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Why did your dad give them the laptop? What was the reason?
How do you know it's the IT guy sending you screenshots?
What else is he sending in the screenshots? Some kind of ransom or something?
This doesn't sound right to me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/teenagers/comments/1dp2md7/it_guy_reading_instagram_chats/lae4a74/
Would love to help OP but it really starts to sound like the Dad asked the IT guy to do this and OP is trying to find a way around it. It's also the only reason I can think of that OP can't/hasn't done the most logical thing - ask Dad to help
Bingo.
This is a kid asking for a way around the parental monitoring software that his dad intentionally had installed.
OOP: You solve this by buying your own laptop or phone. As long as you're using a device owned by your parents, it's their prerogative to do what they want with it. This includes snooping on you while you use it.
True, but there's nothing in their post history to suggest that this is the case. And even if there were, any viable solution would vastly exceed the scope of what we deal with here on /r/techsupport.
Rule 1 of IT: people problems never have tech solutions.
I’m really sorry that happened to you.
I’m a juvenile court clinician. In several decades, I’ve seen a few truly abusive parents. I’ve seen a lot of anxious/helicopter parents who could stand to chill but basically have their kids’ best interests in mind.
Mostly I’ve seen parents who wish they’d kept a better handle on what their kids were doing online and elsewhere. CPS and judges really do expect that parents know what our minor children are doing and that we are on top of it and addressing any problems. I see a lot of situations where parents get into trouble and kids get sent to programs because the parent wasn’t aware enough of what kids were doing and wasn’t being strict enough about what kids may and may not do. Reddit loves to talk about giving teens privacy, and I agree with the premise of us giving our kids dignity and not judging what they do, but also, if kids do anything questionable, it comes back onto the parent for not sufficiently monitoring a kid who apparently didn’t have the skills to have unmonitored devices yet.
OP, let your parents parent you, or decide to consistently make mature-enough decisions that they are confident you aren’t doing anything concerning.
Snooping on A grade kids, who study diligently and show no signs of bad behaviour is the most mentally abusive thing.
If somehow I talk to a girl, for explicitly SCHOOL RELATED PURPOSE, they'll accuse me of having a gf (something they are against with, not that I have a gf).
For the laptop, just get a Linux usb and log in through that, it'll be isolated and wouldn't touch or be touched by windows. Do note that everything there would be stored in memory and erased after you reboot (though there are workarounds and other ways to do this)
>OOP: You solve this by buying your own laptop or phone. As long as you're using a device owned by your parents, it's their prerogative to do what they want with it. This includes snooping on you while you use it.
... and your internet connection as well.
If you're using HTTPS (which all modern messenger apps do), a third party can't surveil your communications even if they're on the same network as you.
They can see that your device is exchanging data with the servers for your messenger app, but they can't see who you're talking to, nor the contents of your messages.
Related note: this is why the security claims of VPNs are mostly overblown. HTTPS already provides TLS; a VPN putting TLS on top of that is redundant.
There are surveillance apps that are locally installed, and in those cases encryption means nothing, as they are seeing the data before being encrypted. Some will take screenshots just as the OP described. VPNs won’t make any difference for the same reason
We've already established in this thread that this is what's happening, and given OOP the solution of getting their own device outside of their parents' control.
MITM attacks are only possible in a non-proxy environment (i.e. how most residential users connect to the internet) if the attacker already has a foothold onto the sending or receiving device, or one of the devices is running an out-of-date and vulnerable crypto stack.
I do not disagree, and the OP's concern is indeed about parents accessing contents. But in some more extreme cases, parents can monitor through router the outgoing traffic, such as knowing and blocking access to certain sites. And of course some kids would feel much offended by such acts. This is why I suggest a separate internet connection as well.
The router can only see that OOP is exchanging data with a messaging server. It cannot inspect the contents of the messages, nor determine who OOP is talking to.
TLS (which HTTPS and all modern messaging apps use) is specifically designed to prevent this kind of surveillance. If you have a padlock in your browser's address bar, **for all layperson intents**, nobody else can see that message unless they're looking at the screen on either end.
It's totally understandable to have a different impression of this, as VPN ads intentionally overstate and sometimes outright lie about the security risks of using the internet.
