Hi everyone. I am in desperate need of some help spying. I have a few questions and would like your advice.

Have you used an audio recording device in the car successfully? Which one did you use? Any tips?

With regard to key loggers on pcs, what do you recommend? Will they work if you have already installed some programs that remove spyware?

Thanks for your help, I need to find out what is going on with my H.

Spying is degrading but sometimes we just need to know. Be prepared for what you may find.

There are lots of good keyloggers on the net. You can even get some free demos that will run for a couple of weeks and then expire. I downloaded one and caught my wife red-handed.

I have heard that audio devices are good to put in cars. You can get them almost anywhere. I suggest putting it somewhere secure in the car and then testing it yourself.

GPS works great also. You can put one in the back window of the car near the speaker cavity. Will tell exacty where WS is.

A PI may be helpful but are very expensive. Maybe a trusted co-worker that you WS does not know would work?

Make sure you aren’t breaking any stalking laws.

BUMP

Well, some people here have had problems with the recorder in the car thing - the noise made it hard to hear the tape.

You can check the cell phone bill. That is always good.

You can put a recorder on the home phone and get both sides of the conversation.

Also, if your spouse has destroyed cell phone bills, many times you can review them on-line or just call the cell company and get copies.

Something else I did was call stores where my wife used the credit card (looking for condom purchases). I found that I could get copies of the receipts with a little work. No condoms though.

Be creative.

Wow! How in the world did you get receipts? That is a good one, and something we should know about!

I looked at the credit card bill and noticed some purchase near a hotel she was staying at. I called the store and gave them the card number and date and time and they told me what was purchased.

What type of store was it? Like a Walgreen's or a Supermarket or WalMart? Seems like they have a lot of purchases to be able to give out that type of detail.

If you don't mind paying for it, the best Keylogger is Spector - if you will have access to the computer (S still at home) - or Eblaster for remote access....worked like a champ for me....

WW even thought I had a PI following her....

TM

Oh, and one more thing, keep in mind you might find out things you don't want to know - details of WS's daliances, etc. Just be prepared....


TM

What are you going to do if you discover something? If you confront you admit to spying, to what degree, and what you found.

Keep in mind you find/hear things that have double meanings and with your perception you will always take the one that means it's an affair.

Unless you find meet me at the no-tell motel or I love you so much it can't wait to have sex again watch out. Don't act unless you find overwhelming, undeniable, evidence.

I spied and assumed the worse and blew up my marriage. We still live in the same house, sleep in the same bed, but 'please pass the salt' is about the extent of our conversations. AT least I had somewaht of a wife before. Maybe it was just a midlife crisis thing that would have passed on its own. I may never know and all I suceeded in doing is making my already unstable wife more mad and confused.

I agree. Assume the worst on what you may find. I used Spector to catch emails and found an my wife having an EA. I immediately confronted her and everything went worse. As with MarkNY, we sleep in the same but there is a hard line drawn down the middle. She won't talk to me and open up at all. I think if I didn't confront her it may have been a passing thing and it should have opened my eyes as to meeting her emotional needs more. If I had to do over again I would not have done it.

options

...also...

There will be false recoveries, in which she begs for fogivness - and you will be tempted to tell her how you found things out.

Don't tell.

I did and I regret it. She is just more careful now.

She knew that I caught some stuff on the computer. Now there is nothing there. I suspect she goes somewhere else and has some email accounts that I don't know about.

The one time I caught her at OM apt, she asked "How did you know I would go there?". I told her "You went shopping on a sunday afternoon wearing perfume". Now she carries her perfume in her purse.

Don't tell her anything. Keep your MB login id - and the fact that you post here "private". <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

-AD

Check out.

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Model 3100INT or 3100EXT is only $300 + shipping. this week. They will ship to alternate addresses. Pay with CC. Also available on E*bay through a distrubutor for a few dollars less - and you can pay via paypal.

