CYBER AFFAIRS

Cyber affairs are the ‘flavor of the day’ when it comes to infidelity and extramarital affairs. The internet now ties with the workplace as the leading place for cheaters of both sexes to find willing partners with whom to have extramarital affairs. It has removed most of the risks associated with cheating on your mate.

Gone are the days when a would-be-cheater had to physically leave home to seek out someone with whom to have an affair. Now it can all be done in cyberspace without the risk of running into family members, nosy neighbors, or inquisitive friends and workmates. With a few clicks of the mouse, a potential cheater has instant access to an endless array of willing partners. A cyber affair can be easily initiated and conducted from the privacy of your home, with your unsuspecting spouse or significant other in the same room, oblivious to what is going on.

Is a Cyber Affair Cheating?
Cyber affairs are actually a form of emotional infidelity. Although in the early stages, there’s no sex involved, most emotional infidelity eventually leads to sexual infidelity if left unchecked . But men and women view cyber affairs very differently.

Most men don’t consider cyber affairs as cheating. However women view them quite differently. A survey in Divorce Magazine found that only 46 percent of men considered intense internet relationships to be infidelity, compared to 72 percent of women.


Are Cyber Affairs Serious?
Many people question whether or not cyber affairs should be taken seriously -- especially, if there’s no sex involved. A cyber affair is a VERY serious threat. A cyber affair should be treated as seriously as a sexual affair, because left unchecked, that’s where it will eventually end up.

In the past 10 years, divorce attorneys have reported seeing an increase in divorces and separations resulting from cyber infidelity. According to the Fortino Group, one-third of divorce litigation is caused by online affairs.

It doesn’t take much for a cyber affair to make the transition from cyberspace to the real world. Several studies have found close connections between cyber affairs and subsequent sexual affairs.

• According to statistics, 50% of people who engage in internet chats have made phone contact with someone they chatted with online.

• One study found that 30 % of cyber-affairs escalate from e-mail to telephone calls to personal contact.

• Another study found that 31% of people had an online conversation which eventually led to real-time sex.

So don’t make the mistake of underestimating a cyber affair.

Signs of a Cyber Affair
How can you tell if your partner is having a cyber affair? Telltale signs of a cyber affair include sitting at the computer into the wee hours of the night, heading for the computer first thing in the morning, insisting on privacy when surfing the Net, moving the computer into a a locked office or more private area of the home, constantly changing passwords, and other suspicious behavior.

Regardless of the term you use -- cyber cheating, cyber affairs, online affairs or internet affairs, it’s a variation of emotional infidelity and should never be taken lightly.

A Fool Proof Test
People will often try to justify a cyber affair by calling it a harmless online friendship. If your partner tries to make light of your concern, or accuses you of making a big deal about nothing, there’s one way to find out for sure.

If the internet friendship is as harmless, or as innocent as your partner claims it to be, then he should have no problem with you sitting beside him, observing the exchange of correspondence back and forth. If he’s unwilling to do that, then you have your answer as to whether or not his online friendship is as harmless as he would have you believe. Safeguard your relationship by taking positive action before it’s too late.


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"Find Your Perfect NIGHTMARE Online"

"Find Your Perfect Date at Match.com", reads this online dating service's current banner ad. "Find a Nightmare", reads the banner ad attached to the inside of my skull. Because online dating, at least in my experience, is one of the unfunniest jokes around.

What am I ranting about? Well, the six months that I spent on Match.com, and the 120 dollars I coughed up were complete wastes of time and money.

I first joined Match.com because it seemed to have the biggest database, and its friendly, photo-driven database let me actually look at the people I was sending e-mail to. Unfortunately, the database underwent a complete restructuring shortly after I joined, destoying several evening's worth of work creating an an earnest, heartfelt personal profile. So I had to painstakingly re-enter all this information.

After re-building my personal information, reconstructing my personal search criteria, and uploading a new picture of myself, I waited patiently for some incoming e-mail to arrive. After two weeks had gone by, with nary a response, I went on the offensive, and started to actively search for women matching my criteria (heavy-smoking divorced caucasion atheists).

I quickly found that there were forty-one of these people within a 50 mile radius of my location. Because I don't believe that love is blind, I narrowed my search criteria to the twenty-five who had actually uploaded pictures of themselves, and immediately screened out another seven for being butt-ugly. That left me with eighteen, so I composed one heartfelt, sincere, earnest e-mail, and sent the same message to the group using a "blind copy BCC".
Five women of the eighteen replied, and over the next several weeks, I began trading e-mails with three of them. Here is a brief summary of the resulting encounters.

Date 1: A Candle-Lit Dinner
J*** seemed to have everything going for her. A cute face, a paying job at a prominent New York film institute, a wry way of expressing herself in e-mail, and realistic expectations about the prospects of meeting Mr. Right through an online dating service. She wrote: "I really don't think we'll know if there's a real connection between us until we actually sit down together and make eye contact". She suggested we meet at an intimate Italian restaurant near her workplace on the West Side, and I hung out at the bar until she showed up.

I remember sitting there with a Diet Coke, with my back to the entrance and my mind swirling with fantasies about what we'd talk about - the arts, Giuliani, the Yankees - whatever seemed most conducive to romance. But then, my reverie was broken when an extremely large woman tapped me on the shoulder, I turned around, and it was J*** - about 80 pounds heavier than her picture had indicated. I could hardly even see her eyes peering out from within the folds of fat, much less make contact with them.

Because I consider myself a gentleman, I bought her dinner (Lasagna), and talked exclusively about Giuliani, which seemed to please her to no end. But as soon as I could dump her in the subway, I ran screaming back to the East side, and never sent her e-mail again.
Date 2: Romantic Phone Sex
With the J*** experience safely behind me, I began to more carefully analyze the pictures that my six "hot" prospects had uploaded of themselves, to look for obvious signs of retouching or Loch Ness monster-style fakery. Using software originally developed by the CIA Global Maps Division, I began blowing up and enhancing some of these grainy JPEGs, and sure enough, several contained dead giveways that they were taken many years ago, when the subject was in much better (or at least much younger) shape. These background clues included biplanes flying in the distance, cars with tailfins, and an old Nixon: Now More Than Ever poster.

I was left with two prospects whose pictures seemed honest. One was an exotic belly-dancer, and I had made all the arrangements to meet her when she requested that we talk on the phone first.

There was scratchy Middle Eastern music playing in the background when I called, and what seemed to be a couple of hungry kids screaming. This is in itself wasn't a turnoff - in fact it was almost a turn-on. But when this poor woman began talking, I knew that there was no way on earth that we could ever communicate earnestly and heartfeltly about anything, at least in any extant language. She sounded like just like Brezhnev did after a hard night of drinking, so I told her I was feeling ill (which I was), and I moved our date into the far-distant future (2006).
Date 3: Sexy E-Mail
Older, wiser, but still horny as hell, I was now down to just one prospect, so I sent her another piece of earnest e-mail. By this time, I was becoming increasingly desperate to meet someone under 800 lbs. who actually spoke the English language, but I was also getting gunshy.

