"Sent Messages to Her Late Husband for Years" – Hackers Share What They Wish They Had Never Seen

I was hired to steal Bitcoin from a wealthy individual. I easily accessed the BTC wallet and while I was there, I checked the transactions and found a bunch labeled "CP." On the dark web, CP stands for child pornography. I took all the Bitcoin, informed my client that the target was a predator, and anonymously tipped off the police. I’m not exactly law-abiding, but this was beyond the line.

I was asked to gain access to a young guy’s computer who had doxxed my client—meaning he shared private info about them online. It turned out he wasn’t just into blackmail; his computer held a dozen “recipes” on how to make explosives, complete with photos and videos. I’m sure he was planning something, but I couldn’t prove it.

My job was to find evidence of corporate embezzlement on a man’s computer. I found that—and a bunch of dogfighting videos, which I anonymously sent to the police.

Once, I logged into someone’s Facebook profile just for fun. It was clear the young man hadn’t used it in years—there were tons of unread notifications and messages. Most were from a woman who initially wrote about how much she still loved him and couldn’t live without him. Later messages described her daily life. In one, she said she could feel him in the wind. That’s when I realized he’d been dead for years and she was his wife, coping with grief this way. After that, I never peeked into anyone’s Facebook again.

My mom was convinced her brother was trying to cheat her out of an inheritance and asked me to check his computer. I found not only his secret deals but also a folder full of photos of his younger daughter—clearly taken in secret while she was bathing, dressing, or undressing.

My rude boss asked me to spy on a female coworker—probably because he had a crush and got rejected. I told him I found nothing, but a year later, when I left, I anonymously sent some of his emails to his wife.

I was jealous of my then-girlfriend and snooped on her computer. I didn’t find compromising chats but did find videos of her abusing her pets—dunking a cat’s head underwater, kicking a dog, and more. I visited when I knew she wasn’t home, showed the shocked parents and siblings the videos, and blocked her everywhere.

I got the school Wi-Fi password and freely browsed the computers inside. On one teacher’s computer, a live video was streaming from a hidden camera in the girls’ shower.

I built the ordering and payment section for a major fast-food chain’s website. I thought about skimming a percentage of payments to an offshore account—no one would notice. But then I heard someone else got caught doing the same with a clothing brand and went to jail. I’m glad I resisted the temptation and kept my side hustle clean.

Back in the early days of the internet, someone in a chat room was constantly harassing nearly everyone—even though we were just innocent teens trying to talk. Out of revenge, I sent him a message pretending to be a 14-year-old girl with a link to a “sexy photo.” Of course, he clicked it and got a nasty virus that wiped his entire computer.