Are Online Threats Crimes or Free Speech?

(U.S.A.)  The Supreme Court of the United States may soon decide whether or not to hear appeals of two cases in with people were convicted and sent to jail for making online threats, even though they later said they didn’t mean any harm.

In one case, Anthony Elonis of Pennsylvania, wrote on Facebook about killing his estranged wife. According to the Associated Press, he said:

 “There’s one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I’m not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts.”

The woman testified in court that she feared for her life. Elonis was sentenced to almost four years, and was released on February 14, 2014, according to The Express-Times. 

Email to talk show 

 In the second case, Ellisa Martinez of Florida sent an anonymous email to a talk show host. According to the Connecticut Law Tribune, Martinez said she was:

“planning something big around a government building here in Broward County, maybe a post office, maybe even a school, I’m going to walk in and teach all the government hacks working there what the 2nd amendment is all about.” 

As a result of the email, Broward County schools were locked down for three hours.

Martinez pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced Martinez to two years in prison, and ordered her to pay more than $5,000 as restitution to the police.

In both of these cases, the appellants are arguing that their statements, regardless of the threatening nature, should be protected as free speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Threats and custody battle 

A similar case was appealed to the Supreme Court last year. Franklin Delano Jeffries II, an Iraq war veteran from Tennessee, posted a YouTube video in which he played a guitar and sang a song that he wrote about his 13-year child custody battle. The lyrics included:

The best interest ain’t of the child anymore. The judges and the lawyers are abusing ‘em. [Pointing at camera]. Let’s get them out of office. Vote ‘em out of office. . . . ‘Cause you don’t deserve to be a judge and you don’t deserve to live. You don’t deserve to live in my book. 

Watch Jeffries video on Wired.com.

Jeffries posted a link to his video on Facebook and sent links to 29 Facebook users, including a state representative, a TV station. Twenty-five hours later, he removed the YouTube video.

Jeffries was arrested. According to KnoxNews.com, the Knox County Sheriff’s Office determined that Jeffries made “veiled threats” to the Knox County chancellor, his ex-wife and her husband.

Jeffries was convicted for using the Internet to transmit a death threat and sentenced to 18 months in jail, KnoxNews.com stated. Although he had been freed in 2012, he was in trouble again for using cocaine and making threats of suicide and murder on Twitter.

Read: Tweets land ex-soldier convicted in YouTube case behind bars, on KnoxNews.com. 

 Jeffries appealed his conviction for making the YouTube video and lost. Last year he appealed to the United States Supreme Court. His appeal was rejected.

Threatening language online 

In the two new cases, according to the Associated Press, “the Supreme Court is being asked to clarify the First Amendment rights of people who use violent or threatening language on electronic media where the speaker’s intent is not always clear.”

The American Bar Association has published more detail about the Anthony Elonis case, and it’s pretty scary:

After his wife of seven years and two children left him, Anthony Elonis was having a tough time at work, and was even sent home on a few occasions for being too upset to work. He was employed at Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom. One of the employees that Elonis supervised, Amber Morrissey, had filed several sexual harassment complaints against him. Elonis then posted a photograph on his Facebook page, taken at the Dorney Park Halloween Haunt, of him holding a knife to Morrissey’s neck with the caption, “I wish.” A supervisor saw this and immediately fired him. Two days after he was fired, Morrissey began posting violent messages about his former employer on his Facebook page. He also posted Facebook messages about killing his wife. Based on these statements, a state court issued Elonis’ wife a Protection From Abuse order. Ms. Elonis testified at trial that she took the threats seriously, and feared for her own and her children’s lives. Elonis’s Facebook threats kept escalating to a point where he was threatening police forces and elementary schools. By this point, the FBI became involved and, when they went to his home to interview him, Elonis refused to speak with them, and posted a message about it later on Facebook. 

I hope that the Supreme Court understands that online threats can be precursors to serious violence.

By declining to hear the Jeffries case, the Supreme Court let his conviction stand. It could do the same thing with the Elonis case, which would mean his conviction would stand as well.

But perhaps the Court should hear the arguments, and then declare, once and for all, that online threats are crimes.

original article found here

FREE SPEECH: FROM LEGAL TO LETHAL

by Lori Andrews

Recently, Judge Roger Titus of Maryland declared unconstitutional a federal law that made it a crime to use the internet "with the intent to harass [or] cause substantial emotional distress to a person in another state." In the wake of that decision, legislatures and courts across the country will need to rethink existing statutes on cyberharassment.

In the Maryland case, William Cassidy had been charged with cyberstalking Alyce Zeoli, a former colleague and a Buddhist religious leader, based on his tweets, such as, "Do the world a favor and go kill yourself. P.S. Have a nice day." Zeoli asserted that the tweets made her so fear for her safety that she had not left her house for a year and a half, except to see her psychiatrist. But the judge dismissed the case. His reasoning will animate discussions in legislatures about how to amend state and federal laws.

Judge Titus indicated that "threats of harm" are punishable, but not communications "intending" emotional distress. He also considered it relevant that the medium used (a tweet) was communicated to the public at large rather than just the victim. The target of the harassment could just choose not to follow the tweets. "This," said the judge, "is in sharp contrast to a telephone call, letter or e-mail specifically addressed to and directed at another person, and that difference ... is fundamental to the First Amendment analysis in this case." Judge Titus also seemed to think that it was unreasonable for Zeoli to have such a dramatic reaction; he said that Cassidy's tweets were not a "true threat."

Words are powerful. They can move listeners or readers to action, sometimes even to harm themselves or someone else. But generally, our society doesn't punish the speaker or writer. Think about Ozzy Osbourne. Thirty years ago, he recorded the song Suicide Solution. The song states that "Suicide is the only way out," and contains the barely-recognizable lyrics, sung at a faster speed, "Get the gun and try it; Shoot, shoot, shoot."

When a 19 year old shot himself in the head with a .22 caliber handgun after spending five hours listening to Ozzy's music, his grieving parents sued Ozzy and the record distributor. The California Appellate Court rejected their claims (pdf), noting that speech does not lose its First Amendment protection merely because it "may evoke a mood of depression." The court said the lyrics failed to "order or command anyone to concrete action at any specific time."

But courts have held differently when the speech is directly addressed to a particular person. In a case currently on appeal in Minnesota, William Melchert-Dinkel was charged with pressuring two people over the internet to commit suicide. He posed as a young female nurse who pretended to enter into a suicide pact with his victims. The judge in the Minnesota case pointed out that Melchert-Dinkel's "encouragement and advice imminently incited the suicide of Nadia Kajouji and was likely to have that effect." The judge in the case labeled the instant messages as "lethal advocacy" and held that Melchert-Dinkel's words were "analogous to the category of unprotected speech known as 'fighting words' and 'imminent incitement of lawlessness.'" The judge distinguished messages sent to the public at the large, saying that Melchert-Dinkel had the right to take his pro-suicide message to the public--over the internet, on television, and so forth--but did not have the right to address that message to a single, vulnerable individual. Melchert-Dinkel's attorney is appealing the case, based on the First Amendment.

But how direct does a threat have to be? What if Melchert-Dinkel had just sent Nadia an mp3 file with Ozzy’s Suicide Solution? Courts are already weighing whether people's "likes" on a social network can be used as evidence against them. In a Wisconsin case, a judge admitted into evidence a litigant's MySpace reference to a short story in which a judge was harmed. In contrast, a Mississippi court refused to use a dad's MySpace post of Ronald McDonald being shot in the face to prove that the mom should get custody of the kids.

The "intent" standard is also problematic. As Judge Titus suggested, the standard is too broad, covering speech that is constitutionally protected. But the "intent" standard is also, in some cases, too narrow. It might allow someone to evade legitimate prosecution by claiming they didn't intend harm, they just intended to be funny.

