Nasty computer spyware isn’t only used by hackers to steal your credit card details - suspicious spouses have adopted it as a way of monitoring and controlling their partners’ every online move.
Spyware is software that is surreptitiously installed on a computer with the aim of collecting personal information and monitoring the user’s activities. It is often used by hackers to steal personal data like passwords and, increasingly, by parents to monitor their kids’ web activities.
But Anna Stepanov, manager of the anti-spyware program at McAfee Avert Labs, said the software was also being used as a surveillance tool in cases of domestic abuse.
“With so much of our lives dependent on computers and other technologies such as cell phones, the use of spyware is ideal for abusers, who often feel the need to control all aspects of a victims existence,” Stepanov wrote in a white paper released this week titled Spyware: A Morphing Campaign.
“Monitoring a victim’s online, cell phone, or general computing activity is of more value than ever in controlling or hurting a victim.”
Dennise Simpson, manager of the Domestic Violence Crisis Service in Canberra, said her organization had dealt with cases of domestic spying for years and “spyware really takes the whole thing up another notch in terms of being able to really watch your partner”.
She said she knew spyware was being used for stalking overseas and expected it was already happening in Australia.
“I would call it the most blatant form of stalking - anyone who is being subjected to that sort of scrutiny is living in a domestic violence situation,” said Simpson.
One commercially available software package, Spector, promises to covertly monitor and record all emails, chats, keystrokes, website visits, search entries and even activity on specific sites like MySpace.
A “digital surveillance tape” feature can play back a visual, step-by-step walkthrough of every activity performed on the computer.
The software, which costs $US99.95, can also be configured to warn the stalker by email or SMS text message whenever certain keywords and phrases are used.
Anne Hollonds, chief executive of Relationships Australia NSW, said the use of spyware by suspicious spouses was similar to hiring a private investigator but did not necessarily result in positive outcomes.
“Either you find something that confirms your suspicions or whatever and the relationship is over, but if you don’t find anything then it doesn’t necessarily make things better,” she said.
“It’s interesting to me that people will spend often thousands of dollars hiring private investigators or purchasing this software … and yet they won’t pay for counselling.”
While not surprised that spyware was being used for domestic surveillance, Hollonds said if the spying was used to control and intimidate it could certainly be classed as domestic abuse.
Internet safety tips published on the website of the US National Network to End Domestic Violence advise people who think they are being monitored to keep using their computer for normal activities while researching an “escape plan” on a safer computer.
Sudden, abnormal behaviors like deleting your entire internet history could make an abuser suspicious.
“You don’t need to be a computer programmer or have special skills to monitor someone’s computer and internet activities - anyone can do it,” the NNEDV said.
