How can you block Cox Cable from taking screen shots of your computer screen?

i think your roommate is taking the piss out of you.

in order for them to do this, you’d have to grant them certain access to your computer, which is not available to them by default.

Sue them. Even if it’s possible (which I’m quite sure it’s not), they probably wouldn’t be allowed to do it :)

if they want to do that they have to install software on your pc which has to gain access to your hardware and, to send the pictures back, to your internet connection.
install comodo internet security.
once installed, it will prompt you if any program tries to access certain system resources , hardware or tries to establish an outbound connection. if it seems suspicious, block it.

That’s only possible if you give them explicit permission. That’s not to say that someone at Cox didn’t tell him that, of course.

Not sure – perhaps housemate gave them permission? Cable is in his name, but there’s 3–4 computers on our network at any one time. Assuming he gave permission, I’d like to know how to block their access and preserve my own privacy, on my Mac. Any help for me here? I believe Comodo is PC-only.

It’s not a matter of verbal permission – he has to sit down at your computer and click all the right things to actually allow it. If he doesn’t have the login password—you do have a login password, right?—then there’s nothing he could do to let them in to your computer.

Thanks, CWilbur. Yes, we all have long-ins on our respective computers and he hasn’t manually config-ed our computers for remote access. His quote when speaking with Cox few minutes ago, “They checked the last 15 screen shots and everything looks ok.” I believe this was to check to see if any of us had been downloading music/movies and generally potentially-illegal activity. Feels like someone was looking up my skirt and I didn’t know about it.

I don’t see how there could be any more legality to this than someone’s walking around outside your house and snapping photos through all the windows. Surely there are protections in place. Invasion of privacy has always been possible; computers just make it possible at a previously unimaginable level.

That’s nothing. The TV Stations have been watching you through your tv screen for years!

<puts on a foil hat and continues to use the interwebz>

They can’t do a screen capture, but they CAN monitor the same websites etc., that you look at. It isn’t likely that they would though. Think about it. Say they have ten thousand customers, if they were to try and monitor all of them, they would need several thousand full time staff – just for that purpose. One person could only monitor a small number of systems at one time.

No, they have the ability, I really doubt that they have the manpower or the interest.

I think your roommate has a real concern, but described it poorly.

His concern is that the cable company knows something about what you are doing with your computer, but he wrongly thinks they are doing it by taking screen captures. I agree with previous posts, this is not likely.

But, they ARE probably keeping track of which websites are being accessed with their system; not to follow your behavior specifically, but to follow trends in what all their customers are doing. It would be relatively easy to do this by keeping data logs of the web addresses that users are requesting when they browse.

So, it is possible that your surfing is adding to a total in some log somewhere, but nobody has got the time to review the screen caps from millions of customers’ computers.

Could it be your mate is taking the piss , and trying to see if you will fall for it looks like you have . He could also just be playing the fool and be trying to stop you from using certain sites .

Not sure what all this male-oriented “taking the piss” colloquialism is for, but I think after some research using the terms “MAC OSX + Anonymous web surfing,” I found a few good things to try… installable apps which do a variety of things: proxify/hide my IP, route my surfing through “hardened” remote secure servers, etc. Still want to dig a little deeper, though. Hiding an IP is one thing, but that doesn’t stop monitoring of my traffic. From Lifehacker: Enter Tor, a service that “distributes your transactions over several places on the Internet, so no single point can link you to your destination. The idea is similar to using a twisty, hard-to-follow route in order to throw off somebody who is tailing you.” Torproject dot org has illustrations of its modus operandi.

DarkScribe – I think you’re inferring that I was indicating that Cox does this (or allegedly does something like this) on all its customers. That is not a correct assumption. If the cable company sees a usage pattern on an account, they establish a profile on you and then “monitor” the account. They can set flags and what not that will track. You can actually have, as we have had, a conversation with a Cox internet technician about your exact surfing/downloading activity and they can describe what’s on your screen at a given moment, and even tell you what file caused the alert in their system. I witnessed this conversation. They have a lot more control and access than I think you all like to think. Even with all these efforts at protecting one’s surfing activities, there is a shred of doubt that even so, they may be able to monitor.

Cox has a 3 strikes and you’re out rule. If they shut off your connection two times due to torrent downloading (or whatever), the third time shut off = no more internet utility for that account holder. Possibly legal action may ensue.

I had hoped for more super-hard-core technological answers (perhaps from a SysAdmin). If a SysAdmin or tech privacy expert happens upon this thread, love to hear from you.