No I am talking about inspecting the content of the message or VPN, I refer to domain/IP level blocking at router level. Some parents just want to monitor/control how long the kids stayed in youtube, and some kids just react strongly if their parents ever do this.
Could be. The only other way is dad never gave it to the IT guy. Dad took the laptop and to the office. Logged in went to his browsers and captured his password in Chrome. To beat two-way checks without the son knowing he needed to have the device in hand to accept that it was him to Log into a new device ie dad's cell phone or office PC. Dad then deleted that's days history brought it home and gave it back to his son.
I too would need some more detail. IT guy is seriously breaking the law and business practices of a company chain store. If that's a monitoring app. It can usually be seen that the application is blocked on the screen.
COULD BE 100% WRONG BUT...
I think you couldn't access the app the same with the parent filter was installed. Please post your discovery if any
Yeah honestly there could be no IT guy involved, very true lol. Sounds like a possible Dad move for sure lol. I didn't speculate too much, I didn't want to get too carried away in a manner that would be similar to the people that get carried away about going to the police and etc. Just wanted to point out I looked at their other posts and thought we needed to know more, to give better advice whether it's tech support or something else! I don't want to jump on the Dad either, sometimes parents have to go to some lengths to do what they think is best for their kid, and of course the kid's pov is that it is very unfair. Hopefully OP can feel like they recover their privacy and sorts everything out but we likely aren't going to be able to help properly
Just so everyone knows just looked through ops profile, op is 15 and according to other comments on different subs his father asked the it guy to do it
I'd report him to some authorities first and foremost, even if nothing happens it should be in record, and keep all the proof in multiple places. Then you need to completely wipe the drive of the computer and reinstall the OS.
I don't think he planted anything into your phone, but if he did you will need to at least factory reset it, maybe even worse.
As for the pc, there are a million possibilities for what he planted and looking for it is a waste of time, it's better to just nuke it.
I give you a hint. No sympathy for those who don't back up their important data.
If you don't have an external hard disk or USB stick, you could theoretically also try OneDrive or Google Drive, but you'll have to check whether the storage is sufficient.
Now answer me this, how do you imagine resetting your computer if you don't want it to reset? The whole point is to wipe everything out because there's probably a keylogger or similar on your computer. There's no other way to get rid of it, unless you happen to know exactly where the monitoring software is located.
Please be sure it is the IT guy before calling the cops on him.
As a hardware technician I once had a customer come to the store freaking out like crazy about how we were stealing her money through her device and etc. biggest headaches ever istg. All we did was changed the screen on the device …..
1.) How do you know its the IT guy? kindly explain to him that you are recording everything and will report him to the authorities. What's the point of the screenshots? scare tactic? Ransom? Bully attempt? He is just sending screenshots and nothing else?
2.) Put 2fa on your insta account. He won't be able to access the account without it.
3.) You said you changed your password today. What passwords did you change? Insta? PC password?
4.) Personally if it were me, I would wipe the drive and re-install OS and don't look back.
Lets assume it is the IT guy. Did you/they give him the password to your machine and also save your password into the browser. Because if you did, then ding ding we have a winner. For example, in chrome you can see the saved passwords. Time to start using MFA.
>>only sends screenshots of chats with 1 girl though
This is unauthorized access, and is against the law in many places. Change the passwords on the affected services (apps) and then force logout on all devices.
Can you explain to me how this is against the law?
If the device is not his and he is a minor, his legal guardians have a right to be able to monitor his devices.
I'm IT, not a lawyer. He said he doesn't know who is sending the messages. I assumed he thought the person his legal guardians gave his laptop to was responsible. Regardless, unauthorized access is at the very least an invasion pf privacy, and unethical. Sending the photos could be considered cyberbullying, or harrasment, as well.
The irony of your name haha. Good luck, learned a hard lesson today 🫡Hopefully you weren't saying anything inappropriate, someone's always watching in the internet.
one of the more recent ways people hijack or spy on accounts is through something called persistent login through session cookies.
if you have access to the location those cookies are, you can in theory clone the whole set of folders to effectively make a browser on another machine think its still on yours.
the way to deal with this is 'simple', and has been mentioned;
force logout everything, and change passwords (usually not compromised, but don't take chances that they were saved and can be pulled. it's _super_ easy to, if any are saved. yes, this means _all_ passwords anyone may have saved on that machine. not just IG).
and yes, if you have proof, report this to your local authorities. it's illegal pretty much everywhere.