ConcernedOne

Hi Jesse,

I do not post here often anymore, but your subject is one I fell strongly about. If I did not spy, I would never have gotten the truth about the A, and therefore not been able to end it.

To get the truth about my W's A, I used a phone recorder, a mini voice recorder, and Spector. I also checked all her cell phone bills, bank records, went through the garbage, and contacted visa on a couple of suspected charges I found. They sent me the original photocopied bills in the mail. I also went through her purse, checked her sent and recieve phone numbers on the cell regularly, started to keep a journal of the whats and whens she was telling me when she went out so that I could have that info handy and exact if other evidence came up later that could be cross referanced.

I did not use one, but a portable GPS unit would be great. I use one one our boat and the detailed info you can get on location is incredible. Just pop it somewhere in the car where it will pick up the satalites and hidden.

I am sure you already have strong suspitions or you would not be here. I started spying only after I knew for sure something was up and that she was definately lying to me.

The key is secrecy. Until you have enough proof and know what is going on, you have to not let on anything. Of course, you may find nothing and be able to prove that there is no A going on.

You may find stuff that you think is proof of an A but is nothing. Very important to be patient and wait till you get the smoking gun, not just some little tid bits of information. You have to take away all denialbility 100%. As soon as he knows you are watching, game over. Also, if you do find the smoking gun and expose it all, you may still want to verify his actions later and if you told him where you got the info then that method of spying is useless. Although you probably will have to put the info on the table.

I agree it is a dangerous thing to be caught spying. Be very careful. If there is nothing or even if you can not prove anything and there is an A. There are going to be problems.

It took me one month of spying to get the smoking gun. In the end it was the phone recorder that told me everything with a three hour conversation between the two. She freaked out completely when she found out I had been spying on her and threw that at me whenever she could for awhile. I felt completely and totally justified for doing it and today she is not angery with me one bit and admits that she pushed me to spy on her, and would have done the same thing.

If you do get that smoking gun, it will feel that someone is trying to rip your soul from your body. That is how I felt. To hear my W talking like that with another man can not be put into words. Be prepared for what you find.

One more thing, if I did not spy and did not get to the truth where I found an A. I do not think our M would have survived as I knew there was something but not sure what and our household would have been miserable knowing but not knowing. As least by knowing the truth, we were able to action something concete. Get it in the open and go from there. I make it sound easy but it was h***.

It took lots of time, but today we are incredibly close, our M is fabulous, and I truely trust my W today.

I have since lent out the equipement to a friend. He has now found proof and is in the process of getting more.

Good luck,

Spectorsoft is good - according to my lawyer, it is also illegal. A felony.

Voice recorders in car - effective, but motor noise makes it very hard to hear conversation. Also highly illegal. A felony, in fact.

If you own the vehicle, GPS is excellent and legal. Get real time tracking, not the other. The one advised above will not be as effective as real-time tracking, but might suit your purposes just as well. There are companies that you can lease from, but be prepared - $500 - $800 just to start. Monthly fee afterward - but you can know exactly where they are at any given time from your home computer (or work)

Telephone recording devices - illegal - felony again.

On the legalities - you have to decide what the risk is worth to you.

By all means, cell phone bills. Also if you have redial on your phone (with a visible ID thing where you can see the number and not call it) is a handy tool. See what numbers have been called. (Or at least the last one) Good for checking voice mails and finding code#s for phone access. Also, get up in middle of night to check voice mails. Very handy. Text messages also. If you get text messages, take a picture of the message with a digital camera.

I highly recommend the PI. Mine is not terribly expensive, and very very helpful. Can watch them, follow them, etc. and get pictures and videos which would be useable in court. They will recognize you if you follow them, they will not recognize a total stranger. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> Plus, you can remain at work or home tending to business or the children.

Once they find out what you know, they will go deeper underground. So it's best if they don't know what you know OR how you know it. It just makes it harder to keep finding out things.

