HELP! my ex wife has tampered with my Mac

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Hello guys, I have owned my Macbook Pro for a little over a year now. I absolutely love it. Anyhow, I didn't see a thread like this one but if there is I apologize and a Mod can move it. I am happy to be talking with you since I have been brainwashed by a PC for so long. Although I am not a conspiracy theorist I must ask this question.
My Ex and I have been in a down right awful divorce this year. In July she had stole my computer for 2 days while I was out of town. She broke through my master password and reset my computer pulling off all my files and anything else I had in my folders. (I did not press charges because she is the mother and sole provider of my kids.) My question is could she have downloaded a software that can record my keystrokes etc... because she seems to know everything I do online. If I am selling or buying or the forums I go to. I did not activate the Mac firewall until after she stole my computer. If there is such a software where could I find it and remove it? Any help would be appreciated and thank you in advance.
Ray
 
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G'day and welcome to the forums.

Best way is to format the had drive, selecting zeroing for additional security, and doing a clean install of your operating system. Terrible I know if you have to download all those applications etc but if you want to be 100% sure that is the way to go.

It does help if you include machine and OS Specs when you post.
 
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rayzorsharp
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G'day and welcome to the forums.

Best way is to format the had drive, selecting zeroing for additional security, and doing a clean install of your operating system. Terrible I know if you have to download all those applications etc but if you want to be 100% sure that is the way to go.

It does help if you include machine and OS Specs when you post.

Thank you harryb and I do apologize, my system is Mac OS X 10.5.8 with that being said is there anyway to tell if she did upload software? And where would I look? I have the Adobe Master Collection on it as well, will I have to reinstall that again? It took me a long time to make my custom Brushes in PS but I guess I could try to save it to my external hard drive. Thanks for the advice.
 
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rayzorsharp
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G'day and welcome to the forums.

Best way is to format the had drive, selecting zeroing for additional security, and doing a clean install of your operating system. Terrible I know if you have to download all those applications etc but if you want to be 100% sure that is the way to go.

It does help if you include machine and OS Specs when you post.

If the ex has installed keystroke or similar software, backing up the system will back up the spyware. This is the type of software I mean aqnd there are many of them:-

SpectorSoft - Spector Pro | mac 2010

That remotely reading the spyware from another Mac or PC is very worrying in your case.

Thank you again harryb, I am checking my applications and utility folder as we speak. *sigh* **** hath no fury like a woman scorned. Thank you again, I'll let you guys know if I get this resolved.
 
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seems like you are really in trouble:) My advice - install antivirus and check your Mac as chances that your ex has installed keylogger is very high. You can check Dr. Web for Mac or Kaspersky for Mac - seems like these ones are the most powerful. But... current keyloggers are very hard to be found.. Anyway, good luck!
 
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seems like you are really in trouble:) My advice - install antivirus and check your Mac as chances that your ex has installed keylogger is very high. You can check Dr. Web for Mac or Kaspersky for Mac - seems like these ones are the most powerful. But... current keyloggers are very hard to be found.. Anyway, good luck!

If you must install AV, stay away from those and go with ClamXav, but this is not going to be the fix you need though.
You can go with things like little snitch, etc, but I would really recommend hitting this on the head ASAP by following harryb2448's advice....
format the hard drive, selecting zeroing for additional security, and doing a clean install of your operating system. Terrible I know if you have to download all those applications etc but if you want to be 100% sure that is the way to go.
 
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I would also go with harryb2448's advice and remove all doubt and then set up a good
password so it can not happen again.
 
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My advice would be to talk to your lawyer.

What you're talking about is a serious crime. Regardless of whether she is the mother and sole guardian of your kids, if she's engaging in criminal activity, someone needs to know about it before she does anything worse.

Stop it now, before real trouble starts.
 
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chas_m

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Two points:

1. A software firewall will do absolutely nothing nada zippo for this situation.

2. If I were you I'd be *really* cautious about making completely unnecessary statements about someone else one is involved in litigation with in a public place with a public record of those statements. I am not a lawyer, but I'm playing one in this forum and I'm telling you that you're better off not making any comments about your wife here or elsewhere.
 

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