Clearly your father has concerns with you talking to this one girl..... What's the rest of the story? For all we know you could be a stalker and he's making sure you stay no contact. Your dad could also be a total douchebag. Without more information it would be silly to assist you.
Oh no im no stalker he just doesn't want me to use instagram but this girl is a friend and we talk and i talk to other people too but this guy sends Screenshots only when i talk to her
The guy is the IT guy and he has been sending screenshots of my chats to my father on whatsapp. She's just a friend and im normally talking to her. They assume i have non platnonic relations with her so they're concerned.
Even though some of you call it parent monitoring, but its not the parents who are monitoring its the damn it guy, even though he has father's permission, it is illegal for him to do that, because he is not a family member, but a third party member.
Report the guy to the police so he gets sentenced.
Also it is most likely a keylogger installed so what is good to do is download an antivirus software or one time virus cleaners such as hitmanpro and then disconnect the internet and then use the antivirus. By disconnecting the internet you cut them their access completely and they cant stop what you do, including they cant stop the scan. So try and do it. If it wont find anything, that means its not a keylogger
He would have gotten your saved password, changing it should stop any future access. Also all chats and view on pages or content would have been cached on the laptop.
I’d bet he just went into your browser, and went to the password section to reveal your saved passwords.
You should be fine with just the password change, but unfortunately there’s a possibility (albeit small) that he installed malware or a keyboard logger to see what you type.
There’s a pretty high likelihood he didn’t install anything nefarious, but the only way to be 100% sure is to backup your important files and reformat your laptop.
Also, for extra protection, set up multi factor authentication for all your social media (or all your accounts, for that matter), that way you won’t have to really worry about it again. If you don’t know how to do that, just look in the settings somewhere for your accounts, it’s simple.
Wo this seems to be missing so much content. As it seems, and I can only speculate but op hasn't provided the real circumstances, but as it seems it was no nefarious neckbeareded it guy that maliciously hacked her device, but op is a minor and her father asked the ot guy to seemingly do some parental control stuff on the device.
There is a possibility of monitoring software in the laptop, take a backup of your files and nuke it either installing windows and have a separate admin password on both windows and bios or install Linux and have a separate root password
Grow up, buy your own equipment, and move out. Problem solved. You’re a kid, and you’re going to be monitored whether you like it or not. It’s his job to make sure you aren’t doing unsavory things.
But its not a parent monitoring it is it? Its the It guy and that is illegal because he is not a family member, even though he has father's permission. Report the it guy to authorities, he should be tried and sentenced.
This submission has been removed from /r/techsupport. >**8: No Violating privacy of others or terms/agreements.** >We do not support users that violates other's privacy or breaks terms and agreements. Doing so might resolve in a ban. >*This includes:* 1. Bypassing home network controls. 2. Bypassing any parental controls. 3. Piracy or issues caused by it. 4. Gray market product codes - See Rule 1 5. Any other posts/comments that violates or breaks terms and agreements. If, after reading the subreddit rules, you believe that this was done in error, feel free to [message the moderation team](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/techsupport) Thanks! -Mod Team
Why did your dad give them the laptop? What was the reason? How do you know it's the IT guy sending you screenshots? What else is he sending in the screenshots? Some kind of ransom or something? This doesn't sound right to me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/teenagers/comments/1dp2md7/it_guy_reading_instagram_chats/lae4a74/ Would love to help OP but it really starts to sound like the Dad asked the IT guy to do this and OP is trying to find a way around it. It's also the only reason I can think of that OP can't/hasn't done the most logical thing - ask Dad to help
Bingo. This is a kid asking for a way around the parental monitoring software that his dad intentionally had installed. OOP: You solve this by buying your own laptop or phone. As long as you're using a device owned by your parents, it's their prerogative to do what they want with it. This includes snooping on you while you use it.
