My wife [23F] is angry with me [25M] for cyberstalking her friend [23F]. I swear it is way better than it sounds.

Okay, so I have had a sort of side gig for while, basically doing sort of penetration testing on people's social media, online presence, what have you. Generally clients would be people in sensitive positions, or just feel they need to be concerned about someone trying to dig information up on them through the internet.

I "cyberstalk" them, at their request, just to demonstrate what someone would be able to dig up, where their main vulnerabilities are, what they can do to be a little more secure, etc. I am honestly able to pull a pretty frightening amount of info on a lot of people.

My wife (one year) knows I do this (I did a check on her not long after we started dating just as a demonstration), she has never had anything negative to say about it.

Anytime I mention my side job, I do feel compelled to point out three things: I never, ever stalk somebody who didn't ask me to do it, I never share or retain any info I pull on them, and I don't ever look at anything that isn't fully legal and available for public viewing. That's kind of the point.

So any who, my wife has a friend who has some kind of crazy ex. She has moved cities just to put distance between them as he exhibited stalker-like behavior, and allegedly sends her threatening messages from time to time.

The reason I know this is because she was over at our place today to cry on my wife's shoulder after she got one of these threatening messages. After she calmed down a bit and seemed to be in a pretty calm state of mind, I brought up her online presence.

I just wanted to offer her some good advice, since this happens to be something I'm familiar with. She told me she was really careful online to not put anything compromising out. I just told her I have had a lot of clients tell me those same words, just to change their tune when I can give them their home address a couple hours later.

I offered her that if she wanted me to I could run a look at her social media just to see if their is anything a potential stalker would find useful.

She asked me to go ahead and do it. I spent maybe an hour and a half on it, and I was able to tell her her original name (not what she goes by now), home address, the street her parents live on, what car she drives and her license plate number, her home address, her job title, place of work, and a rough work schedule.

She seemed troubled when I told her all this. I promised her I wasn't going to keep or share any of that info, and he only reason I did it was to demonstrate to her that if I could do that with an hour and a half just because I was bored, anyone with real motivation and time could figure out the same.

She panicked a little bit and apologized, she wound up going and talking to my wife and then leaving.

My wife came storming back in very angry and asked me why the hell I would do that. I told her that, for one, she said I could, and for two, because if I can do it then so can her ex, and now she knows some things to focus on to make herself just a bit safer.

My wife told me now wasn't the time for that kind of thing and I should have left it alone. I told her that I am very sorry for upsetting her friend (and I would tell her friend the same), but if it does wind up making her a little more aware and a little safer, I feel like I ultimately did her a service.

Did I mess up? I really just wanted to help the girl and I didn't mean to upset her. But my wife is still being cold to me and I don't know what her friend's disposition is right now, and I am really hoping I didn't cause an argument between them. And I mean....I did ask, right?

Was I wrong? And what is the proper way to apologize for this? All advice welcome, please?

TL;DR I "cyberstalked" a friend of my wife, with her permission, to demonstrate what information can be found on her online. Friend freaked, wife is mad, did I do something wrong?

Submitted July 30, 2019 at 05:33PM by United_General https://ift.tt/2OtxEAP