This is SCARE-EEY!!!!

a reply to: dfnj2015

It was an HP Pro Book 450 G2

a reply to: TheRedneck

1. No, WIN 7 on the old laptop
2. No Cortana
3. Negative, no syncing other than a bluetooth mouse. No cloud storage or synchronization
4. I had a stored search string in File Manager for multiple file extensions with a wildcard before the file extenstion
5. I ran the search on the entire C: drive
6. Yes, I just copied the files off of the external drive to the new laptop

ETA - Just a side note, I had to look high and low when I got that machine to get one with Win 7 and not 8 or 10 too.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

That makes this much more interesting then. No Win 10, means no Cortana, thus no real reason for your PC to be recording you without your knowledge. Do you have any other software that you use your PC's microphone to interact with?

a reply to: dfnj2015

You'd think so, but I haven't found anything notable yet.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Well...now you know why you shouldn't accept avatars from strangers.

Peace

a reply to: PokeyJoe

No, and I intentionally do not use my laptop to do ANY voice or video recording at all.

If I need video I use my video camera. If I need recorded audio I use a dedicated audio recorder.

Holy crap, that's scary.

Cortana is the reason I run win7 ultimate.

Ready to scrap "tech" all together.

Can you tell what the file extension is?

Thanks

a reply to: Mandroid7

Yes, they are all .MP3 files.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Ok, thanks, running a search on my machine now. Should be easy for me, I don't keep any of my mp3 database on my computer. Will report back asap.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: PokeyJoe

No, and I intentionally do not use my laptop to do ANY voice or video recording at all.

If I need video I use my video camera. If I need recorded audio I use a dedicated audio recorder.

Strange man.....very strange. I think your last PC was compromised and you have been spied on for God knows how long. Have you tried doing any research on your own into why this has happened? And, if so have you discovered any possible leads?

Just a general note here...

I also ran updated virus scans on the computer regularly as well as malware scanners and use two firewalls (one on the WiFi and one on the actual machine). Never detected anything.

a reply to: Mandroid7

I doubt you'll find anything.

The location of these files was in a directory I would have noticed them previously...and they were never there.

Right now my suspicion is, because the motherboard was compromised it allowed the search to pick up files which were previously hidden somewhere.

a reply to: PokeyJoe

Still looking into it. I only discovered the issue late last night.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

what file string were they hidden in?
example: c: fun time folder/recording/*.mp3

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Unfortunately that doesnt mean very much these days. With the release of Vault 7 and the subsequent release of the Shadow Brokers NSA tools into the wild, normal anti-virus software doesnt stand a chance of detecting the really nasty stuff.

I'm sure you've tried making hidden and system files visible to see of you can spot them that way.

If these files were there and not visible as either hidden or system files, something is definitely up.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I'll check my pc today. Thanks for let us know.

a reply to: subfab

They were copied over from a machine that failed. I doubt they would maintain their original file tree structure on the new HD.

a reply to: subfab

C:/music

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

Yes, I do that by default for all files anyway. I want to be able to see all the files on my computer.