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Cyberstalking

Discussion in 'General Support and Advice' started by tehnathan, Aug 26, 2007.

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  1. tehnathan

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    Greetings. I'm a new user, so hi to everyone.

    I've posted this thread on another forum and it's been suggested that I post it here as well to benefit the community, so with that out of the way...

    Cyberstalking
    By Nathan, co-authoured by Randy

    As someone who's been a repeated target of harassment, defamation and cyberstalking, I would like to focus right now on what seems to be an often-overlooked subject.

    Now, some of you might know what cyberstalking is. Some of you might be new to the Internet and have no idea what it is.

    I'm here to tell you that the Internet isn't all rosy and happy. There are a lot of weird "crazies" out there (which explains why I'm such a cynical bastard but enough of that).

    The Internet has lots of positive aspects: It's an information resource, you can have instant access to diverse subjects of information, and you can easily meet people (in a way, this is also a negative point). Since you can easily meet people, you can also be easily harassed or stalked, and you have next to no recourse (you do have a choice to take action but it will likely cost you an arm or a leg). Anyone can say anything about anyone on the Internet. You can pretend you're anyone and you can manufacture different identities (which may be a positive point if you want to preserve your privacy).

    I've been on the receiving end of cyberstalking three times:
    • Once via LiveJournal, which migrated onto three external websites.
    • Once via Wikipedia which pretty much exploded and migrated onto an external website.
    • Once via e-mail which migrated onto the attacker's blog.

    About Cyberstalking
    The fact that cyberstalking does not involve physical contact may create the misperception that it is less threatening or dangerous than physical stalking. In many cases, cyberstalking is nothing more than an extension of the physical form of stalking.

    Physical stalking is dealt with by various laws, while cyberstalking has few disincentives or laws. As a matter of fact, there are few laws governing the behavior of people in cyberspace. The very nature of the Internet, the anonymous nature of communications, lends itself to such behavior.

    There are many people who seem to believe that since this is the Internet, you can say whatever you want about anyone you like, without fear of reprisal. That's absolutely false. Every action has a consequence.

    Whether it's one person or a few people banding together to harass you, it's damn scary. When you find that someone has gone out of their way to dig up information on you, it's downright terrifying. You don't know what this person is capable of. You don't know what they'll do next or where they'll strike. In most cases, you're afraid for your life.

    How to Define Cyberstalking
    When identifying cyberstalking, particularly when considering whether to report it to any kind of legal authority, the following features or combinations of features can be considered to characterize a true stalking situation:

    This link details all the number of ways you can define cyberstalking. It may help to determine if you're facing a genuine threat, so you can report it to the authorities.

    Some examples of stalking on social networking websites
    • In 2001, an Internet essayist was convicted of stalking government agents.1
    • In 2006, a 13-year old girl fell prey to a sexual predator who she met on MySpace.2
    • Also from 2006, a 14 year old girl was gang-raped after a real-life meeting arranged through MySpace.3
    • A California man was arrested and charged for sending sexually suggestive messages to a fake MySpace profile of a 15 year old; other sexual predators have been arrested; people should understand how dangerous it is to post personal information online.4
    • In 2007, seven convicted sex offenders with MySpace profiles were arrested in Texas.5
    • Also in 2007, a woman pled guilty of cyberstalking the lead singer of Linkin Park.6

    How to Respond to Online Harassment
    WHOA has a good page on how to respond to online harassment.

    Ways You Can Control The Amount of Information Which Leads To You
    Only you have the ability to control and manage the amount of information you give about yourself.
    • Don't give out your address or phone number unless it's to someone you know and trust - I cannot stress that enough. That also extends to your e-mail address (which is why I use several e-mail addresses), which is why there are rules on forums (among other places) against giving out this kind of information. You have no idea what kind of people you're interacting with. Giving out an e-mail address may be relatively safe, compared to other kinds of information, but I would advise against giving out your primary e-mail address.
    • If you're going to e-mail someone you don't know and have never met before, use a throwaway Gmail account - as long as you use Gmail's web interface to send e-mail, your IP address is not tracked. To compare, Hotmail and Yahoo (and a fair number of other webmail services) show your IP address in the headers of every e-mail.

    As an example, the way I ensure my own privacy by never releasing my address and phone number online. If you look hard enough, you can find my picture(s), my name, age, what I do/where I work (my place of work is not somewhere accessible to the public per se, as there is no business office or storefront), city I live in, hobbies/interests and that's pretty much it. Any of this information may be repeated over and over in different social networking profiles (MySpace, Facebook, etc) but there isn't anything totally identifiable that will trace me to my physical address, therefore, there's not much anyone can do with little information they're able to find.

