CSC 379 SUM2008:Week 5, Group 3

Cyberstalking

What Is Cyberstalking

Cyberstalking can be in any number of disguises. For example: threatening or harassing email, flaming (online verbal abuse), mass unsolicited email, identity theft, leaving improper messages at guestbooks or newsgroups from you, initiating directed computer viruses, pedophile activity, or email forgery (sending false or damaging email from you, usually to people you know like coworkers, employers, neighbors, etc.). Unfortunately, cyberstalkers sometimes step out of cyberspace and into the physical world by stealing your identity, luring unsuspecting victims for a first meeting, vandalizing your home, office, or vehicle, sending threatening or obscene mail, making abusive and excessive phone calls, or whatever else the criminal mind can imagine.

With the recently buildup of social networks, web-cameras, and other means of online communications, Cyberstalking has 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 obsession at looking at their victims information. Many times cyberstalking escalates even further to where cyberstalkers will try to trace their victims IP address to find their home and/or work place.

Social 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 social networking site, MySpace has numerous account of cyberstalking. To be able to create an account of MySpace a user has to be at least 14 years old. Thankfully, anyone whose age is set from 14-15 has their profile automatically set to private. These teens have become under scrutiny for the racy pictures they are putting on their profiles. Recently there have even been television commercials warning teens to be cognizant of what they put on their 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 exists. Many teens post personal information and pictures naively thinking that only their friends are going to see them. Besides these adults gaining and possibly abusing MySpace, there is also an abundance 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 discussing 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 themselves 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

Facebook 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 concerned about what everyone else is doing, but in the real world, Facebook stalking can be very dangerous.

With the recent glitch found in Facebook's search options users need to begin to rethink their privacy. Stalkers can find anything from your sex, ethnicity, sexual preference, 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 source code of the search page, making it more vulnerable 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 acknowledgment. The more information people put on Facebook, the more these people are at risk. Although 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 themselves safe? There are many options. First off a user can get rid of their account. Although 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 their profile. They can set restrictions for all of their "friends." Or they can set it to allow any user to look at their profile. If there is a parent who is concerned 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 their 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?

When Cyberstalking Becomes Real

Thankfully, very few cases of cyberstalking have progressed beyond the Internet but in some of those few cases that have, the results have been tragic and as such, it sets the premise that cyberstalking should be taken just as seriously as physical stalking. In 1999, one such case resulted in the murder of Amy Boyer by her cyberstalker Liam Youens. Using information that he acquired through the Internet, Youens traveled to Boyer's workplace where he fatally shot her before taking his own life. In another case, a woman's address and phone number were posted on an Internet Usenet newsgroup by an ex-boyfriend along with a message that she fantasized about being raped. Within a matter of days, six men came to the woman's home saying that they wanted to rape her.

Even more frightening is the case of John Robinson, the topic of a novel by John Duglas. In the late 1990's, Robinson used Internet chat rooms to stalk his victims and lure them into moving to Kansas under the false promise that they were moving there to be with their ideal man. On the contrary, the woman disappeared as soon as they reached Kansas as victims to the first Internet serial-killer. In all, 6 women were murdered by Robinson with a possibility of 5 others.

Cyberstalking Tools and Methods

With the internet providing new avenues for stalkers to pursue victims by a few clicks of the mouse or keystrokes, how does this alter the physical and virtual landscape of stalking? Victim service providers report that the “Internet is rapidly becoming another weapon used by batterers against their victims. Just as in real life, abused women can be followed in cyberspace by their batterers, who may surreptitiously place their target under surveillance without her knowledge and use the information to threaten her or discredit her” [www.usdoj.gov ]. Cyberstalkers can take advantage of the impersonal, non-confrontational, and anonymous nature of the web, sending harassing or threatening messages by the simple push of a button. More sophisticated cyber prowlers use programs to send messages to victims at regular or random intervals, even going so far as to post controversial messages in internet chat rooms or on “revenge” bulletin boards. With minimal effort and possibly total anonymity, cyberstalkers are navigating a whole new arena where intellect and tech-skills replace body and brawn to frighten and intimidate victims.

U.S. Policy

"Make no mistake: this kind of harassment can be as frightening

and as real as being followed and watched in your neighborhood or

in your home." - Vice President Al Gore

Recognizing this emerging problem, Vice President Al Gore asked the Attorney General on February 26, 1999, to study the problem and to report back with recommendations on how to protect people from this threat. As a result an Anti-stalking bill passed by Congress makes it a federal crime to "annoy" someone over the Internet. In 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit used that reasoning to uphold the conviction of Erik Bowker, an Ohio man who had stalked a Youngstown television reporter via telephone.

But in 1999, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled that a man could not be prosecuted for "annoying" conduct because he had telephoned the U.S. attorney seven times to complain about a case that had been brought against him. The calls, the court found, were political speech protected by the First Amendment. David Hudson, a lawyer with the First Amendment Center, a speech-rights advocacy group in Nashville, says the different ways that courts have interpreted the word "annoy" make the anti-stalking law "ripe for a challenge."

Law enforcement agencies have estimated that electronic communications are a factor in from 20 percent to 40 percent of all stalking cases. Forty-five states now have laws that explicitly include electronic forms of communication within stalking or harassment laws. State laws that do not include specific references to electronic communication may still apply to those who threaten or harass others online, but specific language can make the laws easier to enforce.

State Cyberstalking laws

Links

• Wikipedia - Cyberstalking
• NCSU Ethics - Cyberstalking
• Oxford Journals
• The Daily Aztec
• USA Today, Facebook stalking
• Cyberstalking and Internet safety FAQ
• Cyberstalking and harassment
• USA Today, Cyberstalking law