That strategy worked for 40-year-old Elizabeth Thrasher, whose victim was her ex-husband’s new girlfriend’s daughter. Thrasher posted photos, the phone number, and the email address of the 17-year-old girl in the "Casual Encounters" section of Craigslist, in which people expressed their interest in casual sex. As a result of the "Casual Encounters" posting, the 17-year-old girl was swamped with sexually explicit cell phone calls, emails, and text messages that included nude pictures and solicitations for sex. One man even came to the Sonic Restaurant where she worked after failing to reach her on her phone, leading her to eventually quit her job out of fear. She testified that the publication of the information made her feel like she "was set up to get killed and raped by somebody." Thrasher’s attorney argued that photos of the girl and her work location were already available on the girl's MySpace profile. He said the postings were "tantamount to a practical joke"--and Thrasher was acquitted.

The issue of targeting a victim versus the public at large is also a question to be considered. Judge Titus suggests that, to be criminally actionable, tweets and posts need to be sent directly to the victim. But because of the nature of digital communications, Judge Titus' distinction between public tweets and direct communications with the victim may not hold up in future cases. Much of the cyberharassment of women does not involve a direct threat from one person to another. In a Connecticut case, a man posted a YouTube rap video of himself waving a gun while threatening to shoot his baby's mom and "put her face on the dirt until she can't breathe no more." Even though the man was in North Carolina at the time and the woman resided in Connecticut, the court issued a restraining order against him.

Under Judge Titus' standard, such a video might not have been a cause for concern because the woman could just have turned it off. This issue of targeting a private person versus the public at large will be key in cases where the person posts information (such as a Google map to a woman's house with a claim she wants men to act out rape fantasies) and the poster himself does not intend to do violence.

As courts and legislators deal with cyberharassment, they'll be determining what the limits are to punishing people for tweets and posts that threaten violence or cause emotional harm. They'll also have to determine whether the rule that the communication must be sent directly to the victim makes any sense in the age of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, where public posts--especially those that urge someone else to harm the victim--might be even more deadly than private ones.

Lori Andrews is the author of the upcoming I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did: Social Networks and the Death of Privacy

original article found here

You've Got H@TE MAIL!

Remember the time when new netizens were discovering the joys of e-mail and chat? When we watched Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail log on and send messages to Tom Hanks. That was cool, way back in 1998, when that film was released. It explored the concept of what happens when the virtual world and the real world intersect at some point.

All that is old hat now. We send emails, we chat, we message, we scrap, we follow each other on Twitter, we scribble on Facebook's wall. We have SecondLife. The possibilities are endless. Your gmail inbox could be an excellent pointer. "Where are you now? I'd like to add you to my travel network”, says one mail. “XXX added you as a friend on Facebook” says another. There are join-us requests from at least three other social networking sites. And then, some blog comments that you have to moderate. So, cleaning the inbox could well take up an hour or two of your working day. All thanks to social networking. We live in an over-connected world, you see. Everyone's connected to everyone else and their cousin, thrice removed.

So, what's wrong with being connected? Nothing, except that we tend to lose perspective on who's a friend, who's not, and how much of our emotional investment needs to go into all this. Benign, harmless scraps, blog comments and messages are still tolerable. All you need to do is hit the delete button. But then, what about hate? What about those comments that hurt? What happens if there’s a sensitive person on the other end, who takes the hate personally?

Out of sheer curiosity, I log on to my Orkut account, and check out the hate communities. There are harmless "I hate to wake up early" to "I hate rain"communities. Soon, it turns ugly. And scary, if one may add. Take "Kill me, I'm fed up of my life" It had a whopping 3,000 members when one last checked. There's “Guns n Guts”, there's “I hurt myself; so you can't” with 7,000 members.

A web of distrust
One of the communities even suggests various methods to commit suicide. This community has a whopping 2,000 members at last count. Isn't this hate reflective of society itself? Surely, something's gone wrong somewhere.

According to psychologist Sonali Nag of the Promise Foundation, "Hate is a fundamental human emotion. As most other emotions, it is neither negative nor positive. It could be generated in response to something strongly repugnant to oneself and one's values. It could also be born from a sense of inadequacy. Both forms are seen on the Internet. It provides a screen to one's identity and offers a medium to express emotions with lower levels of restraint. ‘Snarking’ is an example of using the anonymity that the Internet provides to be snide and unrestrained in one's responses to someone else's postings. I would suspect that if one examined the personality of a 'snarker', one would find a sad, unfulfilled and frustrated person hiding behind his or her snarks."

There are hate communities directed at individuals and some very respected personalities at that. And then, countries. There was legal trouble when a ‘We hate India’ community was set up on a social networking site.

Omar Abdullah’s ‘alvida’
Social networking was also held responsible for the death of 16-year-old Adnan Patrawala from Mumbai, who was kidnapped and murdered by his Orkut friends. While social networking sites and blogs are excellent platforms for celebrities like an Aamir Khan or an Amitabh Bachchan to put across their points of view, they also make them vulnerable to hate comments.

You only have to check out Ram Gopal Varma's blog to see the kind of comments his posts elicit. But RGV blogs on, undeterred, responding to his readers sharply. But, then, it could get very serious.

Take the case of politician Omar Abdullah, who used the blog http://jknc.org/blog/ to air his views on Kashmir. He started his blog in mid-April, but by August, the comments and the hate got to him. His last post, titled 'Alvida' says it all. Sample this:

"Last night as I finished my last post I realised that I was filled with dread at the heap of personal abuse I was expecting when I logged on this morning and I was not wrong. We truly are a bunch of intolerant people. We want to be heard but do not have the strength to hear, we want to have an opinion but do not believe anyone else is entitled to one. So after almost 42 posts from me and more than 900 comments from all of you I am signing off and I will not be coming back."

Faceless dread
A clear case of cyber harassment. The nature of the Internet, as it is evident now, is that it is an open, free world, where everyone has the right to vent their views, or form communities without much social responsibility. The very fact that the bully is a faceless, unknown person, adds to the helplessness of the victim. Terror too, has spread its scary shadows on the Internet. Terror mails are sent from random IP addresses. As recently as September 2008, newspapers reported that a community called 'Indian Mujahideen' was banned from a social networking site, following the blasts in Delhi.

A presentation on 'Tracking terrorists in cyber space' made by J Prasanna, an Information Security Consultant, at a seminar organised by Digital Society Foundation of India, in Bangalore, acknowledges that most terrorists and spies indeed use the Internet. They use the Internet to leave a message on a website like orkut, Linkedin or a matrimonial website that looks normal. Only they understand where to look and what to read and it's difficult for others to find out. This is called a covert channel. Also, terrorists use anonymous proxy (with encryption) to transmit messages.

So, do we regulate the internet?
According to Na Vijayshankar, cyber law campaigner, the police are supposed to monitor any anti-social activities in society and can take action on their own. Vijayshankar, who is also the Chairman of the Digital Society Foundation of India, says the organisation proposes to act as a vigilante unit. He points out that his organisation even filed a PIL in connection with denigration of Gandhi on You Tube. "I personally try to keep the police informed. I strongly feel the police should maintain contact with voluntary organisations to act as cyber informers."

But does this not infringe upon freedom of expression and privacy? Agrees Na Vijayshankar, "It is a fact that sometimes privacy interests conflict with law enforcement."

However, Naavi cites a India Supreme Court judgment, which says “that the person’s ‘right to be let alone’ is not an absolute right and may be lawfully restricted for the prevention of crime, disorder or protection of health or morals or protection of rights and freedom of others.”

During the seminar on Privacy Rights and Data Protection in Cyber Space, he expressed the need for balancing the Privacy and Data Protection legislation with law enforcement and suggested that the forum would collect the opinion of experts and forward it to the government for necessary action when the Personal Data Protection Bill 2006 and ITA Amendment Act Bill would be taken up for discussion in the Parliamentary session.

“What the ITA 2000 fails to protect are cases such as 'cyber stalking' where privacy intrusion through e-mails or SMS messages creates problems for individuals. If such messages can be brought under "Obscenity" then it may be covered under Section 67 of ITA 2000. If it is indecent or threatening, it may be brought under IPC. This is essentially the protection that is available,” he points out in his presentation.