    How to protect yourself
    • Lock down your profiles to friends-only (or logged-in users only).
      • For MySpace, click Account Settings then Privacy Settings, then look under "Who can view my full profile".
      • For Facebook, use the Privacy page.
    • Be safe. Take a friend with you when meeting new people from online and meet in a neutral location. To be extra-safe, tell a friend or relative where you're going. You should at least have some information about the other person, like what they look like and their cell phone number.
    • Report any suspicious profiles or harassing messages to MySpace, Facebook, etc. There's usually an easy way to do that.
      • Using MySpace, there's a "Flag Spam/Abuse" link in every private message you receive. There's also a Contact MySpace link at the bottom of every page.
      • Using Facebook, you can report any offending message using the Report Message button. You can easily block any user on Facebook from seeing or contacting you by entering their name in the Block People section on the Privacy page. You can limit the people who can find you in searches, which in turn limits who can message you - also in the Privacy page. If you need further help, click the help link at the bottom of any page.
    • If you feel your life has been threatened, contact your local law enforcement agency, or possibly the FBI or the law enforcement agency of the person bothering you (if you know where the person is located). The first priority is to contact your local police and follow their suggestions on procedure. Make sure you save all incriminating information including any webpages, e-mails, take screenshots of instant-messaging windows (Alt-Print Screen if you're using a PC), etc. If you don't know how to take screenshots, please see this link for Windows (up to 2003), this link if you're using Vista or this link if you're using a Mac.

    Relevant Links
     
    #1 tehnathan, Aug 26, 2007
    Last edited: Aug 26, 2007
  2. Paul_UK

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    Thanks Nathan. I have made this useful thread sticky.
     
  3. EthanS

    EthanS Guest

    I dont mind being stalked as long they dont hack me:icon_bigg , IF i do relli get stalked i'll attack them neway :grin: but if their like huge il jus run away
     
  4. tehnathan

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    EthanS: Well, I guess you could define cyberstalking that way but there's a lot more to it than that.

    I only stalk my friends.

    Joking aside, this is pretty serious stuff. You have no idea how scary it is.

    The things I could show you about having been cyberstalked is scary enough to curl your hair (if it isn't already).
     
    #4 tehnathan, Aug 26, 2007
    Last edited: Aug 26, 2007
  5. Time

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    I don't see how you find this funny. This is a very serious matter. We're talking about creepy perverts on the internet who sit at their computer, and search for guys and girls our age to feast their eyes on, and before you know it get their hands on.

    I didn't realize it can be so real until this summer when it hit very close to home. A few ignorant girls from my school were talking to some guy they met on MySpace, who probably posed as a 13 year old boy living in our town. I don't know all of the details, but I know that he eventually learned enough about them to guess their passwords to their MySpace accounts, which in turn provided him anything and everything he wanted to know about them. He continued to stalk them, and eventually, broke into one of their houses while the girl was home alone. She managed to get to a phone and call 911, and luckily, no one was hurt, and the guy was put away. Since then, two of the three girls have deleted their accounts and don't plan on returning. Ironically, the one who was almost kidnapped still has her's up and running.

    I shared this with you, because I want you to realize that this is not something to joke about. Innocent people lose their lives and put themselves in danger everyday for making stupid mistakes on the internet.

    Thank you for sharing that with us Nathan, and I hope that everyone gets a chance to read it, as it's an excellent article.
     
  6. EthanS

    EthanS Guest

    :icon_sad: O soryy
     
  7. Latinokid

    Latinokid Guest

    Well my friend was a victim of something like this some people at school decided it was fun to make a Myspace and make it a guy she liked and make him perfect because the guy was really her best friend and they all laughed behind her back when she told them about this guy and when she found out that she was in love with nobody she felt really depressed and wanted to kill herself =(*so all u $%$%& out their theyre will be hell to pay one day.
     
  8. Torture

    Torture Guest

    Yeah, it's a serious matter. There was one guy here before that was atleast 40+ that paid little kids for Blowjobs (the kids were only 7+ playing at the park). He changed cars frequently, he left the island and I believe went to Nova Scotia (which is 2 hours away).

    There are some pretty sick people in this world. :***:

    By the way, sorry for being off topic a bit!
     
  9. davo-man

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    Well Im sure many of the Australians remember the Carly Ryan case a few months back/earlier this year, where a girl around 15/6 i think was on MySpace, became friends with some guy, went to meet him, and both him and his father sexually harrassed her and then killed her....Im pretty sure those are fairly accurate, but feel free to correct me

    My point is that you have no idea who you are talking to unless you actually know the person you are talking to.....My general rule is tell people on the net the same amount you would tell someone who you are serving at the cash register
     
  10. CrimsonThunder

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    Hmm never heard that story. And davo is very cautious. :thumbsup:
     
  11. Paul_UK

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    On a site like this, if someone says they are 14 or 15 or whatever you pretty much have to accept that and assume it's correct. In most cases it is, but there may be the odd person who is older and pretending to be younger. You have to be very careful what info you give out, especially to people that haven't been here that long. Don't tell people your last name or give them your cellphone number for example, and make sure your passwords are not based on info you may have told people.