So I began asking a few personal questions about her - what kind of food she liked eating, whether she liked music from the Middle East, or had a thing for vodka - innocuous things like that. I had become accustomed to this kind of probing behavior - (one of my correspondents had actually asked for my Social Security Number, and I stupidly complied, and of course never heard from her again).

To this day, I don't think I was being overly intrusive, but my correspondent clearly thought differently. Maybe she got my e-mail at the end of a long day, or her real boyfriend had dumped her - I'll never know. But here's the reply I got back after sending her a simple "request for clarification of one of your earlier points" message:

WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU. DO YOU WANT TO MEET ME OR NOT? ARE YOU ONE OF THOSE AMBIVALENT SONS OF B*TCHES WHO CANT MAKE UP THEIR MIND - ARE YOU SRIOUS ABOUT MEETING ME OR JUST WANT TO TORTURE ME AND F*CK WITH MY HEAD? DON'T BOTHER REPONDING - IM UP TO HERE WTH YOUR DUMB QUESTIONS. N**
Epilogue:
I cancelled my Match.com subscription, spent the money I saved on two reasonably good subscription porn services, and tried to forget the whole thing. But I can't really forget, because every day, I receive junk mail about some wretched new Match.com event - a wine tasting, or a boat cruise, or a getaway weekend.

Someday, I'm sure I'll meet someone, and maybe, God willing, we'll wind up having grandchildren together. But I'm 100% sure that I'd be better off taking my chances with a random, in-your-face encounter than by flying blind in a world of illusion. And I'll certainly never date online again, until such time as they can screen out the imposters, the losers, the psychos, and the women who sound like Brezhnev.

I actually do know people who have met compatible mates online, but I believe these success stories are vastly outnumbered by the number of empty, unhappy, soul-searing experiences that nobody publicizes - the victims are too ashamed, and the service doesn't want to know either. Match.com and its brethren are, in my opinion, seamy lonely-hearts clubs where deception, trickery, and paranoia run rampant, scarring the gullible and the guileless.

But then again, I guess I'm one of those "ambivalent sons-of-b*tches who can't make up their mind" - at least about throwing myself blindly into the arms of these cyber-weirdos.

ORIGINAL POST HERE

Online Impersonation? Get Arrested.

(Texas, U.S.) A 34-year-old Odessa man was charged with online harassment after reportedly pretending to be his ex-girlfriend and asking for sex.

Kevin Wade Johnson, 12055 W. Edith St., remained in custody Thursday on a $15,000 bond.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Johnson’s ex-girlfriend started getting calls from people wanting to meet her to have sex. One of them told her he’d gotten her number off of her profile at the mobile gaming community MocoSpace, and when she searched for her name, the profiles “1hottnurse4u” and “nastynurse4u” came up, which included her personal and work phone numbers, as well as photos of her, the affidavit stated.

The woman suspected that Johnson had been the one to create the profiles because they were ones she knew he had, the affidavit stated.

After making the report Aug. 9, Odessa police got a search warrant Aug. 30 for MocoSpace’s data and found that the phone number connected with the profiles belonged to Johnson, the affidavit stated. Sept. 14, a third profile “hotnurse4u” was created, again with the woman’s information and photos of her, the affidavit stated. Oct. 6, a grand jury subpoena was served to MocoSpace for the third account, and it, too, was connected with Johnson’s number. Sprint-Nextel confirmed Johnson as the account holder for the number Oct. 7, the affidavit stated.

The arrest warrant was signed Oct. 12, and Johnson was arrested Monday on the third-degree felony charge.

original article found here

In Just One Hour Online...

It took just one hour for internet experts to find out almost every private detail of one woman's life

Steve Boggan challenged web experts to see how much they could discover about his partner. The results were chilling...

As I sit writing this, I am feeling vaguely grubby — guilty even — in the way a neurotic husband might after hiring a gumshoe to go trawling through his wife’s secrets.

There is a 15-page report in front of me chronicling virtually every aspect of my girlfriend’s life: past and present. That includes her friends, education, embarrassing pictures, former boyfriends and long-forgotten relatives.

Much of the information is new to me. And the uses to which it could be put — uses I hadn’t dreamt of until this week — are chilling.

Armed with this information, criminals could use her identity to commit fraud or resurrect minute details of her past, her movements and friendships to lure her into scams or even dangerous liaisons.

It could be used to con her into revealing her bank details and credit card numbers.

My internet snooping began because the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt — a man not known for worrying about internet surfers’ privacy — suggested recently that young people might want to change their identities in the future in order to separate themselves from a past lived too openly on the internet.

We all know Facebook pictures of you dancing at a party with a traffic cone on your head might come back to haunt you. But change your identity completely?

Surely, I wondered, there isn’t enough out there to warrant that.

So I decided to find out how much I could discover about my partner of 12 years, Suzanne, just by using the internet.

Before you think I’m a rat, I should point out that Suzanne, a 39-year-old with a soft furnishings business, agreed to it.

I began in the way lots of identity thieves do: with her name and address. Of course, I knew these details, but identity thieves often discover them by ‘dumpster diving’: looking through dustbins for a discarded piece of mail.

I passed Suzanne’s name and address — but no other details — to Adam Laurie, a 48-year-old computer security and internet privacy advocate.

He shared the information with Chris Sumner, 39, another security expert, who works for a multi-national corporation.

Or at least, that is Sumner’s day job; by night, he analyses vast amounts of information publicly available on the internet to see what it can tell him about criminal activity — in this case, how fraudsters are using social networking sites to choose their victims.

Using sophisticated and completely legal computer techniques, he looks for patterns in the behaviour of internet users to uncover otherwise hidden links.

In the case of social networking sites, he can see just how close two people, or groups of people, really are to each other.

He had met neither me nor Suzanne and knew nothing of her existence until given her name and address.

A day later, his findings dropped into my email inbox.

Picking Suzanne’s life apart, he told me, had taken him just over an hour.

This is because, in common with millions of people in Britain, Suzanne uses the social networking sites Facebook and Friends Reunited, and has signed up to the business networking site LinkedIn and Flickr, the photo-sharing website.

By also using the genealogy website ancestry.co.uk, Sumner was able to piece together the names of all but one of Suzanne’s relatives, including cousins.

Using electoral rolls on 192.com and by searching on Google, he found the addresses of her parents and lots of her friends and colleagues.

From her LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, he found the names of Suzanne’s primary and secondary schools, and a college she had attended in Derby. He also discovered she had studied fine art at Central St Martin’s College of Art & Design in London.

He also had details of Suzanne’s qualifications and pictures of her from her days at school. The snaps weren’t hers — an old schoolfriend had put them on Facebook.

There were some naff hairstyles, but that was as deep as the embarrassment went. Only you know whether a trawl of pictures of you would be more damaging.

But Sumner didn’t stop there. He was able to tell me that Suzanne had travelled extensively in Europe, Asia, the Caribbean and the South Pacific.

This was because she had used an application on Facebook that linked to the travel website TripAdvisor. You fill in where in the world you have been to keep your relatives up to date. But anyone can see it.

He was not only able to list all 41 countries she had visited, but also the 162 towns and islands to which she had been.