However, there is the issue of what constitutes privacy rights. When the police on a crime trail end up on a social networking site , there are commercial interests that try to block the police from accessing information which may be vital to solving the crime. Often the defense put up by the sites is that the information is protected by the ‘Privacy rights’ of someone else or that they are to be treated as ‘Intermediaries’ and should not be harassed, explains Naavi.

Which brings us back to that old question of freedom and responsibility. Particularly so, with reference to democracies, where one’s rights cannot be divorced from one’s responsibilities. Where there’s freedom, there’s responsibility. Now, if only those hate mongers understood.

Impact on children
As with all other aspects of helping children learn to live life completely, shielding them from cyber bullying is not an effective answer. An emotionally secure home environment that allows exploration and experimentation constantly backed up by support and introspection, would help them develop strong identities. A strong, self-accepting identity, would neither bully or be bullied, the psychologist explains.

The bullies and their victims

• In March 2007, high-profile technology blogger Kathy Sierra of the United States became a victim of cyber bullying. She received anonymous death threats on her blog and violent comments were made against her. Kathy was so scared that she stopped blogging. The incident triggered a movement in cyberspace, and hundreds of bloggers reported to have been victims of cyber bullying at some point in their online lives. An Anti- Cyber bullying Day was observed on March 30 that year, in protest.
• Another American citizen, Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl committed suicide in October 2006, when personal comments on her looks and appearance got to her on a social networking site.
• Not many Indian bloggers would have forgotten the vicious personal comments and washing of dirty linen on the blogosphere, when a noted youth blog (youthcurry.blogspot.com) had a post about a management institute.
• Ironically, the Internet is also an excellent resource for parents who are worried about their children becoming targets of vicious attacks. There are websites dedicated to cyber bullying. Some of them include: http://www.cyberbullyalert.com/blog/ stopcyberbullying.org.

Stand up to a bully!
According to psychologist Sonali Nag, “It is an extension of the bullying that seems to be integral to the human predicament, be it on the school playground or between countries. The only difference between the school bully and the Internet bully, perhaps is that anonymity allows the cyber bully an easier chance of getting away. The bully is usually a coward who melts away when confronted.

Here again low self-esteem and deep feelings of inadequacy seem to characterize the bully. Interestingly though, the bullied sometimes, want the relationship with the bully to continue. For the price of being bullied, they gain the reward of being the bully's protege and of being protected by the bully. However, for those who want to be released from this form of abuse, the bullied can be empowered to stand up to a bully.

original article found here

6 MONTHS FOR CRIMINAL CYBER HARASSMENT OF HIS EX

by Sam Pazzano

(CANADA) A Toronto osteopath who sought to ruin his former mistress' life by disseminating pornographic shots and videos to her family, friends and church pals was slapped Friday with a blended six-month conditional sentence.

Justice Peter Harris handed Oleg Korbut a mixture of house arrest to be served Monday through Friday -- which enables him to keep working and supporting his wife and six-month-old son -- plus 90 days of weekends in jail, starting next Friday night.

Harris was sentencing Korbut, 43, for criminal harassment plus stealing his now 30-year-old lover's cellphone and diary in January 2010.

While the judge said this sentence would signal that the "theft of one's most private and personal information will not be tolerated," he tempered the six-month sentence -- by making it conditional, instead of six months of straight jail time -- so that Korbut could keep supporting his family.

The victim's embarrassing videos on the internet cannot be retrieved, so her suffering and embarrassment may never end, the judge sadly noted.

"Unquestionably, Mr. Korbut's premeditated, escalating campaign in the form of deliberate, callous and vindictive harassment has had a profound and devastating impact on Ms. K's reputation, her integrity and her self-worth," the judge said. The victim cannot be legally identified.

Korbut -- who had taken sexual photos and videos of the victim during their two-year relationship which he ended in late 2009 -- stole her cell-phone and diary in January 2010 after she revealed she was seeing another man. Korbut had forbade her from doing so for a year or more.

The Ukrainian-educated medical doctor became enraged and then distributed those images to the e-mail addresses of her family, friends and church-going pals. He also started posting her on on-line dating websites between Feb. 16, and March 6 2010.

Korbut also dropped off a "Valentine's Day" gift of a sexually explicit DVD at the home of the woman's new boyfriend on Feb. 14, 2010.

Korbut "was unable to restrain his scornful attitude towards Ms. K., and referred to her as a ‘whore' and ‘f---ing scum' while testifying in his own defence," Harris noted. "He lacks insight and respect for others. . his unbalanced perspective on gender equality and sensitivity was apparent."

Korbut is a first-time offender who enjoys a solid reputation and solid support in the community and represents a low risk to re-offend, Harris said.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE FOUND HERE

Jealousy Behind CyberAttacks & Smears

(MUMBAI, India) Cybercrime is usually perceived as the province of depraved men. But a disturbing trend has come to light of late. Increasingly, women are resorting to online tactics to achieve some nefarious end.

Recently, the woman CEO of a multinational corporation's India operations was detained by the police for cyber-harassment of a co-worker in HR - also a woman.

The CEO, aged 43, posted derogatory remarks about the HR executive, aged 39, on a consumer website to malign her. She described the victim as a sex pest who eyed newly recruited young men and was also "having a good time with a former employee", said an officer with the police's cyber crime investigation cell. The CEO was traced through the IP address from where the posts were made.

"In her police complaint, the victim, who is unmarried, told us that someone was posting comments about her character, or lack thereof, and that she was described as someone who frequently slept with her colleagues and 'spoiled' them," said a police officer.

"She said it all started when she found a change in the way her colleagues perceived her, so much so that she found it difficult to work with them. It was only when her friends and well-wishers asked her about the online posts that she realized what the matter was. She told us she was taken aback and did not know how to react." The police sought from the website the IP address from where the posts were submitted. "It was found to originate from an apartment in a residential complex in Goregaon. When we reached there, we were shocked to find that the house belonged to the CEO of the firm where the victim worked," the officer said. "Initially, the CEO was not cooperating. She accused us of harassing her. But we had technical proof. When we confronted her with it and emphasized that the IP address belonged to her own PC, she surrendered."

The CEO broke down at the police station. "She found herself in front of the victim, who she could not look in the eye. She even had tears," the officer said. "In a written apology, she said she was jealous as the victim was getting quick promotions. So, she started writing online posts, the website being one that is visited by private companies, to do background checks on potential recruits. She wanted the management to take note of the posts and initiate action against the victim." She was later let off.

original article can be found here

When Hate Comes to Your Homepage

The suicide of a young teenager shows we must wake up to the crossover between the virtual world and real cruelty

by J. Turner

A psychotherapist friend was explaining why she had forbidden her 12-year-old daughter from joining Facebook. It had driven several of her patients, around the same age as her daughter, to the verge of mental breakdown. But surely these girls were unusually fragile: if not Facebook, wouldn't there have been some other catalyst? Maybe, she said, but few young egos are strong enough to deal with this stuff.

I thought she was being alarmist and somewhat old-fashioned. Our generation merely utilises the internet: our children have it hardwired into their synapses. It is their medium, just as ours was television: our parents fretted similiarly - and impotently - about its new-fangled consequences.

You are supposed to be 18 to join Facebook. But you can lie about your age; no one checks. When my sons signed up I thought it sweet when they befriended their aunties and old babysitters, sent virtual pina-coladas to far-flung godparents. Then I realised they're all on there! The entire lower school, the whole prepubescent lot of them, “poking”, posting preening party pictures and telling each other “u are soooo pretty!!!”.

My friend's warning was amplified this week when a trial with implications for the future of social networking opened in Los Angeles. Megan Meier, 13, was befriended on MySpace by a boy called Josh Evans who flirted and flattered and told her she was “sexi”. When he dumped Megan abruptly, saying the world would be a better place without her, she went up to her bedroom and hanged herself with a belt. It transpired “Josh” was a 49-year-old mother called Lori Drew who, it is alleged, believed Megan was bitching about her own daughter online. Drew is charged with conspiracy and accessing computers without authorisation, not murder. But the prosecution case is that Drew “fully intended to hurt and prey on Megan's psyche” through MySpace.

