Password Recovery - What would you do???

[C6Gunner]

Hey TNs,

This may be a good one to ask you guys:

I just got off the phone with a distraught man that wanted me to recover Facebook and Email passwords. I obviously asked if these were his personal passwords, and he admitted that the accounts belonged to his wife, and that he suspected her of having an affair.

After asking a few more questions, I told him that I just could not ethically, and probably should not legally, get him access to those accounts. I decided to point him in the 'right direction' to retrieve the info himself.

How would you guys have handled this one???

[NWPhotog]

Not with 100' pole. Last thing I want to do is be dragged into court.

[gunslinger]

I would have to agree with NWPhotog on this one.

[iptech]

^^^ What they said.

I've just had a very similar situation. I would not help recover a password from an adult's account without the owner's explicit permission. It is however, quite legal to sell a keylogger.

[MrMille]

You can't recover the facebook password

[bagellad]

If he already suspects to the point of having to spy on her From my point of view they are doomed. you should point him to a lawyer. I don't think I would get involved. Although at one point I did toy with the idea of becoming a private investigator with a computer focus. If you did decide to help him I would atleast double or triple you normal fee because this one is going to end up being a BIG HASSLE and also have him sign something saying that he states to being the owner of the computer and is doing this by his request and accepts all liability etc. etc. .

[TimeCode]

Originally Posted by iptech

^^^ What they said.

I've just had a very similar situation. I would not help recover a password from an adult's account without the owner's explicit permission. It is however, quite legal to sell a keylogger.

Exactly... let him do the snooping himself. be sure NOT to install it for him. That could definitely be trouble!

[gunslinger]

Again I agree with the above posts. I would hook him up with a good keylogger for a fee and maybe show him how to use it on my computer.

If it were kids things would be different.

[NWPhotog]

Originally Posted by iptech

^^^ What they said.

I've just had a very similar situation. I would not help recover a password from an adult's account without the owner's explicit permission. It is however, quite legal to sell a keylogger.

I would never help someone spy on someone else. You have no way of knowing who is in the right and who is being abusive. Personally I think it is irresponsible for someone in our profession to do so but even from a pragmatic point of view it just does not make sense.

[iptech]

I was originally called in because the guy (a customer for several years) had good reason to suspect his 14 year old daughter was involved in a sexual relationship with a man much older than herself. From examining the MSN chat logs on the daughter's PC it was pretty obvious these were not the messages of a pre-pubescent girl but of a sexually adventurous female adult i.e. the young girl's mother and my customer's wife. Without going into details there were also explicit self-photos that would have been accessible to anyone using that PC.

A divorce is now in petition.

As a point of UK law (and I believe US law), if a keylogger was used by a parent to monitor the online activity of their under 18 year old child then it is perfectly lawful, in fact many parental control packages include the facility to surreptitiously monitor chatroom logs etc.