Sumner was able to tell me Suzanne’s exact movements by cross-referencing her TripAdvisor entries with photographs she had posted on Flickr.

When you click on a picture on Flickr, a small box gives you access to detailed information that is entered not by you, but by your camera. So, the date and time of the shot are included.

Now that phones and cameras have GPS, there are even concerns that the location of where you uploaded the picture — normally where you live — might be visible.

From a mixture of all of these websites, Sumner listed Suzanne’s likes, dislikes, hobbies, the 34 towns and cities she had visited in Britain, the places where she used to socialise in her youth and details of her former jobs in the newspaper industry.

In fact, it’s fair to say that after just one hour’s trawling he knew more about many aspects of my girlfriend’s past than I did.

Shocking? Perhaps. Yet also astonishingly easy. Suzanne had voluntarily signed up to these websites and, bit by bit, put most of this information out there herself — and forgotten much of it.

However, what I found even more disturbing is that much of what Sumner found was supposed to have been visible only to people whom Suzanne had accepted into her inner circle of ‘friends’ on each networking website. This turned out to be dangerously naive.

Over the years, standard privacy settings— notably for Facebook — have changed, so what you once thought was private has become public.

You are notified about these changes, but if you forget to adjust your individual settings to return to the old level of privacy (which can be fiendishly complicated) then some of your private information becomes available for everyone to see.

‘There are some weird, strange quirks that let you into places you aren’t supposed
to go,’ says Sumner.

‘For example, on Facebook you may not be allowed to see someone’s photographs because they’re private. But if they post a message with one of their photos attached, you are given the option of seeing their whole album. And as you can imagine, that can be embarrassing.’

According to Sumner and Laurie, organised criminals are using this information
in increasingly sophisticated ways to target victims.

‘Criminal gangs are carefully fishing for victims,’ says Laurie. ‘In the past, they would have sent out thousands and thousands of spam emails in a scattergun fashion — and many still do.

‘These are called phishing scams and involve fake requests from banks asking
people to confirm their account details, passwords and so on. The hope is that, once in a while, someone would be silly enough to reply.

‘Today, they are much more targeted. For example, with the information we got about Suzanne from Flickr, you would be able to see where she visited, when, and, if there were captions on the pictures, with whom.

‘After that, the criminals (or romance scammers) would tailor a scam. If they noticed that, say, she was a regular visitor to Malawi, they would make an introduction online, claiming they were a friend — for example, called Dave — of someone she visited there with five years ago.

‘Surely she remembers them? From that beach — her friend was there, too ... yes?

‘Usually people are too embarrassed to say they don’t remember. Then ‘‘Dave’’ claims he is setting up an orphanage — would she like to make a contribution towards it?

‘Or they might simply say they’re a friend of a person you were with and say he’s gone back there, broken his leg and they’re having a fund-raising collection to airlift him home. It’s crude, but effective.’

Sumner says it can get even more complex, with software tools that can work out who is friends with whom among your online groups of contacts.

‘Once you have established a person’s inner network, you go back into their history to find someone they knew at school who isn’t in that network of close friends and who hasn’t signed up to networking sites,’ he says.

‘Then you join those sites in their name, establish yourself with their online identity and ask your original target to accept you as a friend on, say, Facebook.

‘Before you know it, you are inside their life as a trusted person they think they used to know.

‘Once you are in, you can read about what your target and their friends are up to, such as when they are going on holiday. With that information, you can burgle their homes.

‘You can even ask to be Facebook friends with their children. This is a particularly frightening way for someone to stalk you or your family. They can introduce themselves as a Facebook friend of Mum or Dad. And then it’s only a couple of steps away from something awful happening.

‘Teenagers, in particular, are very indiscreet and post hundreds of pictures of themselves, sometimes drunk with their friends in the living room in front of the plasma screen TV or home cinema.

‘Not only are these the sort of pictures that will come back to haunt them in the future — potential employers aren’t supposed to look at these, but they do — but it’s also a dumb way to show burglars what property you have and where it is.

‘Especially after your children have told all their “friends” when the house is going to be empty.’

Sumner described how some of the information he gained from Suzanne would have helped him to get hold of her bank and credit card details. I won’t reveal exactly how he did it, but it involved using some of her social networking information to gain her confidence, then posing as a friend and asking if her business would make some curtains for him with a sample of material he’d seen on another website.

The catch would be that he had set up that other website himself and when she visited it some rudimentary programming he had installed would help him acquire her credit card details.

I ask Suzanne if she would have fallen for the scam. ‘It’s hard to know, but based on what he said, why wouldn’t I have gone along with the requests of a potential customer?’ she says.

There are other ways, too, that criminals can use personal information harvested from the internet. For example, people often use the names of their children or
pets as passwords for online shopping sites.

If criminals can find these names, by gaining access to your social networking circle, they can try to hack into your accounts on popular shopping sites such as Amazon and view your shopping history, or even order expensive goods to be sent to a pick-up address. (I did not ask Laurie or Sumner to attempt this because it would be in breach of data protection law.)

What can we do about all this? Well, not a lot, other than to be aware your information can be used in more sinister ways than you can possibly imagine, and to be on your guard.

As for your children, they can be warned to modify their behaviour and to think twice about what they write and post online and whom they accept as ‘friends’.

According to Linda Weatherhead, principal policy advocate for the campaign group Consumer Focus, social networking sites bear much responsibility for this explosion of potentially useful information.

‘It is a complex problem, but one simple way of making things safer would be to have all our information kept private as the default setting,’ she says. ‘Then it would be up to you how much you want to relax them as you decide to share more of your private
information.

‘Beyond that, we just have to be careful what we put out there — you can advise children about what they are doing, but you can’t wrap them in cotton wool. You can never make anything completely safe.’

But if Adam Laurie and Chris Sumner are right, then the risks of social networking extend far beyond a few embarrassing photos.

In particular, be careful who your ‘friends’ are; they could turn out to be your worst enemies.

original article here

'Maze of Online Dating'

EOPC is publishing this to point on the chronic lying implicit in online dating. We believe the author minimizes the danger inherent here.

EOPC NEVER recommends or approves of Online Dating to meet people. Under ANY circumstances. Join a volunteer organization but NEVER Online Dating.

His online profile -- dark hair, 5'6", athletic build -- caught her attention and the e-mail exchange went well, so Carla Riemersma agreed to meet the 58-year-old Wisconsin man in person.

But the nonathletic, 5-foot-2, 64-year-old, bald man who greeted her on the date didn't exactly match his cyber persona.

"I'm looking for this stud-muffin, and it didn't quite turn out that way," Riemersma said.

Frustrating dates such as this inspired Riemersma, a 65-year-old college professor from the Hudsonville area, to start taking notes.

The result is her book, "What are the Odds? The Likelihood of Finding Love and Romance in Cyberspace." In it, Riemersma, shares her personal adventure and documents the pitfalls of looking for love online. She takes an academic approach to the topic with statistical research.

Riemersma, who teaches at Baker College and the University of Phoenix, spent about $500 for 15 months of online dating services, including Match.com, Yahoo.com, Sexy Ads, American Singles, Senior Friend Finders and eHarmony. She met more then 200 men, sometimes fitting as many as three dates into a single day.

