Ride the Lightning

Maker of Spyware App StealthGenie Indicted in Virginia

October 9, 2014

Hat tip to John Carney of Carney Forensics for passing along this story before it went viral. I saw the Washington Post version of the story two days later.

A grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted Hammad Akbar, 31, of Pakistan, the CEO of the company that makes StealthGenie, a popular spyware app marketed as a tool for catching cheating spouses by listening in on their calls and tracking their locations.

The charges against Akbar include conspiracy, sale of a surreptitious interception device and advertising a surreptitious device. This is the first prosecution of its kind. Akbar was arrested in Los Angeles.

Akbar has an interesting view of the law – he wrote in a 2011 e-mail "When the customer buys the product, they assume all responsibility . . . we do not need to describe the legal issues." Clearly he needs to read the federal Wiretap Act.

Akbar's company, InvoCode, based in the United Kingdom, apparently estimated that 65% of StealthGenie purchasers were likely to be people who suspected their romantic partners of infidelity. It is obvious that the company did not sell its product for the legal use of monitoring children or any other legal use.

With luck, a conviction in this case will lead to more prosecutions of other spyware manufacturers.

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