Jailed for Running a 'Vicious' Internet Smear Campaign

A teenager who posted a death threat on Facebook, yesterday became the first person in Britain to be jailed for bullying on a social networking site.

Keeley Houghton, 18, said she would kill Emily Moore, whom she had bullied for four years since they were at school together.

On her personal page, Houghton wrote of her victim: 'Keeley is going to murder the bitch. She is an actress. What a ******* liberty. Emily ****head Moore.'

Two days before she made the threat, Houghton had intimidated Emily, who is also 18, after spotting her in a pub.

Sara Stock, prosecuting, told Worcester magistrates: 'When Emily was sitting on her own the defendant came over and sat next to her and asked her, "Are you Emily Moore? Can I have a huggle?" Emily told the defendant to leave her alone otherwise she would call the police. Keeley then told her, "I'll give you something to ring the police about".'

Yesterday, jobless Houghton sobbed as she was sentenced to three months in a young offenders' institution after pleading guilty to harassment.

She was also given a restraining order banning her from contacting Emily in person, via the internet or in any other manner for five years.

People have previously been jailed for harassment and stalking on social networking sites but she is thought to be the first to be jailed for bullying via the internet.

Houghton, of Malvern, Worcestershire, had two previous convictions relating to her vendetta against Emily, the court heard.

In 2005 she was convicted of assaulting her as she walked home from school. Houghton was subsequently expelled from school. Two years later she was convicted of causing criminal damage to Emily's home after kicking her front door.

District Judge Bruce Morgan said: 'Since Emily Moore was 14 you have waged compelling threats and violent abuse towards her.

'Bullies are by their nature cowards, in school and society. On this day you did an act of gratuitous nastiness to satisfy your own twisted nature.'

The court heard that Houghton had told police she wrote the death threats while she was drunk late at night.

But when officers examined internet records they discovered Houghton wrote the comments at 4pm on July 12 and kept them on her Facebook page for 24 hours.

Last month, an inquest heard how a schoolgirl took a fatal overdose of painkillers after bullies waged a hate campaign against her on Bebo.

Megan Gillan, 15, of Macclesfield, Cheshire, swallowed the tablets to avoid a science exam after classmates posted spiteful messages on the social networking site.

She was found dead in bed by her parents after she failed to come down for breakfast on the day of the exam.

Her death prompted the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, to criticise such sites, saying they encouraged teenagers to build 'transient relationships' that can leave them traumatised when they collapse.

The archbishop, who was appointed to the post in April, said the sites encouraged young people to put too much emphasis on the number of friends they have rather than on the quality of their relationships.

Emma Jane Cross, from campaign group Beatbullying, said yesterday: 'The sentencing of an 18-year-old girl for cyber bullying is the first of its kind in the UK and sets an important precedent.

'Cyber bullying is a worrying and fast growing trend which can be more harmful than typical schoolyard bullying.'

Drama on Facebook
Facebook is used by tens of millions of people across the world, but the way some users use the site has led to various dramas.

Last week, a picture surfaced of an alleged Facebook sacking, after an employee ranted about her boss online. He promptly replied, reminding her she had added him as a 'friend' before promptly firing her.

Meanwhile term 'Facebook Rage' is entering our language, often defined as feeling anger when a relationship breaks down and a former partner begins posting updates about their love-life.

It has also been used to describe users, convinced their other half is cheating, who spend hours stalking their partner online in a bid the find further proof to fuel their suspicions, deliberately searching for incriminating evidence.

Facebook was also in the dock a fortnight ago after a judge banned a gang of thugs from posting menacing photographs of themselves online.

In a landmark ruling, nine men pictured making gun gestures on social networking websites will be locked up if such images appear again.

Judge Clement Goldstone QC issued the ban while sentencing members of the Fallowfield Mad Dogs gang for affray. He was shown pictures of them pulling gun poses and talking about 'preparing for war' on a networking site.

Teacher Sonya McNally, 35, from Grimsby, is also currently suspended on full pay since calling her 13-year-old pupils ‘bad’ in a private conversation on the social networking site.

original article here

Facebook Threats Trial Begins

by Peter Hall

(PENNSYLVANIA, USA) Anthony Douglas Elonis' alleged Facebook threats to attack Dorney Park, kill his wife and slaughter a class of kindergartners scared some and terrified others, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday.

But when a jury weighs the evidence against Elonis, it won't have to consider whether he intended to threaten those people, but rather that he knew it could be perceived as a threat.

Testimony in Elonis' trial on five counts of making threats under the federal cyber stalking law began Monday, with FBI Special Agent Denise Stevens explaining how Elonis attracted the agency's attention.

Elonis, 28, was arrested in December after authorities executed a search warrant at his parents' home on Schwab Avenue, Lower Saucon Township.

Shortly after Elonis was fired in October 2010 from his job at Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom in South Whitehall Township for making a Facebook post that his co-workers perceived as threatening, the park's chief of security, Daniel Hall, contacted the FBI.

