her computer. By far the most likely thing to have happened is he simply knows her e-mail password.

It's not really necessary, it depends on how good the software firewall and hardware firewall are - for a home computer one or the other is, in most cases, sufficient. That is of course providing the operating system has all the necessary updates and an up to date virus scanner (AVG is a fairly decent free one, Clamwin is also another good free one). Of course it won't do any harm to have both.

I think I've only ever interacted with the police on one occasion in which I hadn't contacted them first and that was when I happened to be walking past what seemed to have been the scene of a crime. A half dozen or so police cars zoomed past me (on blues and twos) as I was walking down the road and the last one stopped beside me and started questioning me about what I was doing and where I was going. It was late on a Friday night and only half a mile or so from the local pubs, so when he asked me if I'd been drinking and I denied it, I think he was little suspicious - how many 20 year olds haven't been drinking on a Friday night when they are right next to the pubs? Anyway, he questioned me a little bit more and then drove off. I don't think I've had any other interactions with them.

You could try calling the police if you wish, as some posters have suggested. However I suspect they won't do a lot - probably the most they'll do is warn him off. This kind of thing is surprisingly common in the circumstances you describe (jealous ex) and they get calls about this all the time. However the police themselves can't do anything, most of them don't know the first thing about computer crime or computers in general. They have to get specalist units in to deal with that and it's very likely they won't for petty computer crime like this.

From what you have said, this is my thoughts: he has her e-mail password. It's likely he watched her type it in at one point. That is how he is deleting her e-mails. Absolutely she must change her password, that's the first step. Also make sure she changes her secret question if she has one. In my experience, those who claim to be hackers are no such thing. I believe he wants to scare her into thinking he is watching her and that he is this uber hacker, when it reality, all he did was watch her enter her e-mail password - I work in IT Support in a college and 95% of the time, this is the case when we have incidents like this. HOWEVER to be absolutely sure (I have no idea of his skill set, though to be honest he is probably what is known as a script kiddy) reformat and reinstall the operating system (windows xp/vista?) on your computer. Trojans/keyloggers can be extremely advanced and difficult to get rid of by routing through the system, even by someone who knows what they are doing - the only way to be sure all traces of it are gone is by reformatting your computer and reinstalling the operating system. What operating system do you have? Do you have a router? If you go ahead and reinstall, XP comes with a firewall built in which you can enable, depending on your current setup. If you have a router, these usually have basic firewall functionality built in, you could enable both if you wish. You should download all your operating system updates from http://update.microsoft.com - these are usually security updates which you will need. Kaspersky is good as recommended above if you want to spend money, but good security can be set up for free with the right tools. Most of the above is precautionary, the chances are he knows nothing about hacking. As I said previously, the chances are he just has her e-mail password and no access to her computer.

Ha, I was going to avoid replying to this thread - when I suffered with OCD it wasn't exactly a very nice time in my life and didn't want it published on the interweb to be constantly reminded of it, but there you go lol. Mine started in college (around 2002?) where I had to check my pockets continually throughout the day. I knew my phone, , keys, wallet and ID were supposed to be in my pockets and if one of them was missing, I had to go back home to get it even if I didn't need that item that day. That was bearable. After college it became considerably worse. I had a series of "rituals" and went through several different phases ranging from hand washing (my hands became sore around my knuckles from washing so much), checking all doors and windows were closed before I went to bed (this process ended up taking over an hour each evening, which resulted in me refusing to go to bed, to avoid having to do this), checking the gas was switched off on the oven at night (about 20 times) and checking the front door was locked before I left the house each morning (about 50 times - this resulted in me not wanting to leave the house and actually got the better of me several times). I also obsessed over the number 4. The strange thing about OCD is that you know what you are doing is stupid, but you have to do it anyway. After my job at the time suffered from that door checking one, I saw a program on TV featuring three people with OCD. The first was a young lady who refused to touch any food that was she going to eat with her hands. The second was a man who was terrified of throwing his new born baby in a bin and swapping it with another baby. The third was a woman who only left the house once a week to go shopping, she couldn't cope with leaving any more than that. The doctor on the program encouraged the first girl to wash her hands in the toliet (yes, actually in the toliet bowl) and then eat a packet of crisps in a normal fashion. With the guy, he made him take his baby for a walk every day, purposely walking past public bins and not asking anyone if they'd seen him throw his baby in the bin (sounds crazy, but you have to have OCD to understand). These two both made a successful recovery. The third woman, he tried to make her leave the house every day without checking anything, however she refused, claiming it was too hard. After this I realised two things. At no point in my life did I want to be a hermit like that third woman was. And also that program had taught me how to recover from OCD - just force yourself to do what you fear doing. So I did, and within a month I was fully recovered and I don't think it's ever affected me since. It's flipping hard to do at first, but it works.

