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Technology Heats Up the Adultery Arms Race
HughPickens.com writes: Michelle Cottle reports in The Atlantic that today, spouses have easy access to an array of sophisticated spy software that record every keystroke; compile detailed logs of calls, texts, and video chats; that track a phone's location in real time; recover deleted messages from all manner of devices (without having to touch said devices); and that turn phones into wiretapping equipment. One might assume that the proliferation of such spyware would have a chilling effect on extramarital activities. But according to Cottle, aspiring cheaters need not despair: software developers are also rolling out ever stealthier technology to help people conceal their affairs. Right or wrong, cheating apps tap into a potentially lucrative market and researchers regard the Internet as fertile ground for female infidelity in particular. "Men tend to cheat for physical reasons and women for emotional reasons," says Katherine Hertlein. "The Internet facilitates a lot of emotional disclosure and connections with someone else."
But virtual surveillance has its risks. Stumbling across an incriminating email your partner left open is one thing; premeditated spying can land you in court. A Minnesota man named Danny Lee Hormann, suspecting his wife of infidelity, installed a GPS tracker on her car and allegedly downloaded spyware onto her phone and the family computer. In March 2010, Hormann's wife had a mechanic search her car and found the tracker. She called the police, and Hormann spent a month in jail on stalking charges. "I always tell people two things: (1) do it legally, and (2) do it right," says John Paul Lucich, a computer-forensics expert and the author of Cyber Lies, a do-it-yourself guide for spouses looking to become virtual sleuths. Lucich has worked his share of ugly divorces, and he stresses that even the most damning digital evidence of infidelity will prove worthless in court — and potentially land you in trouble — if improperly gathered. His blanket advice: Get a really good lawyer.
But virtual surveillance has its risks. Stumbling across an incriminating email your partner left open is one thing; premeditated spying can land you in court. A Minnesota man named Danny Lee Hormann, suspecting his wife of infidelity, installed a GPS tracker on her car and allegedly downloaded spyware onto her phone and the family computer. In March 2010, Hormann's wife had a mechanic search her car and found the tracker. She called the police, and Hormann spent a month in jail on stalking charges. "I always tell people two things: (1) do it legally, and (2) do it right," says John Paul Lucich, a computer-forensics expert and the author of Cyber Lies, a do-it-yourself guide for spouses looking to become virtual sleuths. Lucich has worked his share of ugly divorces, and he stresses that even the most damning digital evidence of infidelity will prove worthless in court — and potentially land you in trouble — if improperly gathered. His blanket advice: Get a really good lawyer.
If you feel the need to use these tools, your relationship is already in trouble.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I know this is meant tongue-in-cheek, but if taken at face value it's completely wrong. I've been married for about 20 years. I think the pleasures of being married to my wife this long, and of her being able to trust me, and of not having betrayed my family, far outweigh any benefit I would have gotten from succumbing to the temptation to cheat.
So aspiring cheaters should actually despair that some technology increases their temptation to cheat. In my estimation, they're just being more tempted to make a mistake.
Perhaps it's unthinkable in American minds, but here in the Netherlands, only about half of the people in solid relationships decide to marry. And there seems to be no set time for this either. More often than not, I've seen friends marry after their first child.
I'm not marrying, the odds are decidedly in favor of women. The Netherlands has the highest percentage of women working parttime. As a man, you'll be paying through the nose.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Simple solution, Always be honest in your relationship!
My wife and my girlfriend get along great, even take them out shopping together. The only issue I have is when we all go out, I can not get a word in edge wise.
Keep it honest and there is no need for all those tools.
Lots of people seemed to do alright without others tracking them 24/7. I see no reason why today's kids can't have privacy too. There's really no need for all this useless paranoia.
This was perfectly predictable when those who said "adultery is a private, consensual matter" won the argument and adultery effectively became a dead letter crime and tort. If adultery were reasonably enforced on those with licensed marriages, it would create a much greater argument for regulating these apps.
See funny thing is most people don't regard marriage as something where good behavior is strictly optional. When you take away recourse to the courts on the worse forms of betrayal in a state-recognized relationship, people are bound to take private action.
Read a lot into things? I'll admit cayenne's usage was borderline, but when I talk about "my woman" I don't mean "the woman I own" I mean "the woman I'm pairing with", as opposed to the 3.5+ billion women in the world whose happiness and well-being have negligible impact on my life. She is my woman, I'm her man, no power imbalance implied. How would *you* phrase that? After all we're not married, and I'm not in the habit of referring to grown women as girls.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Call me a luddite, but I still use the traditional method. I can't see why any self-respecting Christian would turn to this technology when the answer is right there in the Bible!
The Test for an Unfaithful Wife
11 Then the Lord said to Moses, 12 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure— 15 then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah[c] of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour olive oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder-offering to draw attention to wrongdoing.
16 “‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. 17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse[d] among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”
“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”
23 “‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial[e] offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.
29 “‘This, then, is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray and makes herself impure while married to her husband, 30 or when feelings of jealousy come over a man because he suspects his wife. The priest is to have her stand before the Lord and is to apply this entire law to her. 31 The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences of her sin.’”
Numbers 5:11-31
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/10/27/scary-stalker-husband-in-the-legal-clear-to-track-wifes-car/
Ah... You DON'T have kids eh?
I do. I don't appreciate it when idiots assume that anyone who disagrees with them don't have kids.
I also remember being a kid, and I had a lot more freedom than most kids today do. Everyone is paranoid about terrorists/child molesters/some other such bogeyman, when in reality, we're safer than ever. No need for all this garbage.
Look, there are times when as a parent it is not only my right, but my responsibility to know what my kids are doing and where they are.
All I said was, "I see no reason why today's kids can't have privacy too." I take it that, in your imagination, you saw my comment as, "Parents should never have any idea where their kids are ever and should pretend they don't exist."
Tracking your kids through their phones all the time is quite different from occasionally checking up on them at reasonable times. No one's talking about your rights or anything else, but about morality.
I hear the Marines are still looking for recruits but I'd not recommend you do that because if you think I'm bad, a DI is 100 times worse.
Since I don't care for all the preemptive warfare our worthless government gets us into, I think I'd pass regardless.
Under any other circumstances, when two people enter into a contract, and one of the individuals is suspected of breaking the contract, the other usually has recourse to investigate that, especially when it only involves tracking an object they own in unison.