He was concerned, Stevens said, about Elonis' subsequent Facebook messages under the user name Tone Dougie describing himself as a nuclear bomb, and warning that his employers had "[expletive] with the timer."

Another message, which included a "disclaimer" that the words were fictitious lyrics and an exercise of the constitutional right to free expression, described Elonis' fantasy of a pair of twin-engine Cessna aircraft crashing into the amusement park in an apparent reference to the 9/11 World Trade Center attack.

Questioned by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri A. Stephan, Stevens said the disclaimer, and similar language in a post Elonis made about killing his estranged wife, did little to ease her worries.

"To me, it made them almost more threatening," Stevens said.

Stevens read each of Elonis' messages from Facebook screen shots displayed on TV screens for the jurors.

In a Nov. 6 post about his wife, Elonis wrote it was illegal, under the terms of a protection-from-abuse order, to say he wanted to kill her. He noted it was also illegal to describe the best way to launch a mortar attack on her home.

In a Nov. 15 post, Elonis wrote: "Fold up your PFA and put it in your pocket. Is it thick enough to stop a bullet?" It ended with a declaration that he had enough explosives to "take care of the State Police and the Sheriff's Department."

The next day, Elonis wrote, "That's it, I've had about enough. I'm checking out and making a name for myself. Enough elementary schools in a ten mile radius to initiate the most heinous school shooting ever imagined. And hell hath no fury like a crazy man in a Kindergarten class. The only question is which one?"

Stevens, who had been monitoring Elonis' Facebook posts, alerted the Lower Saucon police and surrounding school districts, she said.

In his opening argument, Elonis' attorney Benjamin Cooper asked the jury of seven women and five men to consider the context of Elonis' writing. He had recently lost his job and his wife had filed for divorce and taken away their two children.

"Mr. Elonis felt the impact of all that and he wrote about it in this medium called Facebook," Cooper said, noting that rap music contains similar violent imagery.

In an August court filing asking U.S. District Judge Lawrence Stengel to throw out the charges against Elonis, Cooper argued they are unconstitutional because they criminalize speech protected by the First Amendment.

He argued that Elonis' Facebook posts don't fall into one of the narrow exceptions to constitutionally protected speech called "true threats," in which the writer intends to place the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.

Rather, they were crude lyrical expressions of his frustration about life.

In response, Stephan wrote that the federal law prohibiting the transmission of threats -- the cyber stalking law -- doesn't require the government prove that a writer intended to make a threat, only that he knowingly made a statement that made the recipient fearful.

In a ruling from the bench Monday, Stengel agreed.

The trial is scheduled to continue Wednesday with testimony from Elonis' wife and Dorney Park employees.

original article found here

Please Sign the Petition for a National Marriage Database

Sign the Petition for a National Marriage Database

Bigamy (and Dating Site Fraud, Married Cyberpaths and Internet Con Persons) would become a crime of the past if there were a National Database of Marriages and Divorce.

Donna Layne Roberts, victim of the notorious "Don Juan of Con"--William Michael Barber--has begun a petition asking Congress to support this request and pass a law that will require All marriages and ALL divorces to be entered into a National Database.

Bigamy is a serious social and criminal problem that is overlooked, laughed at, and enabled by the way in which applications for marriage licenses are haphazardly given to applicants in the United States. (And despite claims to the contrary, 'background checks for married people' are not done on Dating Sites because there IS NO NATIONAL MARRIAGE DATABASE AND NO REAL WAY TO CHECK!!)

For example, if you apply for a marriage license, no background checking is done, and you are "at your word" to provide honest answers on the marriage application. A man or woman who is already married, could easily go tomorrow and get married and no checking would be performed. Furthermore, there is no centralized database for jurisdictions to check to see whether or not a person is being truthful on their application.

Even a bigamous marriage that takes place in the same jurisdiction can occur. For example, Julia Bish Judah Hunt White McGovern, married two men in Las Vegas. The marriages even appear in the Clark County, NV marriage database. No checking was done to see if serial Bigamist Julia Bish-Judah-Hunt-White-McGovern obtained a divorce, therefore, she was married Judah while still married to Randy Bish and was free to marry Hunt while still married to Bish and Judah.

Bigamy is classified as a felony in most states, yet rarely do bigamists ever spend a night in jail and many get off with fines less than what most of us get for reckless driving tickets. It is cheaper to be a bigamist than get a divorce. What is wrong with this picture? Not only do bigamists dish out emotional abuse to their victims, but they ruin them financially as well. (Married people who troll the dating sites cause considerable emotional, mental and financial damage to their spouses, their families and the innocents they meet and romance who have no idea they are dealing with someone with a spouse & possibly children.)

Please sign the petition today and help ensure that the prevalent crimes of bigamy, fraud, embezzlement, and identity theft will be harder to commit against the people of this country, and the sanctity of both religious and civil unions will be protected.

Cross posted from this site. We fully support this petition at EOPC - it would also end Dating Site Frauds and Married Cyberpaths preying on the innocent. We ask that our readers sign it and pass it on to everyone they know!

Serious Jail Time for Cyber Harassers

New Mexico is taking another look at cyberstalking with legislation that could mean serious prison time for those who use the Internet to harass someone.

Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez and two state lawmakers are proposing a new state law that would bump up cyberstalking to a felony and would force cyberstalkers to register as sex offenders.

APD Chief Ray Schultz said it's time to make laws tougher to stop predators in cyberspace, who have managed to operate from behind bars.

"One of those loop holes is the fact that somebody in jail can cyberstalk from jail via electronic means and there's no way for that to be successfully prosecuted," he said.

Mayor Chavez unveiled new legislation Thursday that will make it a sex crime to cyberstalk an adult--a fourth-degree felony.

"Right now, stalking an adult is a misdemeanor in New Mexico," Chavez said.

Last year, a Sandia Labs worker was sentenced to two years under federal law after using her work computer to stalk the lead sing of the rock band "Linkin Park" in 2006.

Children are already protected from being stalked electronically in New Mexico, but the mayor said that isn't enough. He wants all convicted cyberstalkers to register as sex offenders.

"I think any legislator would be hard pressed to say anyone convicted of stalking a child online ought to be able to proceed in anonymity in the future. They need to register like all the other creeps," Chavez said.

The FBI said it will have a new, state-of-the-art computer forensics lab in Albuquerque next year that police departments will be able to use to enforce local laws and track cyberstalkers.

ORIGINAL

HE'S BACK! ED HICKS BACK TROLLING ONLINE

Just to remind all of us how COMPULSIVE these predators are, Ed Hicks aka - Charles Hicks aka Charles Greene aka Billy Matthews, who was indicted for bigamy and got out of jail just a short while back is back online looking for new victims... er partners. (and still lying about his age too - he's actually 64!)

Hicks was the very first cyberpath we ever reported on and is the epitome of why this site was started. EOPC spent most of our first few months online reporting on this man and the fight to bring him to justice... yet 6 years later this alleged sociopath hasn't learned a thing.

From our friends at FIGHT BIGAMY, who got this comment (October 2011):

He's out again. Now going by the name of Billy Matthews. I too met him through an on-line dating site and found out accidentally who he really was. Luckilly for me, no damage done that I am aware of. Told me almost word for word every comment posted about him. Thank goodness for the internet.

MORE

If this isn't PROOF to STAY OFF ONLINE DATING! Be sure to report him to the dating site(s) he is on if you run into him. This time he was on a CHRISTIAN DATING SITE called "Love & Seek." By now he probably has another new name and is on a new website. Jail time hasn't deterred him one bit.

These cyberpaths spend their LIVES doing this and they will never stop. Hicks is a serial abuser and bigamist. He is probably already juggling multiple women for sex, money or just for fun. Hicks will tell you he's:

• retired from the Federal Government (no. he was fired in disgrace.);
• he's just looking for "love" or "companionship" or "in love with love", and
• that all the news stories about him (well-researched with legal backup and filed in the courts in at least 2 states, convicted in Virginia and given jail time) are lies planted by his ex-wives or ex-girlfriends
• calls you "HONEY" all the time because he usually has about 3 women on the go at any one time and can't always remember your name.
  

This very bad man, just like another bigamist, con man - William Barber - and here's proof Hicks will never stop. Cyberpathy is compulsive and even jail does not deter these men from getting online and doing it all over.

MORE ON ED HICKS aka CHARLES HICKS aka BILLY MATTHEWS

CLICK HERE FOR EVEN MORE ON ED HICKS aka CHARLES HICKS aka BILLY MATTHEWS

Posed as Rock Star on Facebook - Really a Murderer

by Andy Dolan

She met him on Facebook, and was impressed enough to cross the Atlantic to meet him. But Maricar Benedicto’s naive trust was repaid in the most horrific way.

The man who lured her to the UK, David Russell, took her to a forest and persuaded the 19-year-old to wear a blindfold, saying he had a gift for her.

Russell then stood behind her and slit her throat. The terrified teenager tried to escape but the 20-year-old McDonald’s worker stabbed her several times, hit her in the face with a log and headbutted her. Miraculously, she survived.

At Northampton Crown Court, Russell admitted kidnap and attempted murder and was jailed for life. The court was told he had posed as tattooed rocker Oliver Sykes, lead singer in the Sheffield-based metal band Bring Me The Horizon, currently touring the Americas.

Prosecuting, Christopher Donnellan QC said that the day before Miss Benedicto arrived from California last April, Russell had searched the internet for ‘how to kill someone with bare hands’, ‘how to cut skin with a knife’ and ‘the best knife to kill’.

After meeting Miss Benedicto at the town’s railway station, Russell took her to a nearby forest, claiming it held special childhood memories.

Mr Donnellan said: ‘He asked her to sit down on a fallen tree trunk and said he was going to blindfold her. He said she would get a surprise or a present. He stood behind her, blindfolded her, asked her to put her head back, and her arms up. She did so with her palms up, entirely trusting him.

‘Although she did not see any implement because of the blindfold, the next thing she felt was her neck being sliced.’ The court heard that as Russell did it, he shouted: ‘Why won’t you die? You’ve ruined my life. It’s all your fault.’