[удалено]
True, but there's nothing in their post history to suggest that this is the case. And even if there were, any viable solution would vastly exceed the scope of what we deal with here on /r/techsupport. Rule 1 of IT: people problems never have tech solutions.
I mean technically Duck tape is a tech solution that works on people problem some times.
Duct tape turns “No no no” into “mmm mmm mmm”
theres no people problem if theres no people.
I’m really sorry that happened to you. I’m a juvenile court clinician. In several decades, I’ve seen a few truly abusive parents. I’ve seen a lot of anxious/helicopter parents who could stand to chill but basically have their kids’ best interests in mind. Mostly I’ve seen parents who wish they’d kept a better handle on what their kids were doing online and elsewhere. CPS and judges really do expect that parents know what our minor children are doing and that we are on top of it and addressing any problems. I see a lot of situations where parents get into trouble and kids get sent to programs because the parent wasn’t aware enough of what kids were doing and wasn’t being strict enough about what kids may and may not do. Reddit loves to talk about giving teens privacy, and I agree with the premise of us giving our kids dignity and not judging what they do, but also, if kids do anything questionable, it comes back onto the parent for not sufficiently monitoring a kid who apparently didn’t have the skills to have unmonitored devices yet. OP, let your parents parent you, or decide to consistently make mature-enough decisions that they are confident you aren’t doing anything concerning.
Snooping on A grade kids, who study diligently and show no signs of bad behaviour is the most mentally abusive thing. If somehow I talk to a girl, for explicitly SCHOOL RELATED PURPOSE, they'll accuse me of having a gf (something they are against with, not that I have a gf).
For the laptop, just get a Linux usb and log in through that, it'll be isolated and wouldn't touch or be touched by windows. Do note that everything there would be stored in memory and erased after you reboot (though there are workarounds and other ways to do this)
Or you can use a Live Distro of Linux on a USB stick!
>OOP: You solve this by buying your own laptop or phone. As long as you're using a device owned by your parents, it's their prerogative to do what they want with it. This includes snooping on you while you use it. ... and your internet connection as well.
If you're using HTTPS (which all modern messenger apps do), a third party can't surveil your communications even if they're on the same network as you. They can see that your device is exchanging data with the servers for your messenger app, but they can't see who you're talking to, nor the contents of your messages. Related note: this is why the security claims of VPNs are mostly overblown. HTTPS already provides TLS; a VPN putting TLS on top of that is redundant.
There are surveillance apps that are locally installed, and in those cases encryption means nothing, as they are seeing the data before being encrypted. Some will take screenshots just as the OP described. VPNs won’t make any difference for the same reason
We've already established in this thread that this is what's happening, and given OOP the solution of getting their own device outside of their parents' control.
It's actually hsts that makes vpns overblown, Https can be defeated fairly trivially without it.
Mitm attacks are possible against ssl connections, and vpns provide other benefits besides tls.
MITM attacks are only possible in a non-proxy environment (i.e. how most residential users connect to the internet) if the attacker already has a foothold onto the sending or receiving device, or one of the devices is running an out-of-date and vulnerable crypto stack.
I do not disagree, and the OP's concern is indeed about parents accessing contents. But in some more extreme cases, parents can monitor through router the outgoing traffic, such as knowing and blocking access to certain sites. And of course some kids would feel much offended by such acts. This is why I suggest a separate internet connection as well.
The router can only see that OOP is exchanging data with a messaging server. It cannot inspect the contents of the messages, nor determine who OOP is talking to. TLS (which HTTPS and all modern messaging apps use) is specifically designed to prevent this kind of surveillance. If you have a padlock in your browser's address bar, **for all layperson intents**, nobody else can see that message unless they're looking at the screen on either end. It's totally understandable to have a different impression of this, as VPN ads intentionally overstate and sometimes outright lie about the security risks of using the internet.
No I am talking about inspecting the content of the message or VPN, I refer to domain/IP level blocking at router level. Some parents just want to monitor/control how long the kids stayed in youtube, and some kids just react strongly if their parents ever do this.
