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This can be seen as a rather dubious question but let me explain. I'm a 22 year old still living with my father and his wife (my stepmother).

I've been living here for over a year now and ever since the beginning I've been suspecting that they monitor my internet usage. This is not a particularly hard thing to do. All you need is a piece of software that monitors outgoing and incoming network traffic and Bob's your uncle.

As for why I wish to hide this from them. It's a simple matter of privacy. I'm unsure of the extent to which they can see my activity. Does this extend to my WhatsApp messages? Can they monitor my mobile notifications?

I can understand their reasoning; I have a younger sister and we have a home office, with employees that have internet access. But I feel violated in a sense. I have no proof of this and honestly, it's getting on my nerves. I sometimes leave them a strongly worded google search just to spite them. And I can visibly see that it rattles them, but not enough to confront me, as this would give up their game. So to speak.

Hence my question. If they are employing some form of traffic monitoring software, what can I do to counteract this? I'm not sure if a VPN will work because (and I'm no expert, so this is just an assumption) all it's doing is changing my IP. I'm still connected to the local network, meaning they can still see what I'm doing, it just looks like a different IP doing it.

Am I paranoid? Maybe. Do I have something to hide? No, not really. I just feel self-conscious about almost anything and everything I do online. Every video, every google search, every message, every website, every notification. All under the scrupulous watch of my father and stepmother. It's ridiculous.

schroeder
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Christopher
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  • I can say with almost 100% certainty that you aren't being monitored. The level of monitoring you imply is impossible to conduct at a purely network level, because the majority of internet traffic is encrypted. If you think they've installed malware on your devices, reset/reinstall the OS, put a strong password on them and you're good to go. – nobody May 15 '22 at 18:42
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    Using a VPN might be a good idea just to give yourself some peace of mind. If someone is monitoring your internet connection, then they will only see that you are connecting to your VPN - they won't see the IP addresses of the sites that you visit. – mti2935 May 15 '22 at 19:46
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    *"I can visibly see that it rattles them"* - Google Search is possible via HTTPS only. Even if somebody is monitoring the traffic in your local network, all what they can see is the amount of data sent sent to and received from Google. Nobody can decrypt HTTPS. That's why *"I can visibly see"* is definitely your imagination. The same about Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp etc. One can see what sites are you accessing, but nobody can decrypt your traffic. If you don't want to hide what sites are you accessing, you can use VPN or Tor. – mentallurg May 15 '22 at 20:38
  • So to clarify. They can not directly access my traffic bit by bit, effectively reconstructing the data I send and receive. But they can however, for example, see the URL of the webpages I visit. If this is true they can just simply pop that URL into a browser and view the webpage for themselves. Unelss it's password protected content, like a user profile page or the course work at my university. " won't see the IP addresses of the sites that you visit." It's my understanding that a URL is kind of like a public static IP. Does this mean using a vpn will maks the URL aswell? – Christopher May 16 '22 at 05:10
  • If they have this level of access, that would mean that your end device (PC/laptop/phone) would have to be compromised, possibly with a remote access malware (“RAT”, “stalkerware”). If the end device is compromised, a VPN or other security measures can't help either – the only reliable way is to get a new, secure device. Mere network-level sniffing cannot pierce HTTPS unless custom “certificates” were installed into your device (common in enterprise systems or parental control software). The only thing directly disclosed by HTTPS traffic is the domain name of the website, not the full URL. – amon May 16 '22 at 08:32
  • @amon nothing in the details suggests a RAT – schroeder May 16 '22 at 08:52
  • @schroeder My point is that if the communication channel is secure so that interception is implausible, then we must look at the configuration of the endpoint. Maybe there's parental control software (which is malware from my perspective), maybe a cert was installed to enable MitM interception, maybe OP has browser sync enabled and their parents were able to log into the Google account and can review the browsing history there. Or, of course, a mental health issue could be at play. – amon May 16 '22 at 08:55
  • @Christopher WRT, 8'But they can however, for example, see the URL of the webpages I visit.'* - If you access Google (for example) by HTTPS - someone monitoring your connection may be able to deduce that you are connecting to `https://www.google.com/`. But, they can't see that the full URL that you are accessing is `https://www.google.com/search?q=your&search&query`. See https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/7705/does-ssl-tls-https-hide-the-urls-being-accessed for more info. – mti2935 May 16 '22 at 15:05
  • @amon I trust these two about as far as I can throw them didn't grow up here at all. Me and my father only recently started building a relationship. I doubt that there is a breach on my end. My father is pretty capable with computers, but I don't think (or at least hope) he wouldn't go as far as installing malware on my computer or on my cell. For piece of mind i'll just keep my VPN hooked up. If there is any kind of monitoring, I'm convinced that this will mitigate it. If they have confront me about this I'll just insist geeting my own internet connection. Thank you everyone for your time. – Christopher May 16 '22 at 16:41

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You moved back home and you are using a shared internet connection with the home and a business. And you are so ticked off that legitimate (your words) monitoring is in place that you passive-aggressively post "strongly worded google search" messages.

I think that you need to reframe your entire situation here...

On a technical level:

  • A VPN client installed on your devices will encrypt the entire traffic so that no one can see the destination or contents
  • Setting up your own internet connection would solve the situation entirely and help out the situation by removing your network load from the already heavily used network
  • Without anything, monitoring will only see the main domain you visited, not the page or what you sent (so, no, they can't read your passive-aggressive missives ...)
schroeder
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  • I didn't "move back home". I moved away from some pretty shitty circumstances at my mother's house, I work (don't make enough to move out) and i'm getting my bachelors in CS online. I have indeed considered getting my own internet connection, but my father seems against the idea. Which, honestly made me even more suspicious. I'll admit the google searches we're childish. I also appreciate the technical advise and I thank you for your time. – Christopher May 16 '22 at 16:26
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Anything that you type in a HTTPS website is encrypted, so there is no way for them to see what you enter into the websites. However, they can see what websites you are visiting because all of your requests are sent through their router. There are many ways that they are able to monitor requests sent through their router.

They will not be able to see your messages and notifications simply by monitoring network traffic. For that they would need something installed on your computer or phone. One popular product that would make it very easy for them to see everything you do is Spytech SpyAgent. You could check for that and uninstall it, but the only sure way to make sure that there is no spyware on your PC is to reinstall the operating system.

Alternatively you could use a Virtual Machine.

On a Phone it's not so easy to reinstall the operating system, but there are anti-spyware programs you can run to try to remove spyware.

Setting up your own internet connection is probably the best solution, especially as they do have the right to monitor their network.

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