The court was told she jumped up and the blindfold fell off. She began to run away ‘but he caught up and stabbed her in the back’. A serrated breadknife was found at the scene.

He stopped the attack only when Miss Benedicto told him she had given his name and address to immigration on arrival in the UK. He ran home, where he took a suspected overdose, while she staggered to a nearby house for help.

The pair had met on Facebook last year and ‘engaged in conversations using pseudonyms’. She went by the alias Ruby Townsend. They chatted online using Skype and Miss Benedicto knew Russell was not who he initially claimed to be before she flew to Britain.

Steven Crouch, defending, said Russell was ‘borderline autistic’ but had never offended before. ‘He is a troubled young man, very young, who committed an act in bizarre circumstances, never to be repeated.’

Jailing him on Tuesday, Judge Charles Wide QC said Russell was ‘exceptionally dangerous’ and must serve at least 17-and-a-half years in jail before being considered for release.

He added: ‘The features of this case are truly horrifying. When she was able to escape, you intended to kill her and must have come very close.’

original article found here

Arrested for Cyberstalking His Ex

by Bob Byrne

(Pennsylvania, USA) Police have charged Anthony Ciccarone with three counts related to alleged cyberstalking after an investigation spurred by complaints from his ex-wife.

According to police, the woman complained to police, alleging that her daily activities were being monitored. While investigating the complaints police say they uncovered evidence that the suspect had "made comments to others that he had been monitoring his ex-wife's activities."

Police say they had the ex-wife's computer examined for evidence and uncovered a "Web Watcher" program that works by recording all activities on a computer without the user being aware that it is there. According to a Tredyffrin Police news release the Web Watcher program also logs every key stroke, capturing emails and internet activities.

The investigation led police to get a search warrant and an arrest warrant for Anthony Ciccarone. He was arrested last week. A $7,500 cash bail was set in the case, which the defendant posted.

original article here

Burglars Use Twitter & Facebook to Scope Out Targets

by Andy Bloxham

With many users posting constant updates, the sites can unwittingly provide the thieves with information about recent high-value purchases such as televisions as well as the dates and times when they are out.

Other websites, such as Google Street View, show photographs of individual houses from which the would-be burglars can gauge security and ease of access by looking for alarms and side entrances.

The results were based on the answers of offenders who were convicted of burglary this year. Four out of five of the criminals said social media websites were being used by burglars. However, the same number said a simple home alarm would have deterred them from targeting the property in the first place.

According to the survey, a thief steals an average of £487 from a home on a single visit.

One of the convicted burglars interviewed, Richard Taylor, said: “We’re living in the age of the digital criminal and people are taking advantage of social media to access information about would-be victims. We’ll tell them even when we're going away on holidays. We will let them know that we’re not in. We’re inviting them round to our house.”

Jonathan Lim, an expert at Friedland, the security firm behind the research, said: “Taking simple measures, including cutting back trees and shrubs to remove potential hiding places and installing simple alarm systems are all good, cost-effective deterrents that all homeowners can implement to remove their home from the target list.”

original article here

Breakup then... Cyberstalk?

By Dane Schiller

Soon after a Massachusetts college student dumped her Houston-area fiancé, he sent her email and text messages to find out what happened, maybe win her back.

It didn't work. Things got ugly.

The ex-boyfriend is now accused of unleashing a torrent of hundreds of messages that grew so violent that the woman sought help from the FBI.

"I will tear you limb from limb," read one of the messages, according to copies shared with a magistrate. "I want to watch you suffer" and "I will come for you," read others.

Federal prosecutors accuse Christopher Hlavinka, 24, of using the Internet to cause "substantial emotional distress." He faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

On Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Smith ordered Hlavinka, who was first taken into custody in June, to be released to his family pending trial. He also is to be tracked by GPS and largely confined to home and is not allowed to use computers or cell- phones with Web access.

One email can land him back behind bars and facing even more time.

Spotlight on stalking
The case highlights increasing concern about online harassment and stalking.

Hlavinka's former fiancée, identified in court by the initials S.H., was pushed to the edge by the harassment, according to the FBI. She moved multiple times to hide and sought psychological counseling as well as police protection.

FBI Special Agent Ryan McKee testified that Hlavinka mocked a protective order as well as police, and sent personal information about S.H. to her family and associates. "Jail does not scare me," Hlavinka reportedly told her. "Isn't it cute you think you can get protection against me?"

Hlavinka's computer showed he went to Google maps and other sites to research where S.H. and her parents lived, McKee said.

3 motivations
Defense attorney Brian Laviage argued for Hlavinka's conditional release at the hearing, saying his client has no criminal record; no history of physical violence; and that he belonged with his family and getting help rather than in prison.

He said Hlavinka's arrests, first by Fort Bend authorities and then by federal agents, and his time behind bars helped him accept that the relationship is over. He just wants to get on with his life, Laviage said.

David Buss, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said by phone that stalkers usually exhibit three major motivations: They either want to get back together with the ex-partner, to interfere with an ex's romantic life, or to exact revenge.

