The Digital Divorce: Spying During Splits Grows With Technology

The New York Times:

The age-old business of breaking up has taken a decidedly Orwellian turn, with digital evidence like e-mail messages, traces of Web site visits and mobile telephone records now permeating many contentious divorce cases.

Spurned lovers steal each other's BlackBerrys. Suspicious spouses hack into each other's e-mail accounts. They load surveillance software onto the family PC, sometimes discovering shocking infidelities.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

Comments

[avergejoe]

07:41 PM on 09/15/2007

From morality to technorality?

[RecklessAbandonArteest]

04:11 PM on 09/15/2007

This is nothing new, just another source for evidence to support one's case.

In the old days couples who divorce looked for letters, canceled checks, bank records, etc. In the electronic age it was only a matter of time before warring spouses would turn to each other's Blackberry, computer and PDA for incriminating evidence.

The biggest change from the old days is that people, for a time, threw caution to the wind when e-mailing, etc. Since stories have been publicized about someone getting "busted" with an incriminating e-mail, visit to a porn site or dating service, in 2007 people are getting wise. Spouses are locking and encrypting info on phones and covering up their electronic trails.

But yeah, since close to sixty percent of marriages now end in divorce and a five-year marriage is a long one, I think it's a bad sign if one's spouse starts to snoop on the other's cell phone and PC/e-mail use.

[protagonia]

04:02 PM on 09/15/2007

Yeah right,

THAT'S the spying we should worry about.

[DRaymond]

01:53 PM on 09/15/2007

As someone trained in computer forensics I will agree that messy divorces are a growth field in the industry. Mut I must admit that if they spent as much effort in being nice to each other as they are now being mean, or as much effort into being honest with each other as they are now spending spying things would have certainly turned out differently.

But it is not just a matter of catching infidelities. One case I am familiar with had to do with an extremely wealthy couple and whether one spouse or the other was hiding assets from the other for the purpose of the property settlement.

[dora rice]

12:24 PM on 09/15/2007

once you think you have to spy on your partner, once you do spy on your partner, it's time for a divorce anyhow.