Check credit card receipts as mentioned above. Also (in middle of night) check billfold for secret credit cards, code numbers, etc. Check vehicle for secret prepaid cell phones.

A little bit harder is finding out about secret post office boxes and safe deposit boxes, or secret bank accounts. New banking laws make this difficult. However, a lawyer can subpoena any records he wishes (bank, hotel, post office, etc.)However, they are pretty stupid when they are in the fog. They leave clues everywhere. You just have to be smarter than they are. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Starz is right about legallities. There are a number of laws beneath which you may wind up undermining your legal position through invasion of privacy.

I have done functional security consulting for a number of years. Oddly, even used technology to catch my wife online (EA / PA) using Linux with Ethereal traffic capture and custom filters. I strongly advise against using spyware technology WITHOUT FIRST APPROACHING A HUMAN SOLUTION.

I always advise clients with a similar concern NOT to use technology for such purposes. Technology is meant to CONNECT people, not to ENFORCE human behavior. If you have a human behavior problem, you should ask yourself "is this behavior so truly different from what that person has ever done." If it is exceptionally questionable then you are the best judge of your spouse's emotional state.

You should consider confronting his/her state WITHOUT such a weight of evidence. This confrontation can range from repairing the relationship without conflict to a demand to come clean whether an affair is occuring.

In my case, I took my own advice and confronted WW without spying on her activities. Personally, I NEEDED to know if I at least had honesty left in the marriage. This meant asking rather than proving.

This was HARD. I was completely chicken to do so (I feared my reaction if I was right, and hers if I was wrong), but believed it was a critical step to solving this situation.

You might guess she lied repeatedly about the affair without blinking. OM was in house with his family at the time as visiting guests, and I'm by NO means a small man. Also, she wanted to continue the A, so was not ready to back out. I wound up making up the most degrading "i got too drunk" story to cover for a while. Felt terrible about the lie, but good about knowing that honesty was no longer an option to confrontation/recovery.


Afterwards, as I was 100% sure of the affair I moved to survailance as a "phase II" approach.

Rationale: WW was so far into her relationship with OM, guilt and fear would not allow her to come clean and acknowledge the affair.

I didn't want to leave her, so I needed to confront her a second (and most definately final), this time with evidence and nowhere to go with the lies.

Second confrontation was tears, but we are well into recovery at this point. Because I had already given her a clear chance to be honest about it, there was No resentment about spying.

Bottom line: When you are spying, you are ALREADY in a non-trusting relationship, and cheating may be the LEAST of your problems.

So be confident in your rationales, and confront based off the strentgh of your relationship. You may not like the answer you get in either case, but at least you will have the personal satisfaction of having done things right and giving a real chance to come clean without privacy invasion.

Is it a felony to use Spectorsoft/Eblaster on a computer you essentially own?

I am a bit worried about this as I recently revealed that I had hacked my wife's computer - didn't tell her exactly how...

I am planning on removing it as soon as she lets me have access to it again - I don't want to know anymore....

TM

According to my lawyer, yes. You should consult an attorney in your state immediately and find out what you can legally do. (and not do)

Depends where you live.

Precedents may be different Province to Province and State to State. Only a lawyer will know for certain.

Here in Canada, the courts regard Electronic information as private information. It is the same rationale applied behind school lockers actually.

Students rent a locker from the school. Technically, the school owns the locker, but the student has expectations to protection of privacy of the contents of that locker. In all cases, due process must be followed.

But thats not quite your situation, nor was it mine mate. Ask yourself this, "Can I sovle this problem despite a bad choice on my spouses part and a big risk on my part." I knew that my spouse might still react adversely to the spying. I would have simply told her truthfully "I had to know". If she could not have understood that need, I would be in a rougher spot than any petty $#^& the courts could do to me.


If you are considering spying as a "first step" before exhausting other alternatives, you could be opening a can of worms. We are not immune to consequences any more than WS are. Be ready to own your actions.

<small>[ February 04, 2005, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: sprint ]</small>