"Cyber-stalking can be especially vicious because the stalkers are sitting behind computers, and so feel that they can stalk with the safety of their own house or work," he said.

original piece can be found here

Facebook Getting Tough with Abusive Trolls

Vicious "trolls" who heap abuse on total strangers on the Internet for fun are being targeted in a Facebook crackdown. Tribute pages honoring the dead, such as soldiers in Afghanistan, have become a recent favorite of the ugly trolls, reports the Telegraph. Facebook users can manually delete abusive messages, but company engineers are now working on new systems that will automatically delete the hurtful slams. Facebook already tracks suspected trolls—those who repeatedly communicate with non-friends, or whose friend requests are often rejected.

Facebook is stepping up some site surveillance in the wake of mounting complaints about cyberbullying and pedophiles stalking users. Britain's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center has recently initiated a Facebook site that offers advice and links to report cyber abuse. The official in charge of the center has criticized Facebook for refusing to add a "panic button" on each page to report problems.

original article here

U.K. Comedian Calls Police Following Online Threats about His Children Online

(U.K.) Comedian Dom Joly has called the police after a Twitter account was set up by an internet 'troll' abusing his two children.

The 43-year-old star of Trigger Happy TV, who has an 11-year-old daughter Parker and seven-year-old son Jackson, was sent the string of abusive tweets about his children's appearance and claiming they had serious illnesses.

He has now warned the account holder, who set up @deathtojolykids, that he faces a spell in prison for 'trolling.' The comic, who is married to Stacey and now lives in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, said on Twitter on Wednesday: 'This one crossed the line and I'm going to police.'

The account has now been suspended by Twitter.

The 'troll' who set up the account reportedly called himself Mickey McChin and his personal Twitter account is @Mr-McChin. However, @Mr-McChin insisted he had nothing do with the account and has said that the IP addresses will not match up when Twitter releases them.

Earlier this week, 'troller' Sean Duffy, 25, from Reading, was jailed for 18 weeks after posted vile abuse on Facebook and memorial sites dedicated to dead children.



And, last month Dragons' Den star Duncan Bannatyne told how he was 'living in a nightmare' after a Twitter stalker, calling himself Russian Yuri Vasilyev, issued death threats against him and his 25-year-old daughter Hollie.

In a string of tweets this week Mr Joly tweeted: '@MetPoliceUk I would like to report a death threat to my kids - this is the twitter account set up- @deathtojolykids.'

He then warned the account holder, telling him on Twitter: '@deathtojolykids report just gone to met police...enjoy.



Mr Joly, who has an 11-year-old daughter Parker and seven-year-old son Jackson, was sent the string of abusive tweets about his children

'Police have been contacted, I have screen grabs, I'll let u know what happens - you can arrest someone who issues a death threat - which you have. I will have you arrested, trust me.

'He said it was 'very easy to trace his IP address' and warned the troller 'You need to read the news my friend - up to 16 months prison'.

He added: 'OK formal report made to police- can't wait until they track him down.'



'Already had reply from police and crime ref number re @deathtojolykids very impressed with Cirencester police, more news soon.' Mr Joly added: 'It's c**ts like @Mr-McChin who go on about this sort of stuff being 'banter' that encourage people making death threats to kids.'

A spokesman for Gloucestershire Police said yesterday: 'We can confirm that we were contacted at 6.30pm on Wednesday night about threats made on Twitter. 'Local officers are due to follow this up and visit the complainant to set the wheels in motion.'

original article here

Jailed for Cyber-Inviting Men to Girl's Home for Anonymous Sex

(Warwickshire, U.K.) A jilted boyfriend has been jailed for using the web to invite men to his ex-girlfriend’s home for sex and “rape fantasies”.

Khalid Hussain created bogus profiles on dating and swinging websites and posed as his victim, asking for no-strings sex.

Over six months last year, the court heard more than 100 men knocked on her door for sessions they thought she had arranged. One thought he had been invited to take part in a rape role play. He hit the victim in the face and began to grab her before ­realising something was wrong.

Hussain, 30, was jailed for two years and nine months after he admitted harassment.

Judge Paul Farrer QC told him: “You carried out a campaign of ­humiliation and terror. Your behaviour was persistent, calculated and sinister.”

Warwick crown court heard Hussain met his victim on a dating website in October 2009. They had a brief relationship but she dumped him soon after. Soon, he posed as another man to get risque photos from her and posted them on Facebook.

He also bombarded her with 500 abusive emails and texts, including one saying: “I’m going to have fun now. Wait and see, you’ll get knocks on your door.”

Prosecutor Robert Hodgkinson said: “She received over 100 visits at night from men who knocked on her door saying they had been conversing with her by email and were responding to invitations by her to visit for sex. One had been led to believe that she wanted to be ‘raped’ and when he arrived, in accordance with instructions, he hit her in the face and went to grab her.

“Clearly he quickly realised everything was not as he had expected and after she remonstrated with him, he drove off."