It is an outlandish and extreme story. Yet what struck me was how Megan's mother's reacted when her daughter came to her sobbing about Josh's cruelty. She told her she shouldn't get into silly arguments and shouldn't have been on her computer anyway. Clearly, she believed her daughter was wasting real emotions on something which was “unreal”, since it took place online. Many parents, I guess, would have been equally dismissive.

It is a quandary we have not yet addressed, despite Britons spending more time online (an average of 14 hours a week) than any other European nation and with half of us now members of social networking sites: can the virtual world cause real pain? Facebook seems so harmlessly middle-class, like an endless online evening drinks party. For us sad, solitary home-working types it is a simulacrum of cheering human contact.

But my friend suggested I look at Facebook with a 12-year-old's eyes. She pointed out the popular “honesty box” application where you ask a question - “What do you really think of me?” etc - which then anyone can answer anonymously. Like a ouija board, evil yet so tantalising. My inner pre-teen came out in a terrified sweat.

Besides, said the psychotherapist, it is the ordinary stuff which devastates her patients, the photos of a sleepover to which you weren't invited, your best friend ignoring you and chatting on someone else's “wall”. And everyone will know, by how many friends you have, whether you're a big, fat loser. It's not even proper bullying, just crude kidult passive- aggression. But, boy, does it hurt.

Even so, her patients cannot stop themselves logging in. They have to look. And so the mean-girl snubs, the whispering behind hands, follow them home and upstairs into lonely bedrooms.

We think as adults we are tougher, that something as remote and notional as a chat room cannot hurt us. Indeed, it is a blast, a liberation, when talking online to say what you really mean for once, to make mischief, to dispense with uptight British niceness, or even assume the guise of an atavar, a pumped-up, better-hung version of our own weedy workaday self.

In the glow of our screens, safely at home, we think our egos are armour-plated. But there is no protection as we step on to the ten-lane superhighway of a billion heartless strangers. It can smart like hell, that withering rebuke from someone you'll never meet. A friend, who frequents a jolly and supportive parenting website, was devastated when another mother posted “I hope your child fails the 11-plus”, particularly when she discovered the woman was a neighbour, who'd always harboured a secret grudge.
We are a fighty nation at present, itching for a scrap like a railway station drunk. Perhaps, because we feel impotent in the face of huge economic forces, we lash out at more accessible targets - Ross and Brand, Haringey social workers, the judges on Strictly Come Dancing. And our anger spews onto the BBC's Have Your Say messageboards, blogs and newspaper websites.

This morning I was forwarded a letter from a reader who berated me about something I wrote last month, with the use of two C-words and sundry other curses. From the handwriting - and by the simple fact it came by snail-mail - I could tell it was written by an elderly person. It had no address and was signed “No Nonsense Norm”. Poor Norm, I thought, with his thin notelet, shaky pen and his probably painful walk to the postbox. With a computer he could have enjoyed the same secret thrill of hate in an instant, and free.

Most journalists, me included, find the honesty box below our words bracing: in the democracy of the web, why should we claim a monopoly on thought? Others, though, find the comments too confidence-destroying to read. (If you blog about us, do we not bleed?) Although few, like the hack hero in Tim Dowling's hilarious novel The Giles Wareing Haters' Club actually track down and confront their tormentors.

Maybe future generations will learn to deal with the strong and confusing emotions engendered by the virtual world. Friends with older teens say that they log into social sites before breakfast, know the etiquette, how seriously to take it, where to complain. And later my friend rings to say her daughter just 'fessed up to having a secret Facebook account. What can we do? Not much. Online we're elderly residents of a new world, just like Norm.

SOURCE

CYBERPATHS: PROJECTING & HURLING ACCUSATIONS

After the relationship is over
or When they are Exposed

Cyberpaths project their faults and failings onto their victims (bad character flaws/deeds) , but they also project their feelings, and beliefs onto the victim also.

These beliefs the Cyberpath hold could be about themselves, the victim or others.

You can think of "projection" as the Cyberpath posing in the image of your face, they are projecting (throwing) all those bad flaws, deeds and beliefs about themselves unto you.

These feelings or beliefs might be positive ones or negative ones.

Positive Projection

Projecting positive things onto the victim he is using her as a mirror so the good deeds are "reflected" back unto him. Making him appear as the one who is marvellous, grand, worthy etc (his grandiose false image)

Negative Projection

Same thing - The Cyberpath projects his bad deeds, habits, thoughts and belief onto the mirror (The Victim) in order to make her appear that she is at fault and these "Negative things" are hers and not his.


Whilst doing this, the Cyberpath is in effect using the victim as a dumping ground. (Almost everything that has happened to the Cyberpath, including his own mistakes - is blamed on the victim.)

Slandering The Victim

When Cyberpaths slander their victims , they have two objectives. One is projection and the other is to "dirty a bright spot in your character" with whatever slander they are projecting at you. It's as though any shine on your image diminishes the glow of their glory.

This is of course the mentality of the rapist, who must tear others "down off that pedestal"

Projection and smearing at the same time isn't hard for the Cyberpath, in fact it's uncanny how Cyberpaths manage to accomplish it. It's all in the way they word their "line" on you. They are glib and amazingly adept at "killing two birds with one stone"

They not only ditch one of their faults, they muddy one of your virtues in the process.

Note: In doing this, the Cyberpath isn't attacking your faults and shortcomings, he is attacking your virtues and accomplishments. Consequently when he is conducting a campaign of character assassination against someone, the arrows he shoots never hit one of that person's real flaws

The Cyberpaths False image contains the virtuous qualities in other people's characters , and their images have had those virtuous qualities replaces with the flaws in the Cyberpaths character. In other words, the Cyberpath steals your virtues and dumps on you his faults.

In doing so, the Cyberpath is stealing your identity, pulling an identity switch with you, piecemeal.

It's kind of magical , an illusion created with nothing but words, which can warp perceptions by making anything of anything. For example: let's say that the Cyberpath is stingy and that one of your virtues is that you are outstanding for you generosity. He hates the glow of that shiny spot in your character, because it serves as foil to his stinginess, making it more noticeable by contrast. So he muddies your image and glorifies his image by misappropriating your generosity to himself and misappropriating his stinginess in you.

How? he goes around lying about how much she gives to charity and about helping people out all the time. More important (since one must be careful and subtle about boasting) , he just makes everything she does sound generous. He also goes around telling lying stories about you , stories that you are "stingy". More important, he makes everything you do sound stingy, however generous it manifestly is.

Normal people do not project. They may sometimes smear, but not in such a calculated , manipulative fashion.


Normal People Vs The Cyberpath

Normal people - Project when put on the defensive

Cyberpaths - Project in unprovoked attacks


Normal people don't smear themselves off on just anyone. They wouldn't dream of harming those near and dear. Or those they 'need'.

Cyberpaths see people as objects and nothing more, so they smear people off to anyone who will listen as thoughtlessly as we smear ourselves on a towel. For no other reason than to cause pain.


Normal people are likely to shake themselves off on whoever happens to be near at the moment. So they sometimes project a flaw off onto someone who actually has it.

Cyberpaths project ironically, accusing those with the corresponding virtue of a vice


Normal people stick to slander (which has some degree of truth to it) rarely engaging in calumny (lies) when they do calumniate someone, they at least have a natural reason for animosity toward the target.

Cyberpaths are perverted, there is no natural reason for what they do, they do it because they want to and because they can.


Normal people who do calumniate someone, they don't go hog-wild and calumniate that person so badly and so widely as to destroy them and ruin their whole lives.

Cyberpaths go hog wild , they are mental children and therefore as dangerous with their mouths as an angry five-year old with an assault weapon. Often, once exposed, they will often publish blogs or make posts on sites about how bad or dangerous the victim is. They accomplish this by rewriting and tweaking history to view them as the victim.