Bear in mind it is also a belief of the church to be self reliant. This includes having a job which gives you the money you need in order for your family and yourself to live. And it has also been said that the presidency of the church fully understand the need for some people, depending on their career choice, to work on Sundays. It is never going to be possible for no-one to work on a Sunday - even some church employees work on Sundays. What you do is up to you, but I personally would suggest a job is more important for now. Once you have a job, then you can start looking for one that meets your requirements more (i.e. not working on a sunday).

That was really good - well done! :)

Similar, but not the same by any means.

LDS Church News - Pres. Packer refutes quote

It was announced in each ward across the world that it was just a myth (or it should have been) some time back now. A few weeks after it was announced in ours, a mission presidents wife was doing a talk in my ward and she stated it as fact. A bit worrying, I have no doubt she repeated it to the missionaries as well. I get very concerned about things like this, where someone in an authority position will happily pass unverified information onto those they are in charge of, not just in the church but outside as well. E-mail forwards are a good example of this.

I like the marketing genius one. The problem is, they are very often correct in their assumptions. Particularly those posters who only have one or two posts If I was asked to search engine optimise a website, links in forum signatures would be something I'd be tempted to do. They are not as conspicuous as links within the the post itself, but have the same desired effect.

Meh. Not sure I'd have put them into those categories, however I'd say they all have way too much spare time and in the odd case are clearly insane.

Is it possible to hijack your own thread, seeing as you started the other one?

I wonder if the OP is aware of how popular their thread has become.

Hahahaha. I'm not really that much of a fan of McDonalds myself TBH. I love the strawberry milkshake, that's it - there isn't really much to the rest, I'd prefer to stick to good ol' British fish and chips (considerably cheaper for a much more satisfying meal )

Treachery! Blasphemous! Treason!

I tried chrome when it was first released. On the first day I noticed it has a very basic feature missing, and one that I use regularly: "Print Selection". It does not allow you to only print a selection of the webpage like every other browser I have ever used, the option to do so is grayed out. So I uninstalled it and went straight back to firefox. I don't know if they have fixed this in later versions? I never print a full webpage, it's a waste of ink, so the print selection tool is very useful.

That's true, I was aware of ways around it. But I was trying to say that Microsoft have purposely made it difficult to permanently use any browser other than Internet Explorer. To a lot of people, it's not worth the effort of using another browser if they keep having to switch between the two. Then you get websites which have the really annoying message "this webpage was designed for use with internet explorer and will likely not work on other browsers" (which was encouraged by microsoft with their frontpage software - webpages that were designed with frontpage regularly included code that was only compatible with Internet Explorer) though fortunately they are now becoming less and less as Internet Explorer is slowly getting a lower percentage of the market share.

I wonder how much tourism will get boosted to that area now that they have published that

No, I was referring to the food items. It looked very different when I visited one of the restaurants in New York - I managed to confuse the poor girl on the till by asking for things which I assumed they had, but didn't.

This is very welcome news, though there have been rumours of it happening for some time now. Like you, the first thing I do on my own computers after an OS reinstall is download another browser (firefox mostly). I truly cannot stand using Internet Explorer. Yet Internet Explorer is so deeply intergrated into the operating system that the processes it uses are running throughout the entire duration the computer is switched on and you have to use internet explorer for some things regardless - the microsoft update website for example. Not to mention some microsoft software opening all links in internet explorer regardless of what the default browser is set to.

Hey! I had a McDonalds the other day. You have made me feel guilty now I've said this before, but on a different forum. When I went to America, I was really shocked at the difference in McDonalds portion sizes. The reason I like McDonalds is for their strawberry milkshake, to date I've not come across anything that beats it. So when we tried McDonalds at America, both myself and my sister ordered large strawberry milkshakes. When they arrived, my jaw just dropped. I'd ordered a large milkshake, but not a bucket full of milkshake. I managed to get mine down, and was almost sick afterwards, my sister didn't even try, she just gave it back and ordered the smallest one they had which was about the equivalent of the largest one they do in the UK. Other than that, I was disappointed at how different the general menu was in America - I'm not sure why it has to be so different, local copyright issues maybe?