@naugamonster and they can describe what’s on your screen at a given moment, and even tell you what file caused the alert in their system

Patent nonsense.

BTW, I AM a sys admin with more than thirty years experience. I work in IT and technology, primarily as a writer/editor, but I am still (I have to be) fully conversant with technology.

@naugamonster Like they said “you have this and this on your screen” and you could see it was true? Also, just what you see in your browser or the whole screen? If the latter, that would definitely be reason so switch providers if possible.

Tor is OK, but not for this situation, I think, as it would still need to go through your provider. As I understand it, it only hides were the request is coming from for the receiver. The locations your request is going through, like your ISP and the Tor nodes.

You have to get your request through your ISP, so they are able to see it. Though I’d like to understand that I only have a minimal understanding of this so there may very well be severe flaws in this answer.

@naugamonster how is “take the piss” male oriented? last i checked, women do that too. here’s the definition

For OS X, check out Peer Guardian.

epony… to be more clear, males seem to use it in commentary. Females don’t usually.

(sorry for the dp – wanted to get Epony’s hash correct…)
@eponymoushipster – my point was that males seem to use it in commentary. Females don’t usually.

@DarkScribe – not nonsense. I’ve been there done that with Cox. Believe it. Or not.

(Back to the actual topic)

@Vincentt – thanks for the effort. Have you tried TOR? It seems to be useful (as you’re alluding to) only along with something like PrivProxy? The installation for MacOSX looks too hairy for me. Searching for alternatives now.

@naugamonster not nonsense. I’ve been there done that with Cox. Believe it. Or not.

Great, I have a choice.

I choose not.

@naugamonster I’ve tried it shortly, yes. I’m on Ubuntu, so installation was easy, and together with the TorButton Firefox extension is was really easy to use. However, I didn’t really need it (there wasn’t a strong will on my side to hide my presence on the internet, in addition to the concerns I named above), and it made browsing agonizingly slow, so I uninstalled it again. I don’t think the slow speed is worth it, though of course you might try installing it, then calling Cox again and see what they say ;-)

@naugamonster: Cox can tell where your Internet traffic is going, because they’re routing it. They can’t tell what’s on your screen.

And frankly, when I’ve had to call support in the past—though never Cox—they haven’t been able to tell that I’ve been using Linux and lying to them based on my memory of Windows. Surely if they could magically see what was on my screen, that wouldn’t happen?

Found an interesting story on ZD Net about Comcast being pursued for similar privacy violations. http://bit.ly/RlOn4 Article title: “Outrageous Comcast customer agreement – conversation with Frank Eliason.” Apparently an ongoing issue for few years now…

@Vincentt – Thanks for the info.
@ CWilbur – Thanks, too. Helps to hear about others’ personal experiences with ISP’s.

@DarkScribe – a personal request: please hold yourself back from “helping” on any more of my Fluthers. Ever. Period. Even if you think you have the most quintessential, part-the-skys answer for me, don’t. Please just refrain and click away. Thank you.

@naugamonster: If you spout nonsense, you really don’t have standing to tell someone who calls you on that nonsense to shut up.

@naugamonster a personal request: please hold yourself back from “helping” on any more of my Fluthers.

You seem to have not grasped my intent. I wasn’t trying to help you, I was correcting the nonsense that you were propagating. I will agree not to try to help you though – if that makes you happy.

As for your link, they are NOT similar privacy invasions, they have not relationship to your preposterous claim that Comcast can live monitor a customer’s display screen. Among other things, as well needing a local install of complex software, that would require a huge amount of back-Chanel bandwidth, more than running 24/7 Skype video or similar.

Don’t you think things through in a logical fashion? Imagine the size of the bills if you ran Skype video non-stop. Comcast couldn’t meet the bandwidth requirements. Even if it was legally and technically possible, the increased network infrastructure requirements in attempting it would bankrupt them for no reason.

All they can do is log your web adventures. If you log onto a page, if they really wanted to, they could log onto the same page and see what you were viewing. That is the extent of it.

BTW, I wasn’t helping you, once again I was correcting you. In reality, if you really don’t want opinion – then don’t ask for it.

[Mod says] Flame off, please.

@DarkScribe Yes, that would make me happy. Thank you.

@cwilbur – thanks for the judgment. How many questions on Fluther are you categorizing as nonsense? This a place we can ask our silly questions…

Anyway… Guess this thread is a wrap.

@naugamonster: There’s silly nonsense, and there’s stupid nonsense. Silly nonsense is fun; stupid nonsense needs to be corrected.