The Cyberpath is likely to smear off on someone he owes gratitude to, because needing help damages his image. He repays help as thought it were an insult , a threat. He must devalue it by devaluing the giver of it, as if such a contemptible person is incapable of really helping someone as grand as he.

Normal people don't do it because damaging others makes them feel good. In fact, doing this makes a normal person feel ashamed. But it makes a Cyberpath feel grand.

When it's fully conscious calumny a Cyberpath is spreading , he just thinks it's funny that people are such idiots that he can get away with it, feeding them ridiculous lines about others. Lines that are preposterous in the light of the target's known conduct. Cyberpaths will all let it be known at one time or another that they had nothing but contempt for the people who believed them. A Cyberpath views his success at lying as proof that he is brilliant and that all mere mortals are as stupid as sticks.

Cyberpaths are not projecting guilt so much as they're projecting shame. In fact, it may well be that they have no concept of guilt and have it confused with shame. Which is pain. So this wicked behaviour is a way to ditch their pain onto you. It's a psychological painkiller, a drug, and that's why causing you pain makes him feel good.


Here is an example of a famous smear that illustrates how it works.

The first thing people noticed about Jesus of Nazareth was that, unlike the other prophets, he spoke on his own authority, appealing only to logic, and never prefaced his teaching with "God says...." This is but one of many example of his exceptional care to avoid blasphemy. He went way beyond custom in this regards. His tremendous reverence for the name of God was his most glaring virtue, but he put everyone , including the prophets, to shame in this.

Okay, so , if you or I wanted to smear Jesus, blasphemy would be the last thing we'd accuse him of, right? Because that accusation would be laughed at as a joke.

Or would it?

Well, whether people would get the joke or not, we're normal, so we'd accuse him of something believable, like being a drunk or something. But that isn't the way a Cyberpath thinks.

The narcissistic in the Sanhedrin who plotted against Jesus went right for that greatest shining virtue of his in leveling the charge of blasphemy against him. They just had to muddy it o'er.

Unbelievable. Yet the people believed it!

And consider the source of this accusation. Look who's accusing him of blasphemy. The Sanhedrin, blasphemously acting in the name of God.

In other words, in the very act, they were projecting the blot of their sin onto his outstanding virtue.

Unbelievable. Yet the people believed it.

Near the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition, a Spanish archbishop or cardinal (whose name I forget) remarked that the accusations leveled by the Inquisition were so widely believed because people are much readier to believe the unbelievable than the obvious. He said a mouthful.

Cyberpaths are projection machines, I am convinced that projection is a knee -jerk reflex in them. That is, whenever a moment of self-awareness threatens to let them know a flaw in their character they're revealing or some bad deed they are doing, they instantly go into denial about it (Repressing conscience of shame) by projecting the semblance of that flaw or misdeed off onto the handiest scapegoat- usually the very victim of whatever abuse they are dishing out.

How's that for maximum irony? Hence, while hurling a hailstorm of wild accusations at you, you can count off one of them being that you are hurling wild accusations at them. Every single time. They can't help it. I think they have been twisting their thinking for so long (since early childhood) that twisted thinking is hard-wired into their brains. I think projection is such an ingrained habit in them that often they're unaware they are doing it at times.

Projection is such a reflex in them that they give themselves away by some of the accusation they hurl. For example, if a Cyberpath says he fear you might attack him physically, look out" he is at least pondering whether to attack you physically. If he says he fears you might get into his bank account or spend his money, know that he is at least pondering getting into yours and spending your money. Every single time!

Cyberpaths are not the only people who project. But they are different in that they have done it so much for so long that they do it like a machine - automatically, every single time. They rarely hit one of target's real faults. Instead the accusation is a joke, smearing one of that person's virtues as a vice.

taken from the work of Kathy Krajco

(written in about the male-gender your Cyberpath may well be female)

The 7 Deadliest Social Networking Hacks

Think you know who your real online friends are? You could be just a few hops away from a cybercriminal in today's social networks

By Kelly Jackson Higgins

It started with a stolen Facebook photo attached to an inflammatory profile. It led to online harassment, death threats, and emails to the victim’s boss questioning the victim’s character. But an online personal attack against Graham Cluley earlier this year is one example of how easy it is to use a social network to damage the identity of an individual -- or an entire company.

Cluley’s case shows just how rapidly social networks can spread a smear campaign or personal attack -- and how it can quickly spread to the victim’s professional life. Cluley, who is a senior technology consultant with Sophos, recently met another victim who experienced a similar attack on Facebook, Kerry Harvey. He says it was apparently an acquaintance of Harvey’s who built a phony Kerry Harvey Facebook profile that branded her occupation as a “prostitute,” complete with her cellphone number.

Could such a thing happen to you or employees at your company? You bet. Social networks are the next major attack venue for trolls, spammers, bot herders, cybercriminals, corporate spies -- and even jilted ex-lovers or enemies -- to make money, or just plain wreak havoc on their victims’ personal lives, security experts say.

“It's the easiest way to passively gain intelligence on the largest groups of society and nearly every walk of life,” says Robert Hansen, aka RSnake, founder of SecTheory LLC.

The root of the problem is that social networking sites by nature aren't secure. They typically don’t authenticate new members -- you can’t always be sure that your online friend is who she says she is -- and attackers can easily exploit and capitalize on the “trusted” culture within the social network. Users often don't deploy the security and privacy options that some of these sites offer, either.

Social networking application development tools like OpenSocial and third-party tools on Facebook, for example, can be abused by attackers to readily spread malware or lift personal information. There’s also the very real risk of corporate espionage, with attackers culling tidbits from personal or professional social net profiles to wage targeted attacks on businesses via their employees. And popular Web attacks, like cross-site scripting, can also be used against members of social networks.

And don’t think for a minute that your “private” or closed profile keeps you safe from an attack or potential personal embarrassment, either. “There is no such thing as privacy on the Internet,” says Adam O’Donnell, director of emerging technologies for Cloudmark. “You are only delaying the inevitable information leakage for any content you put online. My recommendation is to treat the Internet as if all content there lasts forever.”

Attacks on social networking sites have only just begun, so think twice before you get too personal with what you post on them, or too loose about accepting and trusting new friends and connections.

“You’re only going to see these attacks on social networks go up,” says researcher Nathan Hamiel, who along with colleague Shawn Moyer recently conducted some relatively simple but scary hacks recently on various social networks that they demonstrated at Black Hat USA and Defcon 16 this month. “We’ve noticed some weird social networking attacks since we did our talk” at those hacker conferences, he says.

Here's a look at the seven most lethal social networks hacks:

* 1) Impersonation and targeted personal attacks

* 2) Spam and bot infections

* 3) Weaponized OpenSocial and other social networking applications

* 4) Crossover of personal to professional online presence

* 5) XSS, CSRF attacks

* 6) Identity theft

* 7) Corporate espionage

1) Impersonation and targeted personal attacks
You’d think security experts would be relatively immune from social networking hacks since, well, they’re security experts. But a recent wave of nasty hacks targeting security industry figures such as Alan Shimel of StillSecure and Petko Petkov of GNUCitizen, where their personal email accounts and other private data were raided and posted on the Net, have demonstrated that a determined attacker can even get to the experts.

Putting yourself “out there” with a social network presence basically leaves you open for all kinds of attacks, even personal ones. Just ask Sophos’s Cluley, who faced hate messages, death threats to his wife, and his photo being superimposed on some pornographic images after his Facebook photo hack. “They didn’t use my name,” he says, but all it took was someone to recognize his face.

Twitter, the microblogging site where members post quick updates on what they’re doing or comments to multiple “followers,” introduces a whole other element to social networking security -- physical security, experts say. “I never talk about where I am, who I'm with, where I'm going, or any other specific details,” RSnake says. “But that doesn't stop anyone else who knows that same information from doing that behind my back - maliciously or not.”

