Creeps Stole My Photos

[Being_the_Don]

About an hour ago I was going through photos I had saved to my computer's hard drive and I realized that some of them were missing. I immediately became concerned and looked through other folders and noticed that certain photos were missing from them, too. Whoever did it stole specific photos related to certain places and people. I'm most concerned about it because they were pictures of my family and friends. I've got anti-spyware/malware, and anti-virus software installed on my computer. I use Firefox instead of IE and spybot is always running in the background but still this happened. The thing that alarms me even more is that I have no idea when the photos were taken and if the hackers are still accessing my files. There have been times that spybot has alerted me to attempted registry by whomever and I deny the change. But this theft was systematic, specific and deliberate. Who knows who stole the photos and what they'll be used for. I saw a news story about people who had their photos stolen from Myspace, etc. and used by certain companies. The companies even altered certain things to make them specific to whatever they wanted. The excuse was that the photos were not marked "private". I do have photos up on Myspace, and MSN but they're only accessible to my friends. But I don't post photos of my relatives online. These photos were on my hard drive. Thieves! Who did it? Unscrupulous evil companies hoping to sell products, etc. using images that they stole from people? Hacker b@stards who steal photos and sell them to wicked, unscrupulous companies with no care about the innocent, unsuspecting people from whom the photos were stolen? Could it have been done just for kicks by hacker creeps who just like doing stuff like this? Or was it even more sinister?

But how to stop them? What trail would they leave behind? How would I catch them? I would like to catch them. I really REALLY want get them for this attack on my family and friends.

 

[Alle_Gory]

Whoaaaaa. Whoa!

Hold up there.

There is a reasonable explanation. Did anyone have access to your computer? These files with family and etc. were they all taken at the same time and stored in the same place for awhile? If they got infected with anything and an antivirus app can't quarantine & clean, then the files are usually deleted. Where have these files been besides your drive.

 

[Being_the_Don]

Whoaaaaa. Whoa!

Hold up there.

There is a reasonable explanation. Did anyone have access to your computer? These files with family and etc. were they all taken at the same time and stored in the same place for awhile? If they got infected with anything and an antivirus app can't quarantine & clean, then the files are usually deleted. Where have these files been besides your drive.

Thanks. Any advice is appreciated. Only a few people have access to this computer and they actually know next to nothing outside of simple email, websurfing, wordpad, and other basic skills. As for whether or not they were all taken at the same time, I don't know and that's one of the problems. The most recent photos are saved to the C drive. A few months ago I got a new Polaroid digital camera to replace my HP digital camera. I couldn't upload any photos from either camera to my computer using my old all in one (1600 series) because it broke down. I got a new all in one recently (4400 series) and it was acting up so took it back and got a replacement of the same model. But it wouldn't install properly so just before Christmas I called HP support and the rep wanted access to my computer but I told her that I preferred to walk through it with her. She wanted to remove most of my files from my old HP (the 1600 series that broke down months ago). But after 45 minutes or so she put me on hold and the call was disconnected. (She did spend much of that 45 minutes making small talk about her family and job so maybe her supervisor pulled her from it?). The next day I called HP back to complete the task and a guy told me that the rep from the previous day had engaged in "overkill". We got the all in one installed in no time.

As for the new digital camera, it has most of the photos that are missing from my computer's hard drive, so I can probably upload them again if necessary. It's a Polaroid digital camera and I have to use their USB cable to directly upload photos to my computer. I don't like this method. Up until my 1600 series broke down I was able to use plug the memory card from my old HP digital camera directly into the 1600 for upload to my computer's hard drive. But with this new Polaroid I uploaded the photos directly to the computer by plugging the camera's USB cable to my computer. Now that I think of it, I hadn't noticed those photos go missing until a recently-around the time I called HP for help installing the 4400 series all in one. I mean, the photos in question were there in November. But that still doesn't explain why only certain photos are missing instead every photo stored in a particular folder.

 

[dj_jazzybrad]

To be honest, most people dont "hack" in the traditional sense of stealing data off of personal computers. There is most likely a very reasonable explanation for this Either they were deleted, theyre not where you left them, or someone who had access to your computer took them for whatever reason. It's highly unlikely that somebody gained access to your computer over the internet or your network and stole specific photos. However, on that note, do you connect to the internet wirelessly? Do you share the same internet connection with multiple people, like through a wireless access point?

 

[R1_test pilot]

Did you only look in specific files? I would run a "search" for .jpg files. The anti virus programs could have moved them. I don't think an outside source ( hacker ) is the culprit.

 

[Being_the_Don]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

Well, I'm the only one who knows anything storing/deleting files, etc. so noone close to me would have the motive or know how to mess around with my files. I'll see if the antivirus software could have moved them although I do find that unlikely. I'll look through other files to determine whether or not they were misplaced.

