Many people install software to listen to their husbands and wives' phones.

Police have identified many men and women who have installed the software to eavesdrop on their spouses' phones due to suspicions of infidelity.

On December 25, Huynh Ngoc Den (35 years old) was brought to trial by the People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City for the crime of illegally accessing another person's computer network, telecommunications network, Internet network or digital device.

According to the investigation, in 2013, Den bought eavesdropping and phone management software on a foreign website for use. Seeing that this tool had the function of running in the background on the phone, stealing data from calls, message content and application accounts on Viber, Zalo, Facebook... he had the idea of ​​buying it and reselling it for profit.

In 2014, Den founded a company providing installation services for this software. He renamed the software "copyphone" and created many websites to advertise, advise, and guide customers on how to install it.

Initially, Come gives customers a three-day free trial. If they want the software to continue working, customers must pay for packages ranging from 1.5 million VND to 10 million VND - corresponding to a period of 12 months.

Received a lower sentence than recommended. Photo: Hai Duyen.

Authorities determined that more than 3,700 customers had installed the software, of which 310 had purchased or extended their subscriptions. Den earned a total of nearly VND1.4 billion. After paying for the purchase from abroad and hiring sales staff, he took nearly VND680 million.

According to the investigation agency, many of his customers are ladies and gentlemen who install this software on their wives or husbands' phones to monitor them, because they suspect adultery.

In court today, Den admitted his actions, saying that he did so only for profit and not for the purpose of stealing information from phone users. "At that time, the defendant did not know that this action was prohibited," he said.

The Procuracy proposed that the court sentence Den to 7-8 years in prison, but the panel of judges applied many mitigating circumstances such as: having partially remedied the damage, the family having difficult circumstances... so they only sentenced him to 4 years in prison.

According to VNE