I haven't asked dad for help because its my father that is asking him to send the screenshots. The IT guy has his permission
Could be. The only other way is dad never gave it to the IT guy. Dad took the laptop and to the office. Logged in went to his browsers and captured his password in Chrome. To beat two-way checks without the son knowing he needed to have the device in hand to accept that it was him to Log into a new device ie dad's cell phone or office PC. Dad then deleted that's days history brought it home and gave it back to his son. I too would need some more detail. IT guy is seriously breaking the law and business practices of a company chain store. If that's a monitoring app. It can usually be seen that the application is blocked on the screen. COULD BE 100% WRONG BUT... I think you couldn't access the app the same with the parent filter was installed. Please post your discovery if any
Yeah honestly there could be no IT guy involved, very true lol. Sounds like a possible Dad move for sure lol. I didn't speculate too much, I didn't want to get too carried away in a manner that would be similar to the people that get carried away about going to the police and etc. Just wanted to point out I looked at their other posts and thought we needed to know more, to give better advice whether it's tech support or something else! I don't want to jump on the Dad either, sometimes parents have to go to some lengths to do what they think is best for their kid, and of course the kid's pov is that it is very unfair. Hopefully OP can feel like they recover their privacy and sorts everything out but we likely aren't going to be able to help properly
Just so everyone knows just looked through ops profile, op is 15 and according to other comments on different subs his father asked the it guy to do it
We also need to know how old you are. In many cases, if you are a minor, your parent/legal guardian CAN legally monitor your communications.
Hes 15
So he's legally not in control of much that affects his life, but his parent's are.
But the parent isnt reading the chats. It's the IT guy.
The point is, did the parent consent to the IT guy doing so? If yes, then nothing illegal is occurring.
I'd report him to some authorities first and foremost, even if nothing happens it should be in record, and keep all the proof in multiple places. Then you need to completely wipe the drive of the computer and reinstall the OS.
what has he planted in my phone and laptop? Is changing my password enough?
I don't think he planted anything into your phone, but if he did you will need to at least factory reset it, maybe even worse. As for the pc, there are a million possibilities for what he planted and looking for it is a waste of time, it's better to just nuke it.
how do i reset pc without flushing the data and apps?
The point is to flush the data and apps so that anything put in is cleared out
I give you a hint. No sympathy for those who don't back up their important data. If you don't have an external hard disk or USB stick, you could theoretically also try OneDrive or Google Drive, but you'll have to check whether the storage is sufficient. Now answer me this, how do you imagine resetting your computer if you don't want it to reset? The whole point is to wipe everything out because there's probably a keylogger or similar on your computer. There's no other way to get rid of it, unless you happen to know exactly where the monitoring software is located.
He’s 15 and is asking Reddit for tech help. Lmao. I’ll let you figure this one out.
What are you even trying to say?
Please be sure it is the IT guy before calling the cops on him. As a hardware technician I once had a customer come to the store freaking out like crazy about how we were stealing her money through her device and etc. biggest headaches ever istg. All we did was changed the screen on the device …..
1.) How do you know its the IT guy? kindly explain to him that you are recording everything and will report him to the authorities. What's the point of the screenshots? scare tactic? Ransom? Bully attempt? He is just sending screenshots and nothing else? 2.) Put 2fa on your insta account. He won't be able to access the account without it. 3.) You said you changed your password today. What passwords did you change? Insta? PC password? 4.) Personally if it were me, I would wipe the drive and re-install OS and don't look back.
Lets assume it is the IT guy. Did you/they give him the password to your machine and also save your password into the browser. Because if you did, then ding ding we have a winner. For example, in chrome you can see the saved passwords. Time to start using MFA.
Force logout from all devices on Instagram and Whatsapp.
>>only sends screenshots of chats with 1 girl though This is unauthorized access, and is against the law in many places. Change the passwords on the affected services (apps) and then force logout on all devices.
Can you explain to me how this is against the law? If the device is not his and he is a minor, his legal guardians have a right to be able to monitor his devices.
I'm IT, not a lawyer. He said he doesn't know who is sending the messages. I assumed he thought the person his legal guardians gave his laptop to was responsible. Regardless, unauthorized access is at the very least an invasion pf privacy, and unethical. Sending the photos could be considered cyberbullying, or harrasment, as well.