Hussain also made a hoax call to police claiming his victim was running a drug factory from her Warwickshire home. And he called the RSPCA claiming the woman’s daughter mistreated her pet dog.

In a statement, she said: “It has been a living nightmare for me having strangers knocking at my door and opening it to be greeted by angry men who think it is me who has been setting them up.”

Hussain, of Walsall, was given a restraining order and also made to serve six months of an earlier suspended sentence.

original article here
At least one of our exposed cyberpaths tried to do this to his victim on MySpace.

Let this article warn:
1. Online Dating is NOT safe.
2. Sending 'naughty' pictures to someone, even if you think you can trust them, is NOT a good idea.

- EOPC

Probation for Man Posting Fake Orgy on Craigslist

Connecticut, USA - A Connecticut man has been sentenced to probation for posting a bogus ad about an orgy at the house of a neighbor with whom he had been feuding.

Court records show 44-year-old Philip Conran pleaded guilty to risk of injury to a
child last week in Hartford Superior Court.

He has been sentenced to three years of probation and 200 hours of community
service. He also has been ordered to pay for the West Hartford neighbor's house
alarm system.

Police say Conran posted the Craigslist ad in April 2010 and that several strangers
knocked on the neighbor's door. One man went to the wrong home, groped a teenage girl and was arrested.

Conran's attorney, Michael Georgetti, says his client regrets his actions.

original article here

Chatroulette

Disturbing: A girl tries out Chatroulette and is linked to a man
who immediately starts unzipping his trousers

Is new website the most disturbing internet craze yet?

