This looks to be a followup of crimew's blog post [1]. It looks like the data set has been published [2].
The uncompressed list of users alone seems to come in at over 4GB of JSON. It's terrible how many people out there are using stalkerware, but with government officials themselves using this tech, I'm not sure if useful legal action will ever be taken.
> If you need to install stalkerware on your partner’s device, just start the divorce process already.
This assumes good faith, and often that doesn’t reflect reality. I’ve helped a disturbing number of friends clean up their devices and accounts to free them from abusive partners whom they are already divorcing. Often these stalkerware apps are just one component of a web/pattern of behaviors which include every kind of stalking, property vandalism, and violence that you’d imagine.
Sometimes any phone record of them contacting me leads stalkers/harassers to start targeting me as well - these people often don’t limit the scope of their abuse.
People founding and working for stalkerware companies and other gray hat / blackhat enterprises seem to be willing to turn a blind eye to the widespread harm that their products and work facilitate - they are only focused on the income it generates. It’s a major reason I include pointed ethical questions about candidates work in our hiring pipeline; we work with sensitive data and there’s no room for people who don’t genuinely care about those who suffer the consequences.
> This assumes good faith, and often that doesn’t reflect reality. I’ve helped a disturbing number of friends clean up their devices and accounts to free them from abusive partners whom they are already divorcing.
You completely misread my statement.
I wasn’t talking to the victims, I was talking to the perps.
If you, as a suspicious person, is thinking about USING stalkerware, you have already lost the moral and ethical position and should bow out of the relationship. Failure to do so makes you a colossal arsehole and an abject failure of a person where healthy relationships are concerned.
About the only legitimate use case I could possibly think of is if the VICTIM of abuse used the software against their abuser to accumulate evidence of non-physical (texting, phoning, online stalking, etc.) abuse. And even this is thin ground, as IIRC most courts would not accept that data as evidence as it constitutes a crime in many jurisdictions.
It’s a bizarre statement, because anyone who is an abusive POS is definitely not going to care.
Because they are an abusive POS.
Any shits they give about moral high ground are purely performative, and were long before now - or they wouldn’t be an abusive POS.
It’s like saying ‘if you’re considering the best way to rob a bank, you’re already a bad person and should just stop.’.
Do you think anyone, ever, in the history of people like this would do that? Barring some random conversion to religion or whatever anyway.
It isn’t even preaching to the choir! It’s like, I don’t know, preaching in a brothel? Or at a crime scene? But more hopeless?
Also, evidence gathered by a private party in commission of a crime is almost always acceptable as evidence everywhere, albeit with the caveat that the person responsible may well be prosecuted for that crime. The evidence would just be used in both court cases.
The police (in some jurisdictions like the US) are the only ones typically restricted this way.
Example - burglar breaks into house, finds dead bodies. Tips the cops off. They aren’t going to just throw up their hands and say ‘nothing we can do about it!’ because the guy didn’t have a key.
And if the burglar saw someone run out, they’ll use the burglar to help identify the suspect too.
Albeit with the caveat they’ll of course investigate the burglar too, probably arrest him, and he’s definitely going to be raked over the coals by the defense. Since nothing says ‘impeachable witness’ like a known felon.
I read it correctly - I just wanted to allude to the fact that your advice to them was super incongruent with their psychology. These people are compelled to control their family members.
You’re right that they should bow out of any relationships, but it’s like trying to tell a bear not to eat meat. They don’t need to do it to survive, but their compulsion to do so cannot be overridden.
It’s quite right to frame it as a matter of psychology and controlling impulse. That’s exactly what it is.
In one respect this isn’t something that can be reasoned with. Not that change is necessarily impossible for all, but in these situations change isn’t likely, and relapsing to controlling behavior is common, as is escalation.
People on the other side of this abuse are best served by plotting a thoughtful (and assisted if possible) exit strategy for themselves and those that rely on them (children, pets, etc). Although where others are involved, taking legal advice is a very good idea.
This can be much different from the insecure and spy-minded snooping significant other who occasionally looks through their SO’s texts surreptitiously. Although I have a problem with that too, installing surveillance is absolutely next level.
Something along the lines of the third is really the only legitimate reason I can think of something like this.
Regarding a partner. Yeah that’s a clear problem with the relationship and it’s likely time to end it.
Regarding parents. I will never understand parents thinking that they somehow deserve to know every single thing their child is doing and saying beyond basic parental controls.
Kids should have a right to privacy so they can discover themselves and not feel like there is someone watching over their shoulder all the time.
This assumes that there isn’t something like someone’s parents kicking them out because they are gay.
I am forever grateful that the one time my mom considered software like this, she was easily talked out of it.
> I will never understand parents thinking that they somehow deserve to know every single thing their child is doing and saying beyond basic parental controls.
Parents have a responsibility to parent: at minimum, making sure that their child doesn't get into anything truly dangerous, exploitative, or criminal. This is easy to do in physical reality but quite difficult to do for online activities unless you are literally watching over the kid's shoulder. So I can easily see why a well-meaning and worried parent would be tempted to install some sort of spyware.
I can appreciate that there are some well intentioned parents looking at tools like this, however there is a massive amount of difference between built in parental control tools and tools like this one that (seemingly) gives complete access to everything.
A parent does not need to be able to read every message sent, every email, every photo, etc etc. You cannot convince me otherwise. Just like any sane parent would not put a wire on their kid so they can hear every conversation they have in person. I am sorry but when I hear a parent say "well I bought the device" or some stupid argument like that, well I hope you enjoy our kid not talking to you once they are an adult or always having an "at arms length" relationship.
Instead of taking a heavy hand and invading their child's privacy why not instead focus on education. Expose them to the dangerous parts of the internet and have conversations about it. Make your kid feel safe enough that when something does feel wrong, they can come to you without risk of judgement or punishment.
While I can agree that there are some well intentioned parents that may use a tool like this, it is the lazy option that will do more harm than good.
> A parent does not need to be able to read every message sent, every email, every photo, etc etc.
Sure - but a parent needs to be able to know the content of some non-zero fraction of the messages. (Just as in physical reality, a parent can get some gist of a child's conversations when within hearing range.) And even more important than the content, the parent wants be able to see who is sending the messages. A traditional sort of parental control which blocks "adult" (in reality - sometimes educationally useful) sites at the domain level is entirely useless for tackling the problem of creeps, crooks, and crazies sending your kid DMs in supposedly kid-appropriate games and apps.
The uncompressed list of users alone seems to come in at over 4GB of JSON. It's terrible how many people out there are using stalkerware, but with government officials themselves using this tech, I'm not sure if useful legal action will ever be taken.
[1]: https://maia.crimew.gay/posts/fuckstalkerware-7/
[2]: https://ddosecrets.com/wiki/MSpy