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Snooping and telling

BY JULIA ALLISON | SPECIAL TO amNEWYORK

April 3, 2006

Dating Life columnist Julia Allison caught snooping. (Photo by Devon Steigerwald / April 2, 2006)

There are three kinds of snoopers in this digital age: strictly online, real world, and then there's "Jane."

Jane, a 25-year-old Northwestern graduate who asked that her real name not be used, has a black belt in Snooping, primarily on her boyfriend of almost four years, Ted, a 26-year-old reporter for an Illinois newspaper.

In her defense, Ted has a tendency to get confused about fidelity, and throughout their tumultuous courtship, she's had more than a few reasons to suspect him of straying. But unlike other women, she doesn't settle for conjecture -- she investigates.

Jane, a financial recruiter, says Ted "set himself up for it way back when we first started dating by giving me his original email password -- so obviously I was going to check it, just to see what ex-girlfriends might be emailing him."

Of course. Although I can't understand why anyone would give The Significant Other an email password (in what situation would they ever "need" it?), I can absolutely understand the burning desire to take a peek. I've definitely done that before. (Although choosing "Julia" as your password, as one of my boyfriends did, was practically begging me to look.)

Jane didn't stop at mere amateur email-checking, though.

"Since then, I've obtained every other email password, the password to his bank, and his credit card passwords. Oh, and his voicemail passwords."

Getting the credit card passwords wasn't difficult, because she remembered info like his mother's maiden name and his SSN. "He was really secretive about his voicemail password though," she says. "The trick to getting that, if you can't tell by watching him check it, is to look at the 'recent notebook' entry on his phone after he checks it. And if you're listening to his voicemails but still want them to appear as 'new' messages when he logs in, hit # before the end of the message to skip it." Clever.

Poor Ted must have figured out something was up, because "he got creative and started changing his passwords more often. So I installed Keylogger Lite on his computer. It's not 100% hidden though, so you have to be careful don't install it on the computer of a guy who is constantly running spybot. You can buy programs that are 100% hidden, but they cost like $50."

Jane doesn't need Keylogger Lite to check Ted's Internet browser history the easiest and perhaps most revealing look at what your significant other does with his/her free time. I once checked a boyfriend's Recent Page Views and found dozens of search queries for "small white bumps," and "STD info" no joke. Ahhh!!

And don't forget very basic reviews of his cell phone Call Log (if he doesn't purge it regularly), and his text messages (my favorite, because they often forget to delete the naughty ones).

Jane hasn't yet stooped to a horrible (or horribly brilliant) method one fellow told me he used on his girlfriend the GPS cell phone. His mobile had the capacity to see where her mobile was at all times, and she had no idea. Scary. But, er, useful, I guess.

And she hasn't yet tried the "most popular" way to catch a bad-apple spouse, at least according to the guy at my local Radio Shack the voice-activated digital recorder. Stow it behind the couch at your significant other's place, and when they next speak, you'll have it all on tape.

If sounds aren't enough for you, purchase one of the numerous household devices that come with hidden pinhole cameras. A cursory Google search will hook you up with everything from a clock-radio to a hollow book to a fake smoke detector to a coffee-maker all wired with hidden cameras. (Although, c'mon, what will you really prove with the coffee-maker camera? That she lies about going to Starbucks??)

Of course, the ultimate Catch-Them-In-The-Act Trick is the Fake Screen Name. Set one up and see how far you can go.

As for Jane, she's finally content. "I'm not a lunatic. Knowing that I can snoop makes me feel a little more confident that nothing is going on," she insists.

"After all, a girl has to protect herself." And then some!

Julia has heard that 90% of cheaters are caught because of 'reckless use of digital media.' She believes it. Email Julia@JuliaAllison.com.