I did have trouble out of winfixer one and a half years ago and anyone familiar with that trojan knows it can do a lot of damage. It took a lot of work to get rid of it, I even had to call in a friend of mine to help out. I've had ongoing concerns about viruses/trojans, spoofs from hackers who stole various friends' passwords and sent me spoof messages and viruses. I've mentioned some of this sort of thing elsewhere in this forum.

I do have a blog (on Blogger) and I know that some porno sites illegally linked to it. And a virus with a Russian suffix also linked to my blog. I won't name my blog here but it's a family friendly site which is why it was insulting to learn that spammers and pornos had linked to it. That was a couple of months back, by the way. I don't know if this could have anything to do with it but I wonder...

 

[Heart Break Kid]

Usually if someone moves something it's copied. Especially if they use a usb or hack your ip. I would suggest getting some software that restores deleted files. There are tons of the available for free.

Make sure your ports are not all open (firewall), etc. As for the Russian virus' I have no idea. Can your family/friends still view your blog if it is on private?

 

[Alle_Gory]

Thanks. Any advice is appreciated. Only a few people have access to this computer and they actually know next to nothing outside of simple email, websurfing, wordpad, and other basic skills. As for whether or not they were all taken at the same time, I don't know and that's one of the problems. The most recent photos are saved to the C drive. A few months ago I got a new Polaroid digital camera to replace my HP digital camera. I couldn't upload any photos from either camera to my computer using my old all in one (1600 series) because it broke down. I got a new all in one recently (4400 series) and it was acting up so took it back and got a replacement of the same model. But it wouldn't install properly so just before Christmas I called HP support and the rep wanted access to my computer but I told her that I preferred to walk through it with her. She wanted to remove most of my files from my old HP (the 1600 series that broke down months ago). But after 45 minutes or so she put me on hold and the call was disconnected. (She did spend much of that 45 minutes making small talk about her family and job so maybe her supervisor pulled her from it?). The next day I called HP back to complete the task and a guy told me that the rep from the previous day had engaged in "overkill". We got the all in one installed in no time.

As for the new digital camera, it has most of the photos that are missing from my computer's hard drive, so I can probably upload them again if necessary. It's a Polaroid digital camera and I have to use their USB cable to directly upload photos to my computer. I don't like this method. Up until my 1600 series broke down I was able to use plug the memory card from my old HP digital camera directly into the 1600 for upload to my computer's hard drive. But with this new Polaroid I uploaded the photos directly to the computer by plugging the camera's USB cable to my computer. Now that I think of it, I hadn't noticed those photos go missing until a recently-around the time I called HP for help installing the 4400 series all in one. I mean, the photos in question were there in November. But that still doesn't explain why only certain photos are missing instead every photo stored in a particular folder.

Ok.

What?

I read the story. Make it shorter where you can. It makes it easier for you and especially for me since I don't have to re-read everything.

So far I understand that you got HP support. If you ever send in your laptop, back up your important stuff!!! If you send in your laptop for repair its common policy for most manufacturers to do a hard drive wipe. I'd reccomend an external hard drive. Cheap, portable, and you can reuse the storage space unlike DVDs.


Now about your data, maybe someone did delete the files. Get handy recovery, or r-studio. You can go to the piratebay for the last version, for the newest you can purchase a copy. Handy is something like $20.

In the meantime if the files still exist, stop using the laptop. When files get deleted, they only get deleted from the main index, the physical file still remains until its written over by a new file. Find a piece of recovery software, install it, recover what still remains then you can go back to normal computer use otherwise you risk losing even more data.

I recommend handy recovery. Easy and pretty powerful.

 

[Being_the_Don]

@ Alle_Gory:

I'm not using a laptop, it's my desktop PC. I contacted HP support via telephone. I wonder if the original rep did screw something up. I don't know. My blog can be viewed by the public, perhaps someone who recently visited it tampered with my files. How reliable is Handy? Is it compatible with PCs?

@ Heart_Break_Kid:

Now that you mention it, my firewall has been down of late. When I boot up my PC I get a balloon saying that my firewall is down. I then go in and activate it. This has been a pain in the backside. It's been happening a lot more these days. Could you recommend some free file restore software that you have used? they would not be able to use a USB unless they had physical access to my computer, correct? I wonder if someone has hacked my IP, the thought has occurred to me. I created a public blog and I'm aware that there always exists the possibility that I will either get viewers who do not like the competition (if they operate in the same niche) or disagree with the topic and contents. But to poke around my personal files is definitely not good. I use this PC for work, research and personal use. It would be extremely expensive to spring for another computer, I'm on a very tight budget. That's why I need to protect myself.