By Olivia Lichtenstein

When this writer's daughter told her about a 'cool' new teen website, she decided to investigate. What she found was the most worrying internet craze to date.
~~~~~

Late on a weekday afternoon and I'm sitting at my computer. On the screen in front of me are two small boxes - little video streams - one above the other. My face is in the bottom box. The face and bare torso of a man is in the one on top. Let's call him Gerry.

Beside Gerry's face is a box into which we can type, so that we can chat to one another. So he types hello and then asks where I come from. I say hello back and tell him I am from London.

Our exchange has lasted barely seconds, but suddenly another message pops up. He's asking me if I will remove my top so he can see my breasts.

He is a complete stranger, and one of the many crude and deviant men I have encountered in the past 30 minutes.

I quickly click a button to have him removed from my screen.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the world of Chatroulette - an internet site that is turning into something of a phenomenon.

It was my 16-year- old daughter who told me about Chatroulette, a 'cool' new site she and her friends recently started using.

It's the fast-growing, latest fad among teenagers - a quick and easy way to communicate online with people from all over the world.

It works literally like roulette. Users log on, press a big button labelled 'Next' and it then randomly connects you to any one of a number of people across the world currently logged on. The gimmick is the fact that all of the users have webcams - so they can 'meet' the random strangers.

It was the idea of 17-year-old Russian schoolboy Andrey Ternovskiy. He launched it in November last year and his business quickly grew virally from 50 users to 50,000 in its first month.

One million people now visit it each day. However, what may have started as the innocent game of a Moscow schoolboy has quickly become a potential tailor-made portal for perverts and paedophiles - proving once again that the internet is putting the lives of our vulnerable teenagers (and adults) in jeopardy.

And believe me, after you've seen it, you'll never complain about your teen's obsession with texting their friends again.

For this, the latest Frankenstein monster spawned by the internet is, as with so much web-based activity, impossible to monitor, restrict or control.

After my daughter first told me about it a few weeks ago, I decided to investigate the site for myself - and, even for a technophobe like me, the ease with which I was able to access it was terrifying.

It doesn't require you to log in or register (despite the fact that the site states it is for over-16s only) and all you need is a computer with a webcam. It's entirely free and once you've clicked a button to allow the site to access your webcam, your face appears in one of two boxes.

In fact, it's so disturbingly easy that even primary school children, with basic computer skills, could access it.

Once you're plugged in, the site immediately starts searching for a 'partner' and within seconds you find yourself jettisoned into a stranger's bedroom, living room, or, all too often, trousers.

The webpage is unsophisticated and states only the following rules: '16+, clothes, report button.' More often than not, though, as I discovered, 'unclothed' was the order of the day.

And the button which allows you to report unseemly behaviour is all very well, but the perpetrator's punishment is a tame warning and 40 minutes suspension from the site. Hardly a deterrent. During my time on Chatroulette, the users I encountered were men and women from Germany, Holland, Turkey, Spain, America and Britain. To begin, you click a button marked 'New game'.

If you don't like the look of the person you have been connected to, you click a button marked 'Next' and somebody else instantly pops up at random. They can be any age, any sex and hail from Manchester to Moscow - although the site's lingua franca is English.

Many of the people on this site are exhibitionists who are free to display themselves to total strangers. Mostly, the people I chatted to were men. Some of them showed their faces - others angled the computer in such a way as to mask their identities and, all too often, to reveal their genitals.

At least one out of every five of the strangers I was connected to was a man with the camera pointed directly at his private parts. Within the first few seconds of using the site, I was asked: 'Do you show boobs?'

This was a man from Ibiza, who had angled the computer in such a way that all I could see was his clothed lap. He could have been anything from 17 to 70.

A man from Germany whose face was masked with a scarf asked if I would like to watch him fondle himself. Another told me in graphic terms what he would like me to do to him.

Apart from a sweet but banal conversation with a Spanish student who wanted to improve his English, and a courteous Turkish architect, most of the encounters I experienced left me feeling that I had become the unwitting participant in a porn film.

The ability to parachute into the lives of strangers is simultaneously addictive and repellent. Just like pornography, it leaves the user feeling dirty and ashamed.

Most of the people I encountered were foreign - and while their English was often poor, they knew the words required to fulfill one purpose: to persuade young girls and women to undress.

Chatroulette may have been invented by a child, but it's clearly not appropriate for children - and it's anything but a game.

But, thanks to celebrity users such as Paris Hilton and Ashton Kutcher, teenagers are flocking to the site.

Indeed, if you swiftly 'next' your way through your matches, you will find that around 50 per cent of users appear to be younger than 20.

The fact that my daughter and her friends are not shocked by the site is shocking in itself - it's a further indication that such aberrant behaviour has been normalised.

'If you don't like something, you just click "next",' my daughter blithely told me. It saddens me that she has grown up in a society that makes it possible for her to be so worldly and resigned at such a young age.

But she is not alone. Even more depressingly, it seems that - thanks to the internet - such sexualised behaviour is pervading all generations.

Just last week, a newspaper column related the story of a woman who had recently gone on a date with an unnamed parliamentary candidate. Their date went well, but - as the source revealed - the very next day she received an email containing a photograph of his genitals.

Shocking enough, but sadly not a unique occurrence. I have a number of middle-aged friends who are newly divorced or still single (sometimes still very married) and navigating the tricky minefield that is internet dating. They have found that conversations online all too quickly turn vulgar. And increasingly pornographic, too.

One told me of a man who, within minutes of meeting online, tried to engage her in dirty talk. Another had an online suitor who bombarded her with a series of naked pictures.

Of course, my friends did not participate. But one short afternoon on Chatroulette and you will find that there are a number of women who will. So what is it that is attracting so many modern men and women to such disturbing exhibitionism?

Dr Taly Weiss is a Jerusalem-based marketing trends researcher with a PhD in Social Psychology. She says that internet encounters, be they ones such as on Chatroulette or dating sites, or the sending of explicit photos, are about satisfying the feeling of excitement that comes when we are allowed inside private places and invite people into them too.

Chatroulette, in particular, where you are literally live in front of a total stranger, takes this to extremes.

I fear for what is going to happen next. For, when you think back to the creation of mobile phones, what started as a useful way of communicating quickly turned into sexting (sending explicit text messages).

Now, we face the worrying prospect that a growing number of men find it acceptable to expose themselves to strangers online - and the young girls watching them not only think it's normal, but some even agree to perform sex acts on themselves in return.

Will this soon become the perverted future of courtship?

Just think of the way that Ashley Cole threw away his marriage to Cheryl Cole by texting naked photos of himself to a stranger, before embarking on an alleged affair with her. 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall was raped and murdered by 26-year-old Peter Chapman, a man who had met and groomed her on Facebook.

Let us no longer pretend that this is all a 'bit of fun'. How long will it be before we hear of a similar Chatroulette tragedy?