To research the book, she spent four years reviewing 4,000 active profiles randomly chosen from several well-known Internet dating sites and conducted interviews with nearly 300 Internet daters. About a third of those participants were women.

She often would arrive at a meeting with her date's profile in hand to compare reality to what was advertised online. When people lied, she made a note of it. She found 97.5 percent of the online daters she interviewed were dishonest about their profile, with women most likely to fib about age and weight while men often fudged their age and marital status.

White lies
Riemersma calls it "cyber-truth" when people post a false age, weight or marital status in an effort to get a date.

... Now, she strongly advises people to be honest from the beginning if they're serious about finding a person to love them as they are.

TIPS
Dating detective work

Online dating tips from Carla Riemersma, author of "What are the Odds? The Likelihood of Finding Love and Romance in Cyberspace":

• Do not lie or exaggerate when writing your profile.

• Use a current photo.

• Avoid confusion -- list your ground rules for the first date in your profile.

• Do not give out personal information via the Internet.

• Use a cell phone instead of home phone if you decide to call your date.

• Once you know your date's name, do a Google or Yahoo search. Read ALL the pages.

• Always meet in a public place for the first date.

• Never consume alcohol on your first few dates, and monitor alcohol consumption of the person you are dating.

• Always tell someone where you will be during the first date, and make sure your date knows you're going to call that person during the date to say you're OK.

• Make sure you have your own transportation to and from the date.

"Eventually, you have to meet, and how do you explain the extra 20 pounds if you listed yourself as slim or athletic?" she writes.

She said about 60 percent of the men who stated they were single, separated or divorced still were married. So, she quickly developed a radar for men with tan lines on their ring fingers and indentations where a wedding band usually goes.

"It was so obvious," she said.

One guy showed up to a date with a bandage wrapped around his ring finger. She asked if he'd had a mishap with a saber saw. It turned out the man's finger was fine, but he was married.

Throwing in the towel
Terri Timmer, 52, of Grand Rapids, tried cyberdating for a few months, but gave up in frustration about a month ago.

In contrast, Ken Cote, 47, of Lake Odessa, has had pretty good luck meeting women online. ... It helps that he is a private investigator. He says he does background checks on his dates -- and he checks on the people his friends are dating, too...

Falsehoods
While Riemersma was researching her book, there were an estimated 40 million people dating online in the United States and more than 1,200 online dating sites. Those numbers continue to grow.

Original article here

Perfect Prey: Surviving a Cyber Shark's Romantic Fraud

Liz Cole was victimized by an online career con artist - but she turned the tables to expose the con man on national television. Much of this book is written as a real time journal, taking readers inside the world of Liz Cole and her suitor, convict and predator John Melvin Hill.


Recently divorced, with low self-esteem, Liz Cole turned to online dating and met a charming Irishman - in reality, a Quebec con artist - who preyed on her and vanished. She then found him and set up a televised sting operation and has great advice.

Millions use Internet-dating sites to look for love. Some find their mates, some find disappointment. And some fine something far more dangerous - con artists and sex predators lurking in the shadows of cyberspace. -- CTV's W-Five

What do you do when your charming knight on a white horse turns out to be Satan in a tuxedo? (this is the true story of how one woman fought back) -- Canadian Living Magazine

buy the book here

Romance Scammers Pose as U.S. Military to Entrap Women

by Charlotte Gill and India Sturgis

(U.K.) As she sat down in front of her laptop to read the latest messages from her online admirers, Elana Brown felt a flutter of excitement. Divorced for seven years, she had been persuaded by a friend to sign up to the Jewish lonely hearts website, JDate.

For two months, she’d logged on and chatted to several potential suitors, but each had come to nothing. But today, as she checked the messages in her inbox, one in particular caught her eye.

‘It was from a doctor in the U.S. Army serving in Afghanistan,’ recalls Elana, a 47-year-old learning support assistant who lives with her sons, aged 17 and 20, in Ruislip, West London. ‘His name was Sergeant Terry Scott. He liked my picture and said he would like to get to know me.

‘He told me that he had a nine-year-old son, that his wife had died in a car crash two years earlier, and he was looking for love again. It was a heartfelt message and he seemed a genuinely nice guy.’

Elana had no hesitation in tapping out a reply. ‘He replied almost straight away and we began emailing each other every day. After a week, we were getting on so well that Terry asked for my phone number and he started calling me.

‘His voice was lovely — he had a deep American accent and sounded kind. He would ask me how I was and about my two boys. We could chat for ages, sometimes four hours at a time. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to hit it off with someone I’d just met online. Looking back, I should have been more cautious. But I suppose, because I was looking for love, I wanted so much to believe in him.’

Certainly, there was nothing to suggest that Terry was anything but genuine.

‘He sent me lots of photos of himself in the Army. He told me about how hard life was in Afghanistan. In my profile, I’d written that I was looking for someone who was manly, but also able to help out around the home. He told me he’d take care of me, that he’d come to England and marry me. He said he wanted to make me happy.’

It was a whirlwind romance: just a few weeks later, Terry announced that he loved Elana and wanted to meet her. ‘He said he looked forward to meeting my sons and that we would all be one big family. It may sound naive now, but I believed him.’

Then, just three weeks into their relationship, Terry made a request which should have set alarm bells ringing.

‘He said that one of his soldiers had been shot, and he and his friends were trying to raise money so he could be sent to Russia for treatment. He asked me for £300 towards it.

‘I believed him, but I told him I just couldn’t afford the money. He then started bombarding me with texts and phone calls, saying they were desperate for the money. Terry promised that I would get the money back. He spoke to me so nicely that I just thought: “OK, I’ll give him the money.”

‘I transferred it by Western Union, as Terry had requested. He was so grateful and assured me he would pay the money back as soon as he could.

‘He promised he was resigning from the Army and would get a $300,000 (£190,000) payout. He said it was his Army pension. Then he would come to England and marry me. I was even sent official-looking letters from the U.S. Army stating that money I had sent was being used to get security clearance so Terry could leave the Army. They looked genuine to me.’

After that, Terry came up with endless reasons for needing more money. He wasn’t getting paid by the Army; he needed funds for a business he had set up. Blinded by love, Elana sent more cash. In the two months they were in contact, she parted with nearly £10,000.

Of course, she never did get to meet the man of her dreams. She was, in fact, the latest victim of an online dating scam targeting vulnerable older women.

Earlier this month, the National Fraud Authority announced £2.5 million has been stolen by online dating con-men in the past six months alone.

‘Fraudsters who take advantage of online dating sites are a particularly sinister lot,’ says the NFA’s chief executive, Dr Bernard Herdan. ‘They use clever psychological tricks to gain the confidence and affections of legitimate site users. They are attentive. When a romance fraudster has gained a person’s trust, that’s when they begin to ask for money.’

Increasing numbers of women, such as Elana, are falling victim to this kind of fraud — in particular to criminals in West Africa posing as U.S. soldiers. The U.S. Embassy in London received 500 phone calls and 2,000 emails reporting various types of internet scam last year.

Many victims feel too embarrassed and ashamed to confess they’ve been duped.

