Hello,
My family’s devices continue to get compromised. Long story short, it has led to extreme stalking and harassment by our neighbors and a vindictive ex-girlfriend. From all the outrageous and malicious events that have taken place, we’re very concerned what the endgame is. Seeing as law enforcement has been sent to my house on 4 separate occasions I can only assume that crimes or something are being committed in my name and it’s stemming from my cell phones. it’s only getting creepier and more concerning. I’m begging for someone to take the time to help me understand how this keeps happening and whats going on. I can’t keep purchasing new phones. I downloaded the SpyCatcher app and it looks like i keep connecting to unknown networks at my neighbors house. The OpenCellId site is now updated with 5 “cell towers” that looks to be in my neighbors house, set to the same parameters as a real cell tower down the street, except everyday the timestamps will be updated to a future time. Something very sinister is happening and Im hoping this site and this community can help me understand and put an end to this unbelievable nightmare. Is there something else im picking up on, like boosters or something, that OpenCellID is updating as cell towers, or are my neighbors using an IMSI catcher or something right next door to me? That would explain why this vicious circle has been going on for the past year. Please, someone out there has to have knowledge about cellular towers and if my community really is being that malicious I hope that there’s a way to prove IMSI catchers are being illegally used to continuously compromise my family’s devices. Thank you all for your time and consideration. I feel grateful that there’s a community like this because not even the cell phone companies seem to know how cellular networks operate.
In my country, Police has a specific team that deals with telecommunications crimes. Of course, they know everything about technologies. I suggest that you filed a complaint at the nearest police station, so that they can catch the criminals that are targeting you: you have the right to live with no worries.
Home security starts when everyone in the family behaves as he should: no matter how many security systems you put in place, if someone at home turns them off, they are completely useless. Usually intrusions are not made through some kind of very clever and technological mean, but because the criminals find “open doors” (like weak passwords, or no passwords at all, or just one password for many different websites and applications, or no cryptography activated on Wi-Fi, weak administrative password on the router you have at home, and so on and so forth: they probably didn’t break technological stuff, but they found an easy way to get into your home network, using a weakness, like a default password, never changed).
If you are not tech savvy, I think you shouldn’t try to compete with IT criminals by learning stuff, because it would take years, rather that you’d all (all the members of the family, on any device you use) start behaving safely.
Steps to be reasonably sure that you have a normally safe home network:
- bring home a safe laptop (a device that was never connected to your wi-fi home network - just ask a friend) and connect it to the router using a cable (RJ45)
- reset the home router to factory defaults by long pressing (10 seconds) the little reset hole, with a pin
- as soon as the router turns back on, use your friend’s laptop to enter into the web interface of the router, with the default admin account and immediately change the default’s admin account password, with a new safe password.
- logout from the router and login again with the admin account and:
- set WPA2 (not WEP, please) as default security for your wi-fi network
- change the default Wi-Fi password, so that it is not the same as the one printed on the label of the router. Choose a very difficult password, please!
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turn off your friend’s laptop, thank him and tell him to go home
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connect any Windows PC/laptop you have at home with an RJ45 network cable to the home router and completely re-install Windows from scratch. Windows has to erase all data, during the process: don’t let anything into your device. Create a STRONG password (20 characters) for the windows user and write it down on a sheet of paper.
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go online with this renewed computer and immediately create a free Bitwarden account: Bitwarden Web Vault. You will use the Web Vault to generate and safely store your new STRONG passwords (at least 20 characters, each). The passwords of the Vault must be a passphrase, like: “Tabl-Oppened/twWice#694”. You see? It’s easy to remember, because it sounds like a normal phrase, but it’s very long. Be sure you don’t spell the words correctly, but that they contain at least one spelling error, each. You may also want to use a passphrase with no meaning at all (which is safer), like: “Dolfin$UnderHated-Peeple)Managger[9723”. BE SURE TO PROTECT YOUR BITWARDEN’S WEB VAULT WITH SUCH A STRONG PASSPHRASE.
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install bitwarden browser extension on your PC/laptop web browser of choice (Install and Sync All of Your Devices | Bitwarden) and login into the extension, with the username and passphrase you created in step 7.
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change your Google, Facebook, Outlook, Gmail, etc… passwords, so that each one of them is STRONG and unique: LET BITWARDEN’S EXTENSION DO THE JOB: ask the extension to create the new strong passwords (20 characters long) and store them. DON’T USE A COMPROMISED DEVICE TO DO THIS, BUT THE NEWLY FORMATTED PC/LAPTOP.
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format and re-install any Mac and create a STRONG password for the mac user and write it down on a sheet of paper.
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do the same on any tablet create a STRONG password for the tablet user and write it down on a sheet of paper.
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do the same on any smartphone create a STRONG password for the smartphone user and write it down on a sheet of paper.
All the users and the passwords, MUST be different.
You can store device’s passwords into bitwarden’s webvault, as well.
If you have data on your PCs/laptop you must back them up, before formatting.
Every family member MUST create his own Bitwarden free account with his own personal VERY STRONG passphrase, and then change EVERY password of every account he owns (google, gmail, outlook, amazon, netflix, facebook, instagram…), with secure and strong and different passwords.
I have more than 300 different passwords into my bitwarden’s account. And I don’t know anyone of them: I only know my long, strong, easy to remember, passphrase.