Technology Helps Spouses Cheat

Image via CrunchBase

One of the leading causes of divorce in the United States is infidelity. Back-door romances and no-tell motels, business travel indiscretions and more are different aspects of cheating. Now, in this modern cyber-connected age there are more instant and insidious methods. Technology helps spouses cheat.

Now, I don’t want to inadvertently endorse any of these electronic infidelity tools, so I’ll not refer to them by name, just give you a general sense of them. I think it’s another example of a pervasive society becoming even more so. Social media and smart phones allow us to connect without really connecting. Online adultery tools allow people to connect without spouses suspecting.

One of the biggest online dating services for married people brags that it’s adultery all the way. “Life’s too short, have an affair,” the home page banner reads. To make violating vows easier, there’s a companion app for the iPhone, iPad and Android smartphones and devices. The iPhone app is conveniently downloadable from the Apple App Store and the Android Market. Recent updates to the apps make it easier to keep indiscretions discreet, as profiled on CNBC and in the Huffington Post.

The CNBC report detailed how the app is now secured by a PIN number (it never had this before?), and provides users with a priviate phone line, complete with a disposable, fake phone number for chatting with the affair partner. When a person calls the fake number, the app rings, not the phone, so the user’s actual phone number remains hidden. It’s sort of like the electronic equivalent of a “burner” phone used by meth dealers on Breaking Bad. Also, new is a “panic button” that allows users to remotely log out of the site on computers back home. Forgot to delete your history or turn on private browsing in your browser? No problem! Zap it! When the app’s panic button is engaged, the adultery site’s web page shuts down and re-routs to a – quote – “family friendly website” – unquote.

Another app allows users to directly contact another person’s voicemail, without calling their number directly. Yet another app cleans up cheater’s text messages. “Love is blind, we keep it that way,” reads the tag line. The app helps adulterers keep a hidden log of communiques and contacts, and in an emergency, a shake of the phone closes the app so no one’s the wiser.

Golf’s number one guy Tiger Woods, who made his name on the links but later for many link-ups, inspired another app to keep cheating hearts secret. Called “Tiger Text,” the app allows people to send a text message to another, and if the recipient doesn’t reply in a set amount of time, the messages delete, a la Mission Impossible.

“Huge. Quickly. Bye”

Wondering how to hide those naughty texted pictures from your cheating partner? Try another app that masquerades as a stock tracker. Tucked away inside is a secret vault that becomes a private cache for all of your sexts. “No, honey – just flustered because Google is down ten bucks.” Right.

Dangerous liaisons through a link. Fatal attraction as close as Facebook.

There’s an app for that.