In a survey last month, the Office for Fair Trading found that 39 per cent of people who had been tricked in the past year did not report it to the authorities.

‘I can’t believe how foolish I was now, but I was in love with this man and I thought I was giving him money to help him resign from the Army so we could be together,’ says a heartbroken Elana.

‘I used all my £600 savings, took out a loan and had to remortgage my home to scrape together the money. But Terry promised I’d get my money back with interest. I thought we were going to spend our lives together, so why wouldn’t I get it back?’

When her elder son tried to warn her, she rowed furiously with him: ‘I wouldn’t listen. And all for a man I’d never met.’

After taking a last payment of £2,600 from Elana, Terry promised that he would repay the money within days, then fly to the UK to be with her. But the money never appeared. And neither did he.

The truth dawned on Elana when ‘Terry’ suddenly ceased all contact. ‘My son was right,’ she says tearfully. ‘I had been duped. I cried every night. I was a mess.’

A few months later, she heard the story on Crimewatch of a woman who had lost £45,000 to a Nigerian fraudster posing as a U.S. soldier and realised her story was virtually identical. Elana then contacted Action Fraud, the national fraud reporting centre, and investigators told her the payments she had made went to internet scammers in Nigeria and the UK.

By then, the fraudsters were long gone, along with any hope she would get any of her money back. A year on, she is working longer hours and paying back £200 a month to get rid of the debt.

‘Looking back, I see how naive I was. These fraudsters are so clever. I am not usually a silly person who easily trusts people, and yet here I was being conned.’

But it’s too late for divorcee Kate Roberts. The 47-year-old gave £80,000 to a gang of Nigerian fraudsters posing as a lonely U.S. soldier between October 2009 and July 2010. ‘I was taken in,’ she says. ‘Aside from losing the money, I feel I’ve lost the love of my life. I know he wasn’t real — but the feelings were real to me.’

Kate, a mother of three, had to sell her house to pay off crippling debts after taking out credit cards, loans and borrowing from family and friends in order to send money to the virtual ‘lover’ who contacted her on the Friends Reunited Dating website in October 2009.

‘Scammers carefully target and then tap into people’s wants, needs and vulnerabilities,’ explains psychologist Anjula Mutanda, who has worked with knowthenet.org.uk. ‘Initially, online dating fraudsters spend time emotionally grooming the person. They show interest, gain trust — reeling the person in before hitting them with the sting.’

Despite the huge rise in cases of online dating fraud, awareness among the 2.5 million women who internet-date is alarmingly low.

Elana is keen to stress that the victims are not stupid: ‘I’d heard of scams, but I never thought I would fall for one. You may think that this could never happen to you, but I am proof that it can.’

original article found here

Being 'Anonymous' Online Changes People's Behavior

Faceless communication online or over phone often turns nice people nasty
By Diane Mapes


(excerpts)
One minute, they’re nice, normal people. The next, they’re frothing at the mouse.

“It’s mind-boggling the things people will say and even the things I will say,” says Catherine McIntyre, a 38-year-old medical billing specialist from Houston. “People who’d never say something horrible in real life will do it again and again and again online. It’s like the behavior of crowds, or those mass beatings where no one gets blamed because everyone’s at fault.”

Sheri Pineda, a 59-year-old customer service representative at the Daily Breeze in Torrance, Calif., encounters the same bad behavior in the after-hours messages left by her newspaper’s subscribers.

“It’s appalling the way people talk,” Pineda says. “They’ll rant and rave and cuss at us with extremely foul language. And I think a lot them specifically wait until we close the phones. They’re looking to let it all out and then get on with their day. And then they’re surprised when I get back to them. They’re like, ‘You actually heard that?’ and will be embarrassed.”

Hello. You have reached the split personality zone. Press 1 to melt down. Press 2 to hang up and act like a normal person again.

I, anonymous
Between out-of-control customers, vituperative online posters and road-raging drivers, it’s hard to find an individual who hasn’t succumbed to the siren song of faceless, consequence-free communication. Online boards are clogged with insults hurled by readers hiding behind deceptively mild screen names — (“I hope you rot in hell!” signed Kittyface) — and customer service reps endure blistering tirades from disembodied voices week in and week out.

These days there are a dozen ways to communicate without actually having to look somebody in the eye. As a result, not only have we developed an abrupt, abbreviated way to chat (IMHO), but our technological advances have spawned new psychological terms such as “online disinhibition effect” to explain our tendency to open up — in both good ways and bad — when we’re sitting in front of a screen.

In a February 2008 study published in the journal Psychological Reports, researchers found that out of four groups of participants, only those in the anonymous group took part in antisocial behavior — in this case defined as violating rules to obtain a reward.

“I definitely believe that anonymity affects the frequency of antisocial behavior among individuals to some extent, even when these individuals have a reasonable sense of morality — so-called ‘ordinary people,’” says study author Tatsuya Nogami of Nagoya University in Japan.

“In my personal opinion, people generally try to comply with social norms in everyday life, even when such compliance with norms and rules conflicts with their personal self-interests. However, if you can get what you want without receiving any punishment or negative evaluations from others, are you still 100 percent sure that you’ll always refrain from engaging in that kind of undesirable behavior?”

Rage against the machine
...
McIntyre, the billing specialist from Houston, says the online news forums she’s participated in over the years have led her down many a dark and dysfunctional corridor.

“People get sucked in,” she says. “You can be whoever you want, you can put out there whatever you want, and there are no consequences. I even got sucked in and was mean to people. I consider myself better than that, but I did it too, and that bothers me. I guess it’s just the dynamic.”

Rider University psychology professor John Suler wrote about this dynamic in his 2004 paper “The Online Disinhibition Effect.” In it, he describes both toxic disinhibition — angry, threatening behavior such as that seen in flame wars or cyberbullying — and benign disinhibition, in which people make overly personal revelations due to the intimate nature of the medium. (Think online daters who “fall in love” without ever meeting.)

A lot of this effect has to do with feedback — or lack thereof, says Wallace.

“The environment affects how you behave,” she says. “Any time you go to places where you’re not known — even if it’s a hotel in another city — you might be more aggressive. So when you construct an environment like the Internet or long-distance call centers with a help desk worker in Bangalore, you’re creating an environment that facilitates uncharacteristic behavior.

You’re not getting those nonverbal cues that calibrate your behavior and give you feedback if you’re going off track. Those people who do customer service for Comcast probably need double doses of Zoloft.”

Cherise Oleksak, a 35-year-old cable TV customer service representative from Fife, Wash., says dealing with people’s disinhibited side can definitely be a challenge. Some scream and rage; others get a little more, uh, personal.

“You’ll get people who will turn into perverts,” she says. ”They’ll ask you out or ask you to do (FREE) phone sex. They’ll be like, ‘Can you read those pay-per-view adult movie titles out loud to me again?’”

Robin Taylor, 42, a customer care representative from Nashville, Tenn., says she’s seen this split, as well.
...

“I guess they feel they can say whatever they want because they’re anonymous, but the funny thing is we have all their information: their name, their address, their phone number, even part of their Social Security number.

Not that I would ever retaliate, but if we ended up with some psycho (employee), it could happen.”

