nothing to hide...?

[Sunna]

[Mortblanc]

Where have you been?

This is the same stuff that Snowdon was exposing 2 years ago.

Did you think that YOUR computer was exempt?

[BeardyMan]

Funny you should mention Snowden, just finished the Glenn Greenwald book, No Place To Hide.

Yup, all data is mined. Got stuff you don't want people to see? You need to have a clean HD on a PC that NEVER goes online.

[Mortblanc]

I have the sneaky feeling that if you had a laptop that had never been "on line", you could walk past a wireless "hot spot" and they could access anything in the computer remotely without you even turning it on!

I had my computer hacked once while it was turned off and not logged into the internet. It came on independently and the hacker started searching my files. I walked into the house and found my computer history scrolling down the screen and being downloaded remotely. I had no control over the computer and the only way I stopped it was to unplug the tower.

[Steve]

Many computers support a "Wake On LAN" function, this is to enable automated software update tools to turn on a PC remotely and update software at night when it has no effect on business. When I worked in user support we used a program called Unicentre, if a user reported glitches on their PC we could re-install all their software overnight keeping every preference they had set. If their hardware failed we would simply plug in a blank PC for them then install everything the same way. This would work for people in the same building or on a different continent.

[BeardyMan]

I've got a couple of old Linux machine kicking around with no wifi, no LAN adapter etc just a modem. Pretty insulated, but wouldn't surprise me if there some sort of X10 backdoor. Never say never...