Sophos’s Cluley says posting too much information on Twitter, such as your whereabouts or trip plans, leave you wide open to things like burglary or stalking. “Twitter is a fascinating thing. To be honest, it could lead to all sorts of physical problems, such as physical theft…or jealous ex’s” tracking what their ex is up to, says Cluley, who “tweets” his blog titles. “When I post to my blog, I’m not saying ‘I’m at the supermarket.’ First of all, who cares? I much prefer to wait until I get back” from the store to say what I’m doing, he says.

And as Hamiel and Moyer demonstrated at Black Hat USA and Defcon 16, you don’t even have to have a social networking profile to be targeted. The two researchers were able to easily impersonate security icon Marcus Ranum (with his permission) on LinkedIn, the social network for businesspeople. Ranum doesn’t have an account, so the two basically lifted Ranum’s photo off the Internet and gathered information on him online and built a convincing phony Ranum profile. (See LinkedIn Hack Demonstrates Ease of Impersonation.)

They channeled Ranum so well that they amassed 42 LinkedIn connections within 12 hour, even duping Ranum’s own sister into friending the phony Ranum profile.

2) Spam or bot infections
Spammers -- for plain old advertising, click fraud, or for bot recruitment -- need mechanisms that efficiently and effectively deliver and spread their messages, malware, or both. And attackers have already honed in on the social networking community, hijacking accounts and using their address books to spread spam, worms, or other malware.

“We’re seeing more and more malware via spam and links in spam. We’re seeing this with malware text on Facebook and Twitter that’s designed to draw people to particular pages,” Sophos’s Cluley says.

Most recently, attackers hijacked some Facebook accounts, and posing as members sent messages to their friends to dupe them into viewing a video clip link, which instead was actually a Trojan that silently downloaded malware onto their machine once they opened the link.

A recent report by ScanSafe found that in July, up to one in 600 profile pages on social-networking sites hosted some form of malware, mostly adware and spyware.

3) Weaponized OpenSocial and other social networking applications
Users often don’t think anything of installing an application in their browser. “But these applications can all have the same levels of access to their system, and some of the most private information is often [stored] in the browser, so it can be more dangerous,” Moyer says. “It blows my mind how people can think that downloading [these applications] is not as bad” as downloading some application to their system.

That makes third-party application services like OpenSocial a dangerously handy tool for attackers. “The addition of the third-party application service also allows for another avenue for code-based attacks to occur,” Cloudmark’s O’Donnell says.

It’s not that all of the developers of those social networking virtual kisses, secret crushes, or birthday reminder widgets are necessarily malicious. OpenSocial, for example, offers an option for writers of these tools to limit malicious JavaScript in these applications, but inexperienced developers typically don’t bother or know to use these measures, O'Donnell says.

“These are opt-in only, and a limited number of developers use the tools. What ends up happening is that developers with a limited amount of security-sensitive development experience create these applications that spread like wildfire, allowing a new vector for infection on many profiles -- and by infection, I primarily mean attacks focused inside the social network,” O’Donnell says.

Users don’t always realize that the third-party widgets for Facebook, for example, weren’t written by Facebook. Some have holes that collect more information on users than necessary or safe, and others have been written specifically to install adware or generate revenue. “To their credit, Facebook has closed down some of these apps that behaved inappropriately,” Sophos’ Cluley notes.

A rogue application called “Secret Crush” was circulating around Facebook earlier this year, spreading spyware instead of love. (See 'Secret Crush' Spreads Spyware, Not Love.) It sent victims an invitation to find out who has a secret "crush" on him or her, and lured them into installing and running the Secret Crush app, which spread spyware via an iFrame. The attack got more advanced and worm-like when it required the victim to invite at least five friends before learning who their “crush” was.

“They [these sites] are basically under constant attack,” Moyer says. “We think a lot of the Web 2.0 problems [with these sites] are more about how much trust is being placed on the client side.”

4) Crossover of personal to professional online presence
Even if you keep a MySpace account for personal use, and a LinkedIn one for professional networking, there’s no guarantee that those late-night partying pictures aren’t going to end up in front of your colleagues on LinkedIn, or worse, your boss.

“Consider everything on a social network to be public, whether it’s private photos or work history,” Hamiel says. “You can’t stop a ‘friend’ from copying your stuff and putting it wherever” they want.

There are some measures social networkers can take to prevent the details of their social and personal lives from spilling over to their professional ones. Cloudmark’s O’Donnell says he doesn’t bother with separate personal and professional social networking accounts: “For me I find it far easier to not keep them separate, and to present a professional face on both my personal and my professional profiles."

You can set up “limited” profiles on sites like Facebook. “I can add someone as a limited friend, and they don’t know they’re limited. They can’t see my holiday photos,” for instance, Sophos’s Cluley says. That way, “I’ve really tied down and parceled up what I want as my real close friends” on the site.

There are also privacy settings that can control what information you share with others on the social network, and what information Facebook apps can get and share about your profile.

5) XSS, CSRF attacks
Cross-site scripting (XSS) and cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities are obvious attack vectors, and some social networking worms have used XSS flaws to help propagate themselves. But most social networks have tightened their defenses against XSS attacks, security experts say, and CSRF attacks are not yet common.

XSS and CSRF do pose a big risk to these sites, especially when it comes to social networking applications, experts say. In an XSS attack, malicious code is injected into vulnerable Web applications and users who view those pages can get hacked. In a CSRF attack, an attacker basically tricks the victim's browser into making a request on his behalf -- as the logged-in user.

“Anytime [that] you, an attacker, can force a user to load HTML, the potential is there for browser exploits, botnet infections, and account manipulation via XSS/CSRF,” says HD Moore, director of security research for BreakingPoint Systems.

A CSRF attack could potentially jump and spread across multiple social networking sites that the user is logged onto -- effectively spreading the attack from one social network to another. It could, for example, force a victim viewing a CSRF-infected page on MySpace to post something on his own wall on Facebook if the wall-posting function was vulnerable. “I think [CSRF] certainly is one useful vector that's being overlooked now,” Moyer says.

Meanwhile, with the openness of social networks, attackers don’t really need to bother with complicated XSS or CSRF attacks. “But if you [the attacker] combine attack vectors, you could be a lot more effective. We think as long as [social networks] allow users to create markup in profiles and comments and link to external content, this will continue to be a problem,” Moyer says.

6) Identity theft
A social network profile can give away some valuable tidbits –- victim’s name and date of birth –- that identity thieves can use to guess passwords or impersonate them, and even eventually steal their identity, some security experts say.

But that doesn’t mean that identity thieves are crawling all over social networks, Hamiel says. “I just think that the claims that social networks are an identity theft magnet are overblown."

Social networkers sometimes inadvertently hand over the goods themselves: In a study Sophos conducted over a year ago, about 41 percent of Facebook users in the study gave out their email address, date of birth, and phone number to someone they didn’t know.

One safety tip for social networkers is not to answer all the questions posed to them by the site, and don't provide your true date of birth, Sophos's Cluley says. “You don’t need to tell Facebook your educational background, your phone number, etc. You don’t even have to tell them your real date of birth,” he says. “I want the identity thief to get the wrong date of birth.”

You can even make up a phony maiden name for your mother. “Don’t make it something that’s a matter of public record,” he says.

Even so, social networks basically tap into human nature’s innate need to socialize, and the bad guys know it. “People aren't very good at security,” RSnake says. “We were built to work in teams, we're pack animals.”
7) Corporate espionage
Even if an employer blocks access to social networks from the office, the organization still could be susceptible to corporate espionage attacks via its employees’ personal profiles.

To pull off a spear phishing attack, for example, all an attacker has to do is search for Company A’s employees on a social networking site and then pose as someone within the organization -- such as the head of human resources -- and email the employee addresses he finds, for example. A phony HR spear phish could look something like this, Sophos’s Cluley says: “Dear Fred Jones, Congratulations on joining XYZ Company. Click on this link to access our HR Intranet and then log in with your regular network username and password so we can update our files.”

A newbie to the company could easily fall for the ploy and hand over access to the corporate network, he says.