Going public
Interestingly enough, some folks are starting to retaliate.

Surreptitious tape recordings of outrageously bad customer behavior have started to pop up on YouTube in all their profanity-laced glory.

In 2004, comedienne Margaret Cho posted dozens of hateful e-mail messages she’d received in response to a monologue on her Web site, along with each sender’s full name and e-mail address. Shamed — and deluged with their own hate mail from Cho’s fans — some posters sent in abject letters of apology.

In the online world, abusive users hiding behind anonymous screen names are being outed, sometimes to huge public embarrassment as when Whole Foods chief executive John Mackey was unmasked as the sock puppet responsible for posting numerous attacks against competitors on a Yahoo! financial message board.

And media sites from Sacramento to Soho are stepping up their moderation of anonymous comments in an attempt to keep the incivility down to a low roar.

“When we first started with online blogs and that sort of thing, people weren’t aware of how much the environment could affect their behavior, but now people are getting much more savvy about it,” Wallace says. “But the issue that needs to be considered now is there’s no privacy. People need to recognize that they just can’t send out these blogging responses and e-mails and expect their anonymity to be preserved. It probably won’t be.

Recording devices are everywhere and Web 2.0, with its user-generated content, greatly amplifies the Net’s power to expose and publicize.

“It also archives forever.”

(full article found here)

(please see our far right column for a few of the VICTIMS of Exposed Predators and how they fought back against smear and lies from the Exposed Predators)

Twitter Stalking is Protected Free Speech

by Andrew Couts

(San Francisco, U.S.A.) Saying mean, terrible, even violent things about someone on Twitter or blogs is free speech protected by the First Amendment, a judge has ruled.

A San Francisco judge has declared that cyberstalking on Twitter and blogs is constitutionally-protected free speech, reports The New York Times. The ruling is a victory for the First Amendment. But like all things worth fighting for, it comes at a price.

Here’s what happened: A Buddhist religious leader in Maryland named Alyce Zeoli became friends with a man named William Lawrence Cassidy. At some point, the two had a falling out. Cassidy took the mature route, and began posting thousands of messages on blogs and Twitter, often using pseudonyms, that aggressively disparaged Zeoli. Some of them even called for her death.

Understandably distraught, Zeoli then worked with the FBI to have Cassidy arrested, which he was, based on interstate stalking laws. Cassidy, the government argued, had caused Zeoli “substantial emotional distress.”

This, however, was not enough to convince Judge Roger W. Titus, who declared that Cassidy’s actions, while distasteful, were not enough to set a precedent that could cause serious harm to the entire foundations of speech on the Internet.

“[W]hile Mr. Cassidy’s speech may have inflicted substantial emotional distress, the government’s indictment here is directed squarely at protected speech: anonymous, uncomfortable Internet speech addressing religious matters,” wrote Judge Titus, in his official order.

Titus ruled that, because no one was forced to read Cassidy’s posts and tweets — as opposed to a “telephone call, letter or email specifically addressed to and directed at another person” — they are considered free speech, not harassment, just as personal bulletin boards of the colonial era fell under the protection of the First Amendment, which “protects speech even when the subject or the manner of expression is uncomfortable and challenges conventional religious beliefs, political attitudes or standards of good taste.”

One of Zeoli’s lawyers, Shanlon Wu, told the Times that Zeoli was “appalled and frightened by the judge’s ruling.” It is not yet clear whether there will be an appeal to the ruling.

original article found here

Complete Privacy Does NOT Exist

Arguing that technology has ensured that "complete privacy does not exist," Google contends that a Pennsylvania family has no legal grounds to sue the search giant for publishing photos of their home on its popular "Street View" mapping feature.

Responding to an invasion of privacy lawsuit filed by Aaron and Christine Boring, Google has countered that the couple "live in a residential community in the twenty-first-century United States, where every step upon private property is not deemed by law to be an actionable trespass."

In a motion to dismiss the Borings's federal complaint, Google's six-lawyer team asserts that,

"Today's satellite-image technology means that even in today's desert, complete privacy does not exist. In any event, Plaintiffs live far from the desert and are far from hermits."

An excerpt from Google's U.S. District Court motion can be found below. The company asserts that the images of the Borings's Pittsburgh-area residence were "unremarkable photos of the exterior of their home," and were taken during a "brief entry upon their driveway."

In their lawsuit, the Borings charged that a Google vehicle -- outfitted with a panoramic camera on its roof -- drove down a private road to take images of their Oakridge Lane home.

In its dismissal motion, Google noted that it intends to prove that there was "no clearly marked 'Private Road' sign at the beginning" of the Borings's street. Google removed its "Street View" photos of the Boring residence and swimming pool after the couple filed its lawsuit in April.

READ THE REST HERE

Vulnerable & Scammed - Man Commits Suicide

(U.K.) When lonely divorcee Philip Hunt fell for a beautiful woman on an internet dating site he thought all his prayers had been answered.

She convinced him she was young, fabulously rich and if he could help transfer $2.9million from Nigeria to the UK then they could start a new life together, an inquest heard today.

Unfortunately it was all an elaborate scam that would cost Mr Hunt £82,000 and ultimately his life.

The 58-year-old was hooked on the fantasy of a future with the stunning 'Rose' and he willingly paid out tens of thousands of pounds to help her beat malaria and get her funds through customs and into the UK.

The cargo officer remortgaged his house, took out loans, ran up overdrafts and begged for cash from his employers after repeatedly transferring money across to the fraudsters' account.

Eventually he became so hopelessly mired in debt that he committed suicide by lying down in front of a train.

Although warned by a former girlfriend that he was the victim of a 'scam', Mr Hunt appeared to believe in Rose until the very end.

His mobile phone was found in a rucksack near his body and a text message to Rose - which was never sent - read: 'I'm cold, lonely and depressed, I'm so lonely without you tonight. Going to meet my maker..'

Twice-married Mr Hunt went online in search of love after splitting up with girlfriend of three years Lesley Smith. He began exchanging texts and emails with Rose, who claimed to be living in Nigeria. She sent him a picture of herself and he quickly fell in love with the attractive white brunette. Over the months that followed Mr Hunt was tricked into thinking Rose was seriously ill and in desperate need of his help. The prize was the rest of his life with her and her cash.

Each time he came close to arranging a meeting with 'Rose' the anonymous criminals behind the 'romance scam' demanded further cash for hotels, medical bills and travel expenses to the UK. He even travelled to London to meet two of the fraudsters who claimed they needed money for an expensive solution which would magically turn scrap paper into $100 bills.

Mr Hunt met two 'agents' at the Travelodge near London's City Airport. He was greeted by two large men who opened a case containing scraps of black and grey paper. One of the men then sprayed a note with a mystery substance which seemed to turn the filthy paper into a $100 in front of his eyes - convincing him to hand over more money to pay for the chemical spray.

Mr Hunt began wiring over money in December 2008. At one stage he asked to borrow £25,000 from his employer, a shipping company at Immingham Docks, but later retracted the request and resigned from his job.

His last contact with the fraudsters was in June last year and he died on August 13 when he was hit by a train and suffered multiple injuries.

