People Who Think Their Spouses Are Cheating Hire Hackers to Catch Them

If you suspect your significant other of cheating, you may be willing to go to great lengths to catch them. Like possibly even illegal lengths — like paying someone to hack their email account so you can see if he’s been exchanging sexy messages with that hot female coworker of his he insists is just a friend.

Immoral or not (depending on whom you ask), apparently it’s illegal. Mark Anthony Townsend and Joshua Alan Tabor were recently charged with “operating a business that illegally obtained email passwords for customers who hoped to catch cheating spouses.”

Whoops.

Apparently, the duo hacked into almost 6,000 email accounts using a phishing scheme to obtain passwords for scorned lovers. The crime of “accessing a protected computer without authorization and facilitating further access by others” is considered a felony, and is punishable by up to five years in jail.

So here’s how it worked: They created a website called needapassword.com, where for $50 to $350, they claimed to be able to hack into a suspected cheater’s email account and obtain the password. The site claimed:

"Is your spouse cheating with someone? Do you know who they are? You have the right to read the personal thoughts your spouse is writing to others."

Which isn’t really true at all. People may have a “right” not to be cheated on, because it sucks and it’s totally not ok to betray someone like that, but that doesn’t translate into a right to spy on other people’s private communication.

Even jerks that cheat have a right to their privacy.

Besides, even if there was nothing racy in there, would you want your spouse reading the emails you send back an forth? Show me someone that has never once complained about their partner in an email and I’ll show you a liar.

Would you be horrified if you found out your significant other had paid someone to hack your email account?

Image via powtac/Flickr