CSC 379 SUM2008:Week 5, Group 3

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Cyberstalking

What Is Cyberstalking

Cyberstalking is use of the internet in order to stalk someone.

With the recently buildup of social networks, webcameras, and other means of online communications, Cyberstalking was become a serious issue. These stalkers begin by using search engines or social networks to find a person. Once they have accomplished that this stalker creates an obession at looking at thier victims information. Many times cyberstalking escalates even further to where cyberstalkers will try to trace thier victims IP address to find thier home and/or work place.

Soical Networks

Social networks are a huge part of many peoples lives today. Such networks as Facebook and MySpace, just to name two giants, have around 100 millions users each and are still growing. These social networks provide many people with entertainment and ways to keep in touch with friends,however; these sites are also gateways for cyberstalkers to find victims.

  • MySpace and Cyberstalkers

MySpace is a huge social network that started in August of 2003. On MySpace users can post pictures, videos, and put information in an "About Me" section. While this seems standard of any socal networking site, MySpace has numerous account of cyberstalking. To be able to create an account of MySpace a user has to be atleast 14 years old. Thankfully, anyone whose age is set from 14-15 has thier profile automatically set to private. These teens have become under srutiny for the racey pictures they are putting on thier profiles. Recently there have even been television commericals warning teens to be cognasient of what they put on thier profiles.

Cyberstalking has become big news to MySpace users. As comscore has released an article saying that MySpaces audience continues to shift towards an older demographic. Although many of these older users are harmless, the threat of pedophiles still exitsts. Many teens post personal information and pictures nievly thinking that only thier friends are going to see them. Besides these adults gaining and possibly abusing MySpace, there is also an abundancy of younger users providing an incorrect, older age in order to gain access to MySpace. This sets the stage for cyberstalking of young children. Wired recently published an article dicussing how myspace is having to deal with over 29,000 sex offenders accessing its site.'

Young children are not always the target of cyberstalking, Wired also posted an article discussing how a hacker took control of a internet celebrities MySpace account and demanded sexual pictures in return for the account. There have also been instances where users find themsevles being physically stalked by people who find them on MySpace. This stalking is very serious as it can lead other serve crimes.

  • Facebook and Cyberstalkers

Fackbook cyberstalkers or "creepers" as they are called in parody videos, are no joking matter. Sure in the videos it's the guy trying to get a laugh or some girl who is way too concered about what everyone else is doing, but in the real world, Facebook stalking can be very dangerous.

With the recent glitch found in Facebooks search options users need to begin to rethink thier privacy. Stalkers can find anything from your sex, ethnicity, sexual prefrence, and many other once thought private items simply utilizing a glitch in Facebook's advanced search option. This person can learn many thing about you without ever adding you as a "friend." To battle this glitch Facebook opened up the soruce code of the search page, making it more vulerable to hackers, competitors, and stalkers alike.

According to an online source, Facebook is becoming the new Big Brother. While you may think that only your friends are looking at your profiles, there are many others such as employers who may look at your profile with or without your acknowledgement. The more information people put on Facebook, the more these people are at risk. Althought employers are not necessarily the bad guy, there are others such as discussed in the MySpace topic above with more malicious intents.

  • What To Do and Ethics

How can users keep themsevles safe? There are many options. First off a user can get rid of thier account. Althought this option seems a bit irrational, it is the safest. The second is to go and locate the privacy options for your profile. here users can get many options. They can specify individual people and what those people have access to on thier profile. They can set restrictions for all of thier "friends." Or they can set it to allow any user to look at thier profile. If there is a parent who is concerened about his/her child getting on these sites, the parent can get an internet filter set up to block access to these sites.

The ethics behind Facebook and MySpace come down to a few topic:

  • Should thier be more default privacy for users who are new to the service?
  • In stalking cases should the companies assume some sort to liability?
  • Should the companies take more initiative to make sure that users are of age and to keep sex offenders out?

Provide a general overview of cyberstalking as it occurs today. Discuss recent instances and analyze the ethics. What ethical considerations are raised by tools that facilitate cyber-stalking? Should threats of violence through cyberstalking be considered the same as in-person threats or threats communicated through traditional means?

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