B-I-L has installed Bitlord on my laptop - what to do?

[dr bob]

Been away, and my brother-in-law house-sat for a few days, anyway, he's installed BitLord (file sharing prog) on my laptop (and downloaded some stuff with it), now apart from the obvious copyright infringement stuff, what's the deal with these things now, I never have been a fan because of the security implications, but I'm just wondering what to start looking at the make sure that it's uninstalled properly and I'm not left with any spyware/malware, etc. Or am I being paranoid, and the whole file-sharing community is comprised of jolly, safe, people, who wouldn't do anything malicious?

I've an up-to-date Symantec Antivirus running, but no spyware scanners or anything.... so what would you do fellow PHers?

TIA, CH

[GregE240]

You could always just uninstall Bitlord, and pray there isn't a knock on your front door late one night.

[dr bob]

Ha ha, I'm not that paranoid - I'm a bit pee'd off about it though, he knows I use my computer for work, and then goes and dowloads some dodgy software (there were other dodgy programs downloaded too by the way).

CH

[Jinx]

System restore back to before it was installed then do the usual sweeps etc. Last but not least only allow "guest" rights when your BIL is using your laptop.

[Globulator]

Jinx said:

Last but not least only allow "guest" rights when your BIL is using your laptop.

And next time you go away remove the hard disk and leave a Ubuntu Live CD in the drive for him to play with

Seriously - I'd scan your PC as it may have joined the many ranks of spambot zombie PCs ... possibly even well before your BIL used it....

[Scraggles]

give him a user account that does not allow installs, password your account and don't write it down

if he wants to d/l files n your ip address, you are the one that could get the hassle for it.

regularly run anti virus and trojan scans, some stuff gets picked up, but risk of online downloads

[isitaboat]

Even better, just get him to bring his own laptop.

[ATG]

replace your laptop with a ruggidized model and smack him over the head with it every time he sets foot in your house

[dr bob]

Kind of my own fault, told him he was free to use my laptop, he's a bit of a computer innocent, so thought that because he had it installed on his pc with no problems (yet!), I wouldn't mind (actually he thought I'd be pleased!)...

...and I never bother with different security set ups cos for the most part it's only me that uses it... Ah well, you live and learn!

CH (currently doing spyware scans and cleaning up!)