Sarita Yardi, a PhD candidate at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is studying the role of technology in teenagers' lives. She says that the idea of showing your face to strangers violates almost all social norms of the offline world.

'If someone walked up to you at a cocktail party, stared at you intensely, then simply walked away, you would feel confused and probably offended,' she says.

She advises parents to think carefully about what material is socially appropriate for their child and to weigh up the risks and rewards. 'It's like an online Lord Of The Flies,' she says.

'There are too many unacceptable cultural and moral boundaries that are crossed - like random and unpredictable exposure to nakedness - for it to persist in its present state. This brings up interesting questions of governance.' Indeed it does.

The startling lack of internet controls has been a cause of anxiety for parents for some time.

While users of other social networking sites are urged to check the identities of those they talk to, Chatroulette aficionados socially enter into conversation with random strangers who remain entirely anonymous.

'The fact that my daughter and her friends are not shocked by the site is shocking in itself'

Our children live in an age where the internet is all that they've ever known and they have access to all manner of images and information that we, as children, were not exposed to.

According to a recent Home Office report on the Sexualisation of Young People, 99 per cent of eight to 17-year-olds have access to the internet and 60 per cent of 12 to 15-year-olds say that they mostly use it on their own.

The study found that 49 per cent of children aged eight to 17 have an online profile on sites such as Bebo, MySpace and Facebook and that girls report being under increasing pressure to display themselves in their underwear online.

Almost half of them say that their parents set no rules for the use of such sites. Chatroulette has taken social networking to the next level and provides a perfect forum for men to prey on vulnerable girls and women.

The images I encountered were shockingly pornographic, and it disturbs me profoundly to think that my 16-year-old has been exposed to them, even if she does have the street smarts to move swiftly on if she encounters anything unseemly.

The site is little more than a haven for exhibitionists and voyeurs.

It's not a game, it's porn, and pornography is addictive, corrosive and promotes unhealthy sexual stereotypes and behaviour for girls and boys. It undermines dignity and respect for others by making sexual intimacy into little more than a spectator sport without love, commitment or responsibility.

Depressingly, the business world has been quick to exploit the opportunities of this viral site, now worth an estimated £30 million, which has spread like bushfire around the world.

Fred Wilson, a New York-based venture capitalist with Union Square Ventures who has invested in dozens of dotcom companies, including Twitter, states on his blog: 'The internet is this huge network with over a billion people worldwide on it.

'Chatroulette feels like a cool way to take a quick trip around that network, meeting people and talking to them.'

But while the site's founder claims he built it so he and his friends could start doing things together online, like watching movies or making things, those aims have quickly been subverted.

And, as I discovered during my short venture into that world, it's yet another example of the pernicious sexual culture that threatens to corrupt the fibre of our children's innocence.

original article here

A Form of Partner Violence: Cyberstalking

Violence in intimate relationships is all too common -- just ask any cop who's responded to the calls. But younger generations who grew up with computer technology have more to worry about than a punch or slap. Cyberstalking is emerging as a form of partner violence that differs from traditional domestic abuse and is troubling in the ease in which it occurs.

Cyberbully stalking harassment In a study published this month, Kansas State University researcher Lisa A. Melander shines a light on how cyberstalking impacts college-age students. Gathering data in male-only or female-only focus groups, Melander found a range of cyber harassment, including sending unsolicited or threatening e-mails, posting hostile Internet messages and obtaining personal information about the victim without his or her consent.

The study found some differences in cyber harassment compared to face-to-face domestic violence. One, the conflict is quick and easy, so flare-ups occur in cyberspace when they might have blown over if people were only communicating in person. Two, matters that would typically be private become public very quickly -- meaning friends, relatives and others can be pulled into the situation and also suffer from the conflict. And, three, geographic location has no bearing on the situation. Victims can't always escape by changing their physical location.

Melander also found that, contrary to traditional violence where there is likely one abuser and one victim, cyberharassment can often involve both partners because of the back-and-forth that takes place. Moreover, when people communicate via computer they are less inhibited and don't have visual cues, such as facial expressions or tone of voice, to guide their interactions. That too can aggravate conflict that is being played out in cyberspace.

Melander concludes that computer technology "may change how relationship violence occurs among younger generations." A previous study suggested that about one-third of college students reported some form of computer-based harassment. But much more research is needed on the impact of the "darker side" of technology, she said.

The study is published in the June issue of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

-- Shari Roan

original article here

Thief Meets Woman Online, Uses Her for Getaway Car

by Tony Bassett

A mother-of-two had a 'first date from hell' after she was duped into becoming the getaway driver for a thief she met on Facebook.

Leah Gibbs, 23, had planned to spend an evening watching a DVD and getting to know 21-year-old Adam Minton. But instead, when she arrived at his home, he asked her to give him a lift - claiming he briefly had to visit a friend.

She drove him to a shopping area, where he left her for five minutes. When he returned in a panic he ordered her to: "Go, go, go!"

She drove back to his house, but as his personality had changed and he had become rude towards her, she decided the date was over. Just as he was trying to coax her into the house, the police arrived and they were both arrested.

Miss Gibbs was astonished to find police accusing him of robbing a betting shop at knife point, and her of being his accomplice.

She was forced to spend a night in a cell before police accepted her story and she was freed. Minton has now been jailed for four and a half years.

Miss Gibbs, from Tylorstown, South Wales, said: 'I thought I would be ending the night in Adam's arms. Instead, he had landed in the long arms of the law and I was facing jail.

'I'm not a bad person. I was duped. It could have happened to anyone.'

She was only freed when Minton convinced police she had not been involved and knew nothing about the robbery. She added: 'I'm grateful he told the police I knew nothing of the robbery, but still bitter he involved me.'

Minton had worn a black bandana and threatened a cashier with a large kitchen knife. He got away with £250. But the cashier was able to give police the car's registration number which led to the prompt arrests.

Merthyr Crown Court heard last month that Minton first told police he carried out the robbery because of a drug debt. He later claimed he had a gambling problem. The court also heard he had a record for violent offending. The incident is the latest ‘date from hell’ to emerge and follows Twitter users taking to the social media site to speak of their own experiences.

The tales were posted online this week after columnist Rhodri Marsden shared his own disastrous experience at a pub in Clapham.

He wrote on Twitter: 'I've just walked past the Firefly, where I went on a date in 2002 that was so bad I heard myself say "So, what's Wigan like, then?"'

He later explained: 'We had nothing in common, and nothing to say. The silences became excruciating. She was from Wigan, and I actually heard myself saying: "So, what's Wigan like, then?"'

The post led to hundreds of his 17,000 followers telling snippets in up to 140 characters.

UPDATE: DOUG BECKSTEAD - NAILED!

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