 

[Alle_Gory]

@ Alle_Gory:

I'm not using a laptop, it's my desktop PC. I contacted HP support via telephone. I wonder if the original rep did screw something up. I don't know. My blog can be viewed by the public, perhaps someone who recently visited it tampered with my files. How reliable is Handy? Is it compatible with PCs?

Are the files online or on your computer?

I can't help you if you're going to be ambiguous. This is something important you overlooked.


Yes, Handy is a good application but its only for recovering stuff from hard drives. Its also easy to use.

 

[bigjohnson]

.... Whoever did it stole specific photos related to certain places and people. ....

First, missing (gone) and stolen are completely different. A digital file can be stolen without disappearing and can disappear without being stolen. Which is it?

Second every time you press the shutter button you are executing a copyright. Those images are yours and possession doesn't matter.

I bet someone (a girl probably) went through and edited your photo collection, but it's OK because you backed your data up. Right?

 

[Being_the_Don]

First, missing (gone) and stolen are completely different. A digital file can be stolen without disappearing and can disappear without being stolen. Which is it?

Second every time you press the shutter button you are executing a copyright. Those images are yours and possession doesn't matter.

I bet someone (a girl probably) went through and edited your photo collection, but it's OK because you backed your data up. Right?

If you mean editing the photos that are stored on my computer's hard drive, I'm the only one who does that. I have back ups for some files but not all of them. As for the missing photos I do have them stored on my SD. I might see if I can upload them to my PC again and see what happens.

 

[Heart Break Kid]

@ Heart_Break_Kid:

Now that you mention it, my firewall has been down of late. When I boot up my PC I get a balloon saying that my firewall is down. I then go in and activate it. This has been a pain in the backside. It's been happening a lot more these days. Could you recommend some free file restore software that you have used? they would not be able to use a USB unless they had physical access to my computer, correct? I wonder if someone has hacked my IP, the thought has occurred to me. I created a public blog and I'm aware that there always exists the possibility that I will either get viewers who do not like the competition (if they operate in the same niche) or disagree with the topic and contents. But to poke around my personal files is definitely not good. I use this PC for work, research and personal use. It would be extremely expensive to spring for another computer, I'm on a very tight budget. That's why I need to protect myself.

Yeah, it sounds like someone got into your ports. Usb would require physical access. Someone could have vlc'd you silently sometime in the past though and just chose to active it recently. I doubt it though. This program looks easy to navigate, give it a try. Unless your computer has very little memory your deleted files should still exist somewhere. If that does not work very well I'll check what I have on my usb. It probably wouldn't be as computer friendly though. Best of luck !

 

[Being_the_Don]

Are the files online or on your computer?

I can't help you if you're going to be ambiguous. This is something important you overlooked.


Yes, Handy is a good application but its only for recovering stuff from hard drives. Its also easy to use.

@ Alle_Gory

I save my files to my computer. The missing photos were saved to my computer's hard drive. About an hour ago I inserted my SD card into my 4480 and imported all of the photos that were stored on the card. By doing that I was able to retrieve the missing photos. My terminology maybe a bit different than your's in this regard. Each of my photos are stored by date within specific folders but when I was going through them Sunday night I noticed that certain photos were missing. The action I took tonight had the effect of re-inserting the photos which had been missing back into their proper place. I don't think that it overwrote any existing files, though.

@ Heart_Break_Kid

I have family members who use this computer from time to time but they are not very knowledgeable about computers and they get worried about trying any unfamiliar applications because they worry it might cause my computer to crash. So I know they wouldn't do anything to harm the computer. I do live in an apartment, though. But even then, it seems unlikely that someone would have come in and physically tampered with my PC. Heck, the thought of that seems very unsettling.

But maybe it could have happened when I used the USB cable from my Polaroid digital camera. That was a method I had recently used to upload photos to my computer. The computer sees such files as saved to the F: drive (removable disk). Last week I uploaded some photos to the computer using this method but when I disconnected the usb cable I may not have saved the photos to the C: drive. Perhaps this could have effected some of the other folders in the C: drive. As a matter of fact, all of those photos that had been saved to the F: drive-and the entire folder for that matter- were missing, too. If applying occam's razor, then maybe this explains what happened to my missing photos. Maybe...

 

[bigjohnson]

Yeah, it sounds like someone got into your ports.

What the hell does that mean?

 

[Teflon_Mcgee]

Yeah, it sounds like someone got into your ports.

What the hell does that mean?

I think he meant "pants."
As in, "It sounds like someone got into your pants and, while you where distracted, took your files"

Atleast that seems to be the most likely scenario....

 

[bigjohnson]

I think he meant "pants."

Ahhhhh. I see, thanks. I think I hate it when they get my ports, but getting in my pants I usually am OK with.