Nosy visitor horror story

[artrubio]

Hi everyone:

I'm writing an e-book about computer security, and one of the topics is computer intrusions, not so much in the sense of someone hacking into your PC, but more like nosy visitors taking the liberty of getting on your home PC and looking through your stuff.

For example, my niece came over recently, and while one of my kids was out, she went to his room, got into his unlocked PC (he learned his lesson and password-protected the thing afterwards), accessed his Facebook account, took snapshots of certain conversations and then forwarded them to one of his lady friends. Needless to say we were not very amused when we found out.

Have you had any situations involving your home computer and visiting friends, relatives, or maybe even strangers (electricians, plumbers, cable guy, etc.)?

 

[OvenMaster]

My dad has occasionally erased or poked into my files that I leave on my desktop when I'm not around. He's shut off Defraggler in the middle of working, and closed Firefox tabs that I had left open for news items I hadn't read yet. I had to create a separate user account just for him, with his own totally cleared-off desktop, and remove basic items like (My) Computer and some programs in my Start menu, just so he won't have any opportunity to get nosy and screw things up. I now leave my desktop on his account whenever I step away from my computer. Of course, he's gotten mad, asking me, "Where'd everything go?"