Police investigating his death found a handwritten note at his home in Grimsby addressed to them, which read: 'I just can't take it any more.' They also found bundles of emails outlining the huge scale of the fraud and a message predicting his own suicide. He wrote: 'I have insurmountable debts and will take my own life.'

A jury at the inquest in Hull returned a verdict of suicide.

After the hearing former girlfriend Miss Smith said: 'These people are out to get people when they are very vulnerable, they are like vultures. I'd like to alert people to this so they can be aware and be cautious. Philip was a quiet and reserved gentleman, and he was very intelligent which makes it all the more unbelievable that he fell for this, but he was at a low ebb and they got him when he was most vulnerable.'

Detective Chief Inspector Danny Snee, of British Transport Police, said: 'People need to be very wary, if something looks too good to be true it usually is. They should be particularly wary about parting with money with someone they have never met, it just doesn't ring true. The demands for money for supposed medical bills, hotel bills and travel expenses were endless.'

He said a criminal investigation into the international fraudsters was ongoing, although no arrests have been made.

original article found here

Police Dispatcher Charged After Harassing Online

(U.S.A.) A South Texas police dispatcher is in trouble with the law after she posted photos of her husband and a female police officer on her Facebook page.

Brownsville dispatcher Laura De Leon is free on her own recognizance after she was charged with single counts of online harassment and phone harassment. Both are misdemeanors. She's also on administrative leave from her job with the Brownsville Police Department.

De Leon told The Brownsville Herald that she posted the suggestive photos and text messages exchanged between the woman and her husband, both of whom are Brownsville police officers.

She also admitted to calling the other woman and leaving a voice mail message on her phone. She said she did this because she was upset and later took down her Facebook postings.

original article found here

Amanda Craig Tells Her Horrifying Story of Being Cyberharassed

By Amanda Craig

(U.K.) What is it that makes people want to send vitriolic abuse, including death threats, to a total stranger?

I can’t begin to imagine. But this year, thanks to Twitter and Facebook, I do know what it is like to be on the receiving end of such embittered hatefulness.

Why? Because I’d dared to write a piece in this newspaper about my teenage years spent at Bedales, the progressive public school that was embroiled in a scandal earlier this year concerning shoplifting and under-age sex.

As a pupil at the school in the 1970s, I had experienced a level of bullying and abuse that I still find disturbing to think about to this day and which inspired my second novel, written 20 years ago, A Private Place.

Yet when I set down my painful memories of my formative years on paper, I never imagined I’d be setting myself up as a sitting target for a new breed of modern-day bullies, who choose not the school playground, but the internet to target their victims.

‘Cyberbullying’ isn’t confined to children — it is a contemporary menace in which people can be targeted anywhere, at any time. When my email inbox began to fill up with awful messages, my first reaction was one of exasperation, quickly followed by cold contempt.

I was totally unprepared for the slew of virulent messages that, for the next month, pinged into my inbox via both my Twitter account and my public Facebook page. Many of these messages are unpublishable in a national newspaper, but they included threats to my personal safety, disgusting sexual abuse, venomous comments about my looks and personality, a flurry of one-star Amazon reviews of my novels — and several attempts to hack into my Wikipedia entry.

Astonishingly, those behind them were girls and boys of between 15 and 21 years old, many of whom declared themselves to be current or former pupils of Bedales. They defended the school by calling me bitter, greedy, bitchy and, what’s more, claimed that I ‘deserved to be bullied’. Then they said that the school was wonderful, and that bullying didn’t exist there, and that ‘every single one of (the abusive comments that had been posted about me) was understandable and acceptable’.

The poisonous mob mentality these messages displayed actually did far more to show any current or prospective parent the ugly side of a ‘liberal’ education than what I had written. I was told that ‘we know where you live, so watch out’, ‘your [sic] dead, bitch’, ‘die, you ugly c***’ and so on.

‘You are insulting an establishment you show no understanding of, in a way in which you can only expect a [sic] outraged reaction. You have not only insulted our way of life, our home but us as individuals. I feel personally attacked,’ wrote one boy.

A couple of current pupils were moved to express sympathy and to assure me that things had changed, but these, like the nicer kind of Bedalian student of my own time, seemed far and few between.

One posted a more moderate, thoughtful comment about my article — and his peers turned on him: ‘Stop s***ing her d**k Toby, and stick up for the f*****g school. Your [sic]

The abuse was so remarkable that two national newspapers picked it up, and one even wrote a leader page column. Yet when the Head of Bedales, Keith Budge, was approached for comment, his response, as quoted in the Daily Telegraph, was to say his pupils were simply defending their school.

The Old Bedalian magazine, edited by a former member of staff, decided to publish a sneering piece, which included a photograph of me printed upside-down and — a lovely touch — an encomium of the school’s creativity by Kirstie Allsopp.

Nobody in authority has attempted to contact me to apologise, and no pupil, as far as I know, has been reprimanded. Now, I don’t take the ravings of over-excited teenagers seriously. But neither do I think anyone should be allowed to get away with this kind of behaviour — least of all the privileged pupils of a £30,000-a-year school.

For such mindless venom to come from privileged children living in conditions which the majority can only dream of, and attending an institution that prides itself on its liberal outlook would be especially offensive.

Every contemporary school is aware of the life-long emotional and psychological damage that bullying can cause, and the responsible ones, both in the state and private sectors, have strong protocols about dealing with such issues, especially online.

Cyberbullying is worse and more cowardly than playground bullying. Even as an adult, I found the abuse deeply offensive. It was extraordinary that I was being addressed as if I were still the vulnerable, innocent 12-year-old I had been all those years ago. What I had described was so painful that I thought nobody in their right mind could feel anything but shame and compassion — and, more importantly, concern about whether the ills I described were still happening.

Instead, it seemed to provoke the opposite reaction. It was extraordinary — and ludicrous. But that’s the thing about the internet. While it has transformed the way people can communicate, it has also allowed some to say the most unkind things to someone they don’t know, have never met, and wouldn’t dare to confront face-to-face.
Bullies beware: Anonymous messages can be traced back to the location and computer they were sent from (posed by model)

These so-called ‘trolls’, inspired by envy, rage and spite, appear to live in a parallel universe in which they believe they can threaten, stalk, intimidate and libel anyone with impunity.

You don’t have to do something as provocative as write about your unhappy schooldays to set them off. Just being pretty, happy, or good at what you do is enough. Whole families can be affected by the fall-out, if my experience is anything to go by.

‘Why do people keep saying horrible things about you on Facebook just because you were bullied at school?’ my 15-year-old son asked me, bemused. ‘Because they’re total losers,’ replied my 18-year-old daughter. Having been forewarned by their schools about how to handle online abuse, they were far better placed to deal with it than me.

My husband was the most shocked — and angered — at the hate-filled messages I showed him. He was the one who then had sleepless nights — and who became the most worried about our physical safety. I am not easily intimidated, but I was admittedly depressed by this evidence of how little had changed about the mentality of bullies. On the flipside, however, the attempts to undermine me caused something rather wonderful to happen.

