A cautionary tale RE unsafe P2P-ing

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

I one time earlier this year cleaned all the spy ware, trojans, and assorted virii from a client's high-speed always on computer. Cool. Easy money.

She has a daughter who likes to download music, so they downloaded and installed Lime Wire. No problem so far- I use Lime Wire Pro myself- but then she went in and set the options. She shared EVERYTHING. Including the My Documents folder, which included the resumes of several people, private pictures, financial files, and on.

Of course she didn't do it on purpose, but it's an easy thing to do if you don't know about file sharing with the world.

How did she figure out that everything was shared? Simple. She got an email from an online voyeur who couldn't resist telling her what he'd gotten off her machine. He even told her how he found her- he had simply put in a search term that said "RESUME". Every document with that in the title was his. Every computer set up to share incorrectly was his. He said it's all he does.

That "tale" is true. I have an appointment to go out to her house tomorrow and redo the security on her machines and give her a lesson in it.

Will I have to come out to YOUR house to fix your machine, or will you please make sure your P2P program hasn't left you swinging in the wind for the world to see?

[Morning Dew]

1. thanks for the info Prisoner_Number_Six . . .

you're Number One in my book.

(sorry, couldn't resist)
:)

[Awsi Dooger]

2. Very good tip

The first day I used P2P I screwed that up for a couple of hours. I shared a folder than included an old application that had personal data. Luckily I caught it and I don't think I got burnt.

Now I set aside one folder specifically for sharing. That's the only thing I share. It has plenty of popular items that people want, like applications, installers, updaters and videos. I've always got 5 people downloading my stuff.

[sleipnir]

3. The key is, don't use "share" based programs.

No sympathy for these fools. P2P is great, but using Limewire is for fools and computer illiterates. If you can't run the program correctly, then you deserve what you get. It's like someone who picks up car keys who's never driven before and is amazed that they got into a car wreck pulling out of the driveway. My advice, switch to edonkey, bittorrent, or be real smooth and only partake in usenet.

[Solon]

4. Once you make a foolproof machine, they make better fools....

Then again, thanks to Sony, I got rid of Windows, and locked down the machine I have as tight as possible, only thing I use, as far as p2p is bittorrent.