The only shot at preventing this hack is for social networkers to limit what they post publicly and to keep their employer’s name out of their profile. “Keeping the name of your employer... far away from your personal profiles can reduce the chance that someone will target your employer through you,” BreakingPoint’s Moore says. “The trouble is that even with completely separate personal and professional identities, it only takes one scrap of public information linking the two to negate all of the time that went into separating them in the first place.”

That’s because the “six degrees of separation” rule applies on most social networks: You’re only a few hops away from a bad guy. “We know that there are bad people on these networks using them to steal information,” Cluley says. “You may be only a half a dozen hops from an identity thief if we’re all connected.”

Responses to: editors@darkreading.com

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Many thanks to support group member, Gypsy for this gem!

Technology Used by Criminals to Track or Find Victims

by Tom Smith

Instead of lurking in bushes or hiding in the shadows outside of homes, stalkers have gone high-tech, using cell phones, computers and the Internet to hunt and track their victims.

"I know of some cases where people were stalked by e-mail or through Facebook or another social networking site," said Bryan Oakley, an agent with the FBI's Huntsville office who specializes in Internet crime.

He said technology is so advanced that tracking software can be added to telephones, cell phones or laptop computers.

"(Cyberstalking) is something that five years ago would be difficult to do, but there are more people using technology every day," Oakley said. "A lot of people use Twitter or Facebook to file what they are doing and where they are doing it, every minute of the day.

"People put out information about where they're traveling, where they work, pictures of their car, their friends, or themselves. They put out all the information someone stalking another person would need to know."

According to statistics released by the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), in Washington D.C., there are 3.4 million stalking victims each year. Of those, one in four victims said they have experienced a form of cyberstalking.

Alexis Moore said most people are naive about the problem.

"They have the mindset of 'it's not going to happen to me.' It does; it happened to me," said Moore, a California resident who was stalked by a former intimate friend.

"He was opening and closing my bank accounts," she said. "He never went as far as stealing from me, but I was not able to cash a check because he was making it where I was overdrawn all the time," she said. "He was going online, paying my bills on my accounts with money I didn't have, trying to ruin my credit."

She said the actions were not classified as crimes, but it was a nuisance.

"I never thought something like this would happen to me," Moore said.

To put a stop to the problem, Moore "shut down everything and lived off cash for a while."

"It was a sinister game to him, just trying to drive me crazy," she said.

Phil Bridgemon, instructor and chairman of the Criminal Justice Department at the University of North Alabama, said cyberstalking is the new wave of crime.

"People need to take this very seriously," he said. "Knowing this should cause everyone who uses a computer to manage their online identity better and more closely. There are no secrets; there is no modesty."

He said would-be stalkers search social networking sites, profiling people in hopes of finding a victim.

Katherine Hull, vice president of communications for RAINN, said people need to be aware of what they are putting online.

"People get online, and they think their activity is anonymous, but it isn't," she said. "They post things, get in a chat room and say something that leaves themselves wide open to becoming a victim of cyberstalking.

"Technology is a wonderful thing, but it opens us up to be vulnerable."

Bridgemon agrees.

"Because of the information that we put out there on the Internet, stalkers can follow someone around and never leave their home," he said.

Parry Aftab, a spokeswoman for Wired Safety, an online safety group, said people need to be taught digital hygiene.

"They have to be taught how to use the Internet and social networking systems in a safe manner," she said. "Unfortunately, that's something that people never think of before it's too late.

"Not only do they not see this coming, but they don't know they need to see it coming," Aftab said.

"We have got to do a better job in educating the public about this growing problem."

Michelle Collins, an official with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said her agency has had a cyber tip line for 12 years in an effort to learn more about cyber crimes.

"Last year, we received 120,000 calls," Collins said. "Many of those were about cyberstalking."

She said cyberstalking often leads to physical assaults.

Collins said there was an incident in Wyoming where an ex-boyfriend put a posting online claiming his ex-girlfriend had a rape fantasy and needed people who would fulfill that fantasy.

"They actually showed up at her house and raped her," Collins said.

Franklin County District Attorney Joey Rushing said there is no one definition of a cyberstalker.

"They come in all shapes, sizes, ages and backgrounds," he said. "They patrol Web sites looking for an opportunity to take advantage of people."

He said in Alabama cyberstalking falls under the stalking law, which is a felony.

Sheffield Police Chief Greg Ray said a few years ago his department worked on cybercrimes trying to catch people who were using the Internet to prey on underage girls. He said in setting up sting operations, three people, two from other states, were arrested.

"What they were doing was basically stalking these children or the profiles of these children," Ray said.

Hull said RAINN tries to stress the importance of being careful with information put on the Internet.

"We are living in an age where people are living a vast part of their lives online. That's why we encourage folks to think twice about what kind of information they put on the Internet," Hull said.

"Criminals take advantage of any tools they can, and (the Internet) is just another new tool at their disposal," Oakley said.

Moore said there have already been too many victims of cyberstalking.

"It's an invisible crime, one where the victim is usually not beat up or one where we can see the criminal," Moore said. "The answer is education, starting at the younger ages, teaching school-age children how to use technology the right way - the safe way."

original article here

ONLINE ATTACKS

by Robin M.

Why So Many Feel Big When They Hide Behind A Screen

I’ve often joked that the internet is the last place that beating up women in public is still considered acceptable. Ask any woman who writes online, be it politics, women’s rights, often even parenting and more mundane social issues, and you will hear a nearly universal admittance that she has at some point been attacked for her views by at least one anonymous commenter. Not an “I disagree with you because x, y,z…” response, but a “You stupid bitch, why do you think you can write what you write.”

I used to be amazed by the vitriol. Then I was saddened. Eventually, though, I saw that as just another part of the territory when you open yourself up as a writer online.

I accepted it. We all pretty much accept it. That is the part that should make us all angry — our now inherent acceptance of the idea that if you write online, you will be harassed, especially if you are a woman.

As Nina Funell explains in this piece in the Australian, “The internet has absolutely changed the nature of public debate. The anonymity and the immediacy it gives people who want to indulge in abuse and hate… I don’t know if it actually makes it more or less dangerous [to have a public profile] but when you’re seeing a whole heap of hate speech written about you in separate forums, targeting you via email or in comments, I do know that it has a profound impact on your sense of safety…”

I’ve always been lucky to feel safe, despite opening a great deal of my private life online because of my writing about infertility and reproductive health. Although I have had my own share of comments, both with real names (I assume) attached or sent anonymously, I have learned to ignore them as simply a part of my work. I never stop to question why it should ever be a part of anyone’s “work” to deal with online harassment.

Once, things escalated beyond just comments and insults. It was a shocking realization of not just how exposed you actually do leave yourself online, but how free those who disagree with you feel it is allowable to step beyond the normal bounds of public and private life in order to “teach you a lesson” about how wrong you are about the things you believe.

I learned my lesson well. I learned that to allow someone to silence you online is to lose your power, and that when your personal life goes on line, you don’t go quiet, you identify it for what it is — an attack by someone who wants to intimidate you from acting on your beliefs. You must learn to change that attack into something that can become a positive for you, a chance to show your strength, expand your audience, whatever it is that they are trying to stop you from accomplishing.

The internet may always be the last place for attacks, especially attacks on women, to thrive. But we don’t have to accept it, we have to fight it.

original article here

Revenge Porn Website IsAnyoneUp.com Shut Down

by Lee Moran

A 'revenge porn' website has been shut down after it was bought by an anti-bullying group - but eyebrows have been raised as the new owner runs a remarkably similar service. Hunter Moore, 26, this week sold IsAnyoneUp.com - where people were encouraged to send in intimate pictures of their exes - to Bullyville.com for an undisclosed fee. He said he cut the deal to 'stand up for under-age bullying', with its new patrons saying the controversial site 'served no public good' and 'that is why it's offline'.

But Bullyville's founder James McGibney is under fire for his affiliated Cheaterville.com site - where people are asked to post photos of people 'who have wronged them'. This is because there is little way of confirming concretely that each of the hundreds of submissions have indeed been unfaithful, or whether the posting is part of a bullying vendetta.