A number of distinguished authors, journalists and lawyers — many of whom had, ironically, become friends of mine through Facebook — saw what was being posted on my page and sprang into action, unasked, to defend me with both eloquence and wit.

'For the victim, an abusive Twitter message or email is no different from receiving verbal abuse'

To see the likes of Philip Hensher, Nicholas Lezard, Louisa Young, Chris Priestly and Katy Guest all pouring scorn on these abusive bloggers was rather like the scene at the end of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia novel, The Silver Chair, when the bullies who have been terrorising the children at the progressive Experiment House are punished.

Alarmed by this unexpected challenge, the trolls began, one by one, to delete their messages. Today, they are all gone — though I, and several others, took copies of them, in case they feel tempted to strike again.

People who do not have Twitter and Facebook accounts may be rather mystified by all of this. Meanwhile, those who do may wonder why I have dared to risk further online abuse by describing my experience here.

The answer is two-fold. One is that I believe bullying will never stop unless there is a concerted effort from the top to confront it, and that while any school continues to appear to condone its own smug cult that will not happen. Second, if you haven’t experienced bullying, you have no idea what a scar it leaves on the soul. Just because I learnt how to use my rage in creative, positive ways, writing novels, doesn’t mean that it’s not there.

Connecting with readers and writers through the web can be one of the greatest delights of 21st-century life, as Twitter and Facebook host a vast virtual conversation, in which people share views and exchange ideas about everything, from trivial thoughts to breaking news. But more and more bloggers and writers are complaining about the intimidating attacks made on them.

Caroline Farrow, a vicar’s wife and mother-of-three who blogs for the Catholic Voices website, recently revealed she receives at least five sexually threatening emails a day.

One of the least offensive read: ‘You’re gonna scream when you get yours. F*****g slag. Butter wouldn’t f*****g melt, and you’ll cry rape when you get what you’ve asked for. Bitch.’ That anybody can get away with writing in such a horrific manner to another human being beggars belief — but, thankfully, the law is slowly catching up.

The Police Central e-Crime Unit is responsible for investigating malicious communications. For example, a man of 60 has been charged with sending threatening Twitter messages to MP Louise Mensch.

Perhaps the threat of arrest, a criminal record and punishment will help the bullies think twice. For the victim, an abusive Twitter message or email is no different from receiving verbal abuse, or getting a poison-pen letter.

For the bully, though, there is one key difference: although they think the internet affords them anonymity, every message can be traced back to a location and a specific computer. Cyberbullies would do well to remember that before they click the send button.

Amanda Craig’s novel A Private Place (Abacus) is being re-issued as an e-book in February.

Over 200,000 in Britain Duped by Online Dating Scams

by Peter Walker

(U.K.) Number of unreported cases likely to be far higher as individual losses range from £50 to £240,000

More than 200,000 people in Britain may have been conned by fraudsters posing as would-be romantic partners on internet dating sites, according to the first study examining the potential scale of the problem.

Anti-fraud groups have warned for some time about scams, in which criminals create a false identity – often an army officer on active service, explaining an inability to meet in person – and develop a close online intimacy with a victim, who is then asked for cash to help their presumed suitor out of a crisis.

It had long been suspected that official figures for such crimes greatly under-represented their prevalence, largely because many victims feel too embarrassed or hurt to go to the police, or never realise they have been conned.

The study by the universities of Leicester and Westminster, working with the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), found 2% of people surveyed personally knew someone who had experienced the crime. Extrapolating this to the online UK population means more than 200,000 potential victims.

Monica Whitty, a psychologist and professor of contemporary media at Leicester University, said that the pool of those targeted was likely to be greater still as it did not include people who realised what was happening before they lost money and those who still did not realise they had been conned.

The researchers had been "shocked" at the numbers involved, she said.

There has been an assumption that victims tend to be middle-aged women. However, said Whitty, targets were from both genders and all age groups.

Aside from the financial costs involved – Soca has tracked individual losses ranging from £50 to £240,000 – those conned also faced the heartbreak of discovering that the person with whom they had fallen in love was the invention of a skilled con artist, usually Nigerian or Ghanaian, and often not even of the same gender.

"A lot of people find it very hard to accept what has happened, even if they know the person involved is now in jail," Whitty said. We've had male victims who still refer to the other person as 'she', even though they now know it was a man. In a few cases they've found the relationship so therapeutic they keep it going, even if they know they've been conned."

The scams often begin with an online dating site profile carrying a notably attractive photo, taken from elsewhere on the internet, and a description of someone in a remote, hard-to-contact location – whether a military base in Afghanistan or, to tempt male victims, a UK or US nurse at a small foreign hospital.

The use of almost exclusively online communication – the criminals occasionally resort to phone calls but these are rare given the extra difficulty of explaining away an accent – can actually accelerate intimacy, Whitty said, allowing victims to project their own hopes and desires on to a warm and empathic correspondent.

"Email and instant messaging can have the effect of being hyper-personal. Lots of people get in touch with someone through a dating site, meet them a few weeks later and this person doesn't live up to their expectations. With an online relationship this never happens."

The faked romances can last for a long time – the longest the researchers heard of was five years – with each criminal juggling a series of parallel relationships. At some point comes the request for urgent financial assistance, often to help them out of supposed difficulty.

"They might test the waters by asking for a present, for example saying they've lost their mobile phone and need another one. If this happens, they'll ask for money. It's like a clever marketing ploy."

Very few cases are seemingly reported. A spokesman for the UK's National Fraud Authority said the agency had learned of 730 crimes over the past 15 months, totalling £8m in losses.

The survey, covering more than 2,000 people, found that just over half were aware that such romance scams existed.

While this was a positive sign, Colin Woodcock of Soca said, significant numbers of people remained at risk.

"The perpetrators spend long periods of time grooming their victims, working out their vulnerabilities and when the time is right to ask for money," he said. By being aware of how to stay safe online, members of the UK public can ensure they don't join those who have lost nearly every penny they had, been robbed of their self-respect, and in some cases, committed suicide after being exploited, relentlessly, by these criminals."


How to spot a dating scam

Soca has compiled a list of tell-tale signs for people to look out for if they suspect their internet suitor is a con artist.

• A distant location and/or a job in the military: by pretending to be serving in, for example, Afghanistan, or on an oil rig, the scammer has a convenient excuse for being unable to chat on the phone or in person. When men are targeted, the other party often tends to be a nurse working in a remote country.

• A fondness for Windows Messenger or similar applications: aware that dating sites are increasingly conscious of such cons, the perpetrators can be keen to continue their wooing elsewhere.

• A suspiciously attractive and/or rugged-looking photo: of course, not every good-looking person lurking on a dating site is a fraudster. But the con artists tend to select particularly alluring physical alter egos, which they borrow from elsewhere on the internet.

• A quick adoption of a pet name: if, by the second email, you are being addressed as "dearest fluffy bunny", beware – it could be a fraudster looking to establish instant intimacy.

• A predisposition towards financial or other misfortunes: it is perhaps the most obvious tip, but if a suitor you have never met suddenly crashes their car, or needs an expensive airfare or a lawyer, be on your guard. The same goes if they start alluding to gold bullion or suitcases full of cash they hope to bring to the U.K.

original article found here