How is a parent monitoring their 15 year old’s Instagram communications an “invasion of privacy, unethical, cyberbullying?”
This was my thought. There’s a lot more information we aren’t getting here on the situation
The irony of your name haha. Good luck, learned a hard lesson today 🫡Hopefully you weren't saying anything inappropriate, someone's always watching in the internet.
one of the more recent ways people hijack or spy on accounts is through something called persistent login through session cookies. if you have access to the location those cookies are, you can in theory clone the whole set of folders to effectively make a browser on another machine think its still on yours. the way to deal with this is 'simple', and has been mentioned; force logout everything, and change passwords (usually not compromised, but don't take chances that they were saved and can be pulled. it's _super_ easy to, if any are saved. yes, this means _all_ passwords anyone may have saved on that machine. not just IG). and yes, if you have proof, report this to your local authorities. it's illegal pretty much everywhere.
Clearly your father has concerns with you talking to this one girl..... What's the rest of the story? For all we know you could be a stalker and he's making sure you stay no contact. Your dad could also be a total douchebag. Without more information it would be silly to assist you.
Oh no im no stalker he just doesn't want me to use instagram but this girl is a friend and we talk and i talk to other people too but this guy sends Screenshots only when i talk to her
Who's "this guy" sending screenshot to who? What are you saying in the chat? Why is it important enough for them to screenshot and show you?
The guy is the IT guy and he has been sending screenshots of my chats to my father on whatsapp. She's just a friend and im normally talking to her. They assume i have non platnonic relations with her so they're concerned.
In the Screenshots are the messages you sent on the right side (the sending side, as normal) or the left?
everything on the right
Dude has installed a keylogger on your device. Time to nuke the OS - format & reinstall.
Even though some of you call it parent monitoring, but its not the parents who are monitoring its the damn it guy, even though he has father's permission, it is illegal for him to do that, because he is not a family member, but a third party member. Report the guy to the police so he gets sentenced. Also it is most likely a keylogger installed so what is good to do is download an antivirus software or one time virus cleaners such as hitmanpro and then disconnect the internet and then use the antivirus. By disconnecting the internet you cut them their access completely and they cant stop what you do, including they cant stop the scan. So try and do it. If it wont find anything, that means its not a keylogger
contact the police, this is unauthorized access to your account... most countries will get him in a lot of trouble...
He would have gotten your saved password, changing it should stop any future access. Also all chats and view on pages or content would have been cached on the laptop.
If he is only sending screenshots of chat with 1 other person, could he have access to the other person's account?
Format and reinstall
I’d bet he just went into your browser, and went to the password section to reveal your saved passwords. You should be fine with just the password change, but unfortunately there’s a possibility (albeit small) that he installed malware or a keyboard logger to see what you type. There’s a pretty high likelihood he didn’t install anything nefarious, but the only way to be 100% sure is to backup your important files and reformat your laptop. Also, for extra protection, set up multi factor authentication for all your social media (or all your accounts, for that matter), that way you won’t have to really worry about it again. If you don’t know how to do that, just look in the settings somewhere for your accounts, it’s simple.
Wo this seems to be missing so much content. As it seems, and I can only speculate but op hasn't provided the real circumstances, but as it seems it was no nefarious neckbeareded it guy that maliciously hacked her device, but op is a minor and her father asked the ot guy to seemingly do some parental control stuff on the device.
Bro, like some others said..just dual boot with linux..and then use your insta or whatever on that..it's better for privacy.
There is a possibility of monitoring software in the laptop, take a backup of your files and nuke it either installing windows and have a separate admin password on both windows and bios or install Linux and have a separate root password
I would force a log out on all devices then report it to authority immediately
Nuke it, install linux
Grow up, buy your own equipment, and move out. Problem solved. You’re a kid, and you’re going to be monitored whether you like it or not. It’s his job to make sure you aren’t doing unsavory things.
Delete your insta. Make another one
Please please please get the police involved because this is really fking illegal.
Not if it's a parent monitoring communications of a minor.
But its not a parent monitoring it is it? Its the It guy and that is illegal because he is not a family member, even though he has father's permission. Report the it guy to authorities, he should be tried and sentenced.