Moore earned up to $20,000 each month from his site, run by a team of four, that attracted more than 300,000 hits each day and became popular across the world. It would see subscribers publishing their ex-partner's pictures, their full name and links to the social networking sites - all without their permission.

They would then inevitably be ridiculed and often forced to shut down their profiles. Initially, the site was set up to sell merchandise and promote music club nights. But, in a letter detailing his decision to sell the firm, he revealed he struggled to make ends meet and turned to porn to make money.

IsAnyoneUp.com: The now defunct website encouraged people to send in intimate pictures of their exes, adding their full name and links to social networking profiles. Was threatened with legal action 'countless times' as photographs were put up without subject's permission. Facebook also tried to sure for 'taking pictures' from the site. Bullyville.com: A free service that aims to beat bullying. Professionals and celebrities provide advice and give victims 'the confidence to leave your anger behind'. People invited to 'turn experiences around, learn from each other and heed advice from experts' who can give help you to put the pieces of life back together.

CheaterVille.com: Says it provides a public service by warning people about 'narcissistic and predatory individuals who use online dating sites to find innocent victims'. But critics say it is impossible to concretely confirm whether the people submitted are genuinely cheaters or whether their name has been added as part of a vendetta. He wrote: 'The bills were getting too insane and I had to turn to the porn game for extra money but it’s too shady and, in my opinion, it ruined the site.' Constantly threatened with legal action by people whose pictures appeared, he was also warned by Facebook because many of the photographs were lifted from the site. He reportedly ignored a cease and desist letter from the web giant, and said he sent the social networking site's lawyers a picture of his genitals in reply. The purchased domain now redirects straight to the Bullyville site, where letters from Moore and McGibney have been posted.

Moore wrote: 'Running this site has been an uphill battle to say the least. 'From the server company's bills to the lawyers taking people's money promising they could get your images down to Facebook, PayPal, Live Nation, A Day to Remember and the countless others who tried to shut me down, beat me up or the girl who stabbed me and yet we are still here. 'The site was a blessing for me and still is, but I am burned out and I honestly can’t take another underage kid getting submitted and having to go through the process of reporting it and dealing with all the legal drama of that situation.' McGibney said he 'commended' Moore for 'having the courage to write this letter, knowing that he’s going to face a massive amount of negativity for doing so.' He said: 'I’ve known Hunter for quite some time now, and the fact of the matter is that he’s a very smart guy. While he has been misguided, he is very astute and socially observant.'

Advice: Bullyville exists, it says, to help victims turn their lives around with the help of celebrities and experts 'His ability to not only capture the attention of young people, but to spur them into action as well, is truly unique in an era where social media makes it so easy to be a passive consumer of information. 'After spending some time with him, Hunter realized that Isanyoneup.com became the same exact bullying he created the site to retaliate against.' Addressing the concerns raised over Cheaterville he added: '[It] is constantly accused of bullying. I disagree, as do the millions of people who use its free service. 'CheaterVille.com provides a public service to people by warning them about the narcissistic and predatory individuals who use online dating sites to find innocent victims. 'The dating market is a marketplace like any other, and it is improved by information - including data on people who claim they are single when they are in fact married, have kids, or in some instances, conceals an STD. 'I’m sure I will have to deal with public blowback just as much as Hunter will. But, I can sum up this ordeal quite simply: IsAnyoneUp.com served no public good. That is why it is offline.'

Moore said he was now launching a new project called wepartyforacause.net which would see parties organised 'to benefit different charities'. He added: 'These will be some of the largest and craziest parties you will ever see with a percentage of earnings going to a range of causes.'

original article found here

The Poor 'Cyberpath' Feels Threatened

by Kathy Krajco

(We have replaced the word 'narcissist' with Cyberpath, since a Cyberpath is usually a destructive narcissist; among other things - EOPC)



Let's take a look at this line that cyberpaths aren't really bad, that they lash out at you because they feel "threatened."

This idea begs the question "Threatened in what way?" and "Threatened by what?"

If you're the victim of a cyberpath, you know that this "threatened" excuse is a farce, because the cyberpath attacks precisely when you are anti-threatening him or her. Like when you are trying please them, when you are saying you love them, when they are already mad at you and you are trying to appease them, when you try to get them to listen to you.

WHAM – you expect the normal reaction to these friendly behaviors, but what do you get instead? The PERVERTED reaction of an attack. It's a shock tactic that takes you aback and makes you have to pinch yourself.

What on earth have you done to "threaten" the poor cyberpath?

Let's look at the last example – trying to get him to listen to you.

By doing that, you ARE "threatening" him, I'm afraid. Yes.

Correction: No, you are not threatening him; you are threatening the imaginary him, the bogus "him." You're threatening his delusions of grandeur.

ANY honesty or reality does. Remember that he is a mental child playing Pretend, and she wants all his 'playmates' to play along. That means you are supposed to follow his script. You are supposed to act unworthy of her attention or regard. When you don't play that part, he stomps her little foot at you and gets mad, throwing a temper tantrum to be so obnoxious that you give in and do what he wants.

In his self-deluding game of Let's Play Pretend, he is so far superior to you that you are beneath his notice, at the relative level of some worm or bug with respect to him. He's something divine; he should look down his nose in contempt at you.

And, you had better act the part or he will go off at you. But here you are, acting like he owes you his attention. In other words, you're acting like God Almighty's equal.

Oh, how horrible an insult to God Almighty!!! Shame on you! You - a mere bug, a mere worm - are "threatening" her majesty by treating him as your equal! Quit "threatening" his delusions of divinity, you mean and naughty person.

The same is true for the example of telling him you love him, for in a profession of love is an implicit call for love in return. Oh, what a horrible attack on his godhead with respect to a mere bug, a mere worm like you! You are treating him as your equal. What an insult!


So, don't let the addle-headed know-it-alls confuse you. You are not threatening the poor cyberpath. The cyberpath is just a pervert = someone who perverts the course of logic to pervert reality. Hence, he pervertedly views love or affection or any call for engagement from him as its very opposite = a "threat."

His Perverted Thinking Machine is not your fault or your problem. It's his fault and his problem. He is not really threatened by you acting like his equal.

In other words, he isn't fighting back against any injury or threat: he is just an aggressor targeting vulnerable prey. That is, he's abusing you to feed his ego.

To blame you for what he does to you, by saying that that you are thus "threatening" him, is as crazy as it would be to blame a lamb for "threatening" a wolf by running away when the hungry wolf feels a need to eat said lamb.

But the so-called experts cannot seem to get it through their thick heads that there is a fundamental difference between fighting others and eating them – between fighting and predation. Though they Play Pretend that they are the only ones qualified to express an opinion on the matter, they are actually the least knowledgeable and qualified, because they know nothing but what they have read in speculative essays by others just as ignorant and whatever lines cyberpaths on their couches have fed these collective speculators. Both individually and collectively they have almost no experience with real cyberpaths, let alone any real-world experience with them. And they haven't even solicited information from victims of cyberpaths. So, how could they possibly know what they are talking about?

Trust your own observations. Reason from facts to conclusions, not backwards, and you will learn what you need to know.

All animals occasionally fight others (including others of their own species) when those others cross boundaries to threaten their interests in some way. You can tell when this is the motive, because the moment the aggressor backs off the fighting stops, and everybody's cool again.


Why? Because when you feel threatened, your motive is to repulse the threat = self-defense. Once you have accomplished that mission, you are done.

But when your motive is to destroy the other, the other party backing down or trying to appease you has the opposite effect. Then it's a sign of weakness that just emboldens the attacker to pour on the attack more furiously than ever.

That's why when an animal attacks to eat another, it doesn't stop till it has ripped that other to shreds. That's what human predators (like psychopaths and other narcissists) do to their prey, as well.

The only way to avoid "threatening" these perverts is to just get and stay far away from them.

ORIGINAL: The Poor Narcissist Feels Threatened

(while this article uses the male gender - your cyberpath can be female)