A spurned techie’s revenge: Locking down his ex’s digital life

A spurned techie’s revenge: Locking down his ex’s digital life

Nov 22nd 2013, 14:30, by Sean Gallagher

Ads for software packages marketed specifically for stalking a partner.

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The e-mail's subject line was "Interested in hiring you." The sender, a woman, said she had seen me on a local Baltimore news show talking about revenge porn and she was "interested in talking to you about some work." She gave an office phone number and her e-mail address was from a large local hospital system, so I thought it might be for some sort of speaking engagement.
It was anything but. When I contacted her, the woman told me her life had been turned upside down by her ex-boyfriend. He had hacked her phones, her voicemail, and her family's computer, and he was blocking her out of her digital life. She was looking for someone to help her regain control.
To some, those claims might sound like paranoia. But there are thousands of incidents of this type of abusive use of technology annually, perpetrated by (mostly male) spouses or partners. The most public forms of tech-centered abuse, especially revenge porn, are getting attention from legislators across the US right now. But these incidents are not entirely new. For more than a decade, domestic violence and "intimate partner" stalking and harassment have relied heavily on technology.