    On EC, if you are in any way suspicious about another member (perhaps because they are asking for info, or because things they say don't seem to be quite right for someone of that age, or their posts and PMs are not consistent etc), please let me or one of the mods know so we can check into it.

    We have already banned three people who signed up during the mass influx of new members recently, and are checking out a couple more.
     
  12. bvtsjm116

    bvtsjm116 Guest

    There is this one guy from another website (game site) who I am a little suspicious of... :dry: Its sort of bothering me. I'm just not going to tell him anything personal at all anymore. He just asks me like odd, irrelevant questions, which why would he care to know? I'm sort of a little worried, although I didn't tell him last name, address, phone number, or even what state I live in. He just knows what time zone and a general age (knows I am going into high school) I was talking about wanting to get like red or white contacts with him and he asks what color my eyes are, I say I don't have colored contacts and he still wants to know, stuff like that... I'm just going to not answer his questions. He doesn't even know my first name, for the matter :confused:

    ok, well, I'm not going to talk about it. It just makes me a little more worried, when I have enough to worry about. I'm just going to ignore his questions and hopefully he doesn't know enough. I'm just a little bit of a worry wart. But, I don't know why, but I have a gut feeling he is suspicious, which is really bothering me! :bang:
     
  13. Paul_UK

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    Gut feelings that things are not quite right are probably a very good indication that they are indeed not right. Don't dismiss them as "he's probably fine, it must just be me...". It sounds like you are handling this one fine.

    Remember too that your MSN Messenger username is your email address, so it would be better to use a throw-away one from Hotmail or whatever if you have it in forum profiles etc, and don't base it on your real name.
     
  14. bvtsjm116

    bvtsjm116 Guest

    I use AIM, but I think he'd have preferred MSN =/ maybe thats why, but I never use my internet Email, I always use my yahoo email, which I heard isn't good cause it uses your IP?
     
  15. Paul_UK

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    I don't know about how Yahoo works. Your IP address can generally indicate your location to the state or the nearest large city in the USA, and will also indicate what company you use for your internet connection. That information is not likely to be much use to someone on its own. Indeed many people have that level of location info in their profiles anyway.

    In the UK most internet providers cover the whole country so an IP address is of no use for location. Mine (which is a fixed one) indicates London which is where the internet company's main datacentre is. Nobody with my IP address could figure out I was in Hereford.
     
  16. tehnathan

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    I do that myself - my MSN username is completely nothing like my e-mail address and I generally don't even check mail that goes there.

    My Yahoo username is also part of my e-mail address but I refuse messages from anyone not already on my list, which I think is a good practise.

    That's right. Hotmail and Yahoo (and most other e-mail providers) tag headers of e-mail with your IP address. Gmail (only if you use their website) does not, but if you use an e-mail client to send mail from a Gmail account, your IP will show up in the headers like this:

    X-Originating-IP: [123.45.67.89]

    If someone looks up your IP address, they'll get varying information: either get the city you live in, a neighboring metropolitan area or just the country.
     
    #16 tehnathan, Aug 27, 2007
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2007
  17. That stuff is so creepy to think about =\
     
  18. CrimsonThunder

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    Yeah I stopped sending emails to people I didn't know long ago.
     
  19. Miaplacidus

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    Well - I've been in touch with some people over the Internet, I've talked to them on the phone and seen them on webcams, so I'm pretty sure they are who they say. Plus it's easy to find out whether there's a so-and-so in a school, or to know if the person is really where he/she says he/she is.

    A quick whois on my IP address reveals that I'm indeed in Uruguay, for example. Plus, I have lots of photos of me taken on different days and I've appeared on camera more than once, so one can be pretty sure that I'm the guy on the photos. And I'm definitely not a pedophile.

    My friends, well, I doubt that they'd do anything bad to me. I know that they are indeed who they say they are, and most of them are around my own age (which is evidently true due to the photos - I have seen more than one - and their voices and appearances on camera). I investigate who I'm talking to. I'm careful. Plus, I'm kinda safe because I'm here. I don't really think one of those people would fly to Uruguay just to do something bad to me...
     
  20. tehnathan

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    Indeed. That's what I thought (I doubt anyone would come to my location to do anything) and I've generally been proven right (luckily).

    I've met all of my friends online originally and I've made the effort to meet most of them in person (except the impossibly too far away ones).
     
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