Vicious voyeur

Got your own spyware horror story?

When I got my first decent computer at 14 years old, I didn't know much about the existence of spyware. But since I was visiting innocent, legal sites, it didn't pose much of a problem. The real problem was my dad, his love for porn, and his inability to understand English (we're Dutch.)

If I had suspected, I never would have given him permission to use my computer. Since I coughed up a lot of summer earnings to pay for it myself, I decided who could use it and how. Little did I know my dad visited an array of porn sites every night while I was asleep. Because he doesn't understand English, he just installed or approved every pop-up.

Soon the start page was always covered with ads for "hot moms" or "sweet teens." When I confronted my dad about it he acted like he knew nothing. He always tried to blame me, saying, "It's probably your fault because you don't know anything about computers, it happens automatically I reckon." I was naive, so I blamed it on myself.

I wasn't so innocent when I got a worm that ate away my files, including homework and personal projects. After losing almost everything, I bought a cheap virus scanner that took care of the worm, but not the other spyware.

Then I discovered Kazaa. I used it for anime, which wasn't very available in Belgium. My dad preferred to download "things" day and night. The computer was always switched on until the point I walked into the living room one day and smelled burning computer chips. This was crazy. I needed my computer for school, so I called a computer repair specialist. It turns out he was a fraud who overcharged me and lied about it. The only good thing he did was confirm the history of "weird things" he saw before he rebooted. Now a 16-year-old, I knew he meant porn-related adware.

My suspicions confirmed, I put a password on the computer and banned Kazaa, never to use it again. My dad didn't like that. The very next moment he was threatening to smash my computer with a hammer if I didn't undo the password. What could I do?

So it got infected again. My mother and I moved away from my dad; those kinds of threats were too common. I bought a new computer about three years ago and a laptop to replace the old PC. They both are in perfect condition, and protected. Looking back, it's sad that my own father so often lied and turned the blame on me. I do regret not looking up information about computer threats; I could have been spared a lot of trouble and money even with my dad's habits.

Now I know to keep my computer completely under my control and monitor other activity even from the family. I scan very often, and won't ever be threatened into letting anyone use my computer, not even family.

-Elise
Belgium

Reply from the Download.com editors:

In a more perfect world, parents wouldn't lie to their kids and computers wouldn't become battle zones. In our dystopia, safety-conscious users lock out kin using passwords, and the guilty deny their part in infection. Malware is infuriating enough on its own; double or triple that when its onset is fueled by others, and then again when the offender becomes excessively defensive or belligerent.

Users should never, and never have to, apologize for their protectiveness, especially if the guest in question has unknown habits or a problem history. (See our guide for family-proofing a PC for pointers.) Where straight education fails, framing vigilance as your own brand of irrational paranoia (I-know-it's-probably-fine-but-please-just-humor-little-old-idiot-me) will sometimes get results where lecturing won't, especially among well-meaning, but dangerously clueless friends and family.

The volatile types who resist education and reason may unfortunately require a little guile on your part, if keeping your head and electronics intact is on your agenda. If you can afford it, hook them up with a dummy machine that's very clearly their responsibility to maintain, or install an OS that's less susceptible to being stormed (Linux is a favorite; read the review of Wubi, Windows-compatible Linux freeware.) Of course, even that is no magic answer. The most diligent and persistent malware will always find a way in if the most determined user lets it.