Cyber-Stalking

1. PREDATORS CLASSIFICATION: Cyber-Stalkers

2. PREDATORS CLASSIFICATION: Cyber-Stalking

3. A Quick Insight on Cyber-Stalking

4. Healing Thoughts from a Cyber-Stalking Victim

5. Tips for Staying Safe Online

6. Cyber-Stalking

7. Cyber-Stalking or Harassment

8. Cyber-Stalking Laws

9. All About Cyber Criminals

PREDATORS CLASSIFICATION: Cyber-Stalkers

The recent phenomenon of "cyber-stalking" is the use of the Internet as a tool to exploit victims. These predators, usually male, go on-line to harass, stalk, and eventually assault their victims. With the Internet, the possibilities for cyber-stalking are endless. In 1993 there were 5000 websites on the Internet. Today there are over 2.5 billion, with more than 25,000 websites devoted exclusively to pornography and 12,000 websites run by pedophiles. Chat rooms are frequented by a variety of people, including children who are restless and women who are looking for companionship. Both are easy targets for the cyber-predator.

In many cases, child molesters enter chat rooms pretending to be children. These molesters have perfected the art of cyber-stalking: they even write like 12-year olds, spelling mistakes and all, in order to exploit their prey. They set up a meeting, and before the child realizes it, he is abducted.

The Internet allows predators to deceive others and pretend they are something they're not. Since image is everything on the Internet, people on chat rooms can live in a fantasy world, where the line between fantasy and reality is often blurred.

Source: Dr. Eric Hickey

Cyber-Stalking

Cyberstalking is best viewed as a method of stalking employed by either domestic or stranger stalkers. Typically, we find that most cyberstalking appears to be committed by strangers given the vast number of sexual predator, celebrity, and nuisance stalkers currently using the Internet. The stalking landscape will continue to fluctuate as more individuals from all socioeconomic statuses, ethnic/racial backgrounds, political persuasions, and religious belief systems embrace the ether world. For example, the fastest growing group of persons now gaining access to the Internet is that earning a wage of under $25,000 per year.

The greatest focus surrounding those who cyberstalk and their victims involves sexual predators. Most commonly noted are pedophiles and child molesters.

Differentiating between pedophiles and child molesters is not an easy task because they are not mutually exclusive in their fantasies and behaviors.

Pedophiles prefer the company of children both socially and emotionally.

Although many pedophiles work in adult settings, they always prefer the company of children. They usually are not married and live alone or with a relative. Their fantasies involve being emotionally attached and, if possible, physically involved with a child. They appear on a continuum from reclusive and self-gratified (where the pedophile does not actually seek out children but instead uses movies, props, photographs, etc., to fulfill fantasies and sexual desires) to the aggressive pedophile who seeks out children for sexual purposes, including murder. The child molester also prefers children but is more likely to be married and have a family. The key distinguishing factor is sexual contact with children. Once the pedophile begins to approach children, he is no longer in a benign status engaged in only sexual fantasies involving children. Pedophiles and child molesters can be found affiliated with NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association), Free Spirits, the Renee Guyon Society, Pedophile Liberation Front and other organizations of similar ilk.

The Internet has become a labyrinth in which such predators lurk. Internet chat rooms, especially those designed for younger persons, have become virtual playgrounds for sexual predators. Pedophiles who may have kept their fantasies to themselves now have a forum to discuss their thoughts with other pedophiles as well as daily opportunities to visit chat rooms and begin relationships with unsuspecting victims. In California, a 60-year-old opthamologist contacted a 13-year-old girl and after a few e-mail exchanges began sending her sexually explicit photographs. Eventually the doctor asked to meet the girl and she agreed. The girl turned out to be a police officer working Internet sex crime cases. The doctor felt that law enforcement was overreacting because there was no proof of intent to harm the child. In his words "I only sent her a couple of photos and asked to meet her." The Internet now provides the predator with a plethora of tools and options to use in the process of stalking children. Photographs, drawings, e-mail, online chats, chat rooms, videos, and music are some of the devices now available via the Internet that allow predators to connect with children. Potential rapists can use the same tools in hunting victims. From a criminal's perspective, barrooms have been places of gathering for men seeking women to rape.

The advent of the Internet now provides a forum for would-be rapists to stalk women. Unfortunately people find themselves more willing to talk openly about personal topics on the Internet than if they were face-to-face with a stranger. The computer provides a false sense of anonymity and security that leads potential victims into sharing too much information.

In one case the predator used his computer to lure victims to his home for sexual activities or promises of employment. Thus far the bodies of eight of these women have been located after the predator raped, tortured, and murdered them.

Source: Dr. Eric Hickey

A Quick Insight on Cyber-Stalking

"It's important that people understand that cyberstalking is more prevalent than they can imagine. The lack of all communications cues which normally might tip off someone as to a person's intent are absent, and aid the stalker in furthering his desires. People need to be aware of the information that can be obtained about THEM online, often for free, and need to understand that they can avoid becoming a victim in many instances, and what to do should it happen despite their efforts. The series helps in alerting the public to many of the issues in today's society."

Source: Associate Professor Christopher Malinowski
Program Director/Graduate Programs
Computer Science Department

Healing Thoughts from a Cyber-Stalking Victim

It took a long time to find any sort of healing. I finally went to see a psychotherapist for almost a year. She helped me put everything in perspective, encouraged me to do more media interviews and get the word out and was my "cheerleader" whenever something good happened on my case. As a stranger, she was removed from the situation, which helped me more than any of my family or friends could do, including my husband. I learned how to focus, let negative comments pretty much not bother me and to never give up.

Jayne

Tips for Staying Safe Online
by J. A. Hitchcock, author of Net Crimes & Misdemeanors

1. Select a gender-neutral username, email address, etc. Avoid anything cute, sexual, diminutive, or overtly feminine.
2. Keep your primary email address private. Use your primary email address ONLY for people you know and trust.
3. Get a free email account and use that for all your other online activity. Make sure you select a gender-neutral username that is nothing like anything you've had before. There are many, many free email providers, such as Hotmail, Juno, Yahoo! and Hushmail. We suggest that you do a search using your favorite search engine and choose the email provider that best suits your own needs.
4. Don't give out information simply because it is requested. Countless web sites ask you to give them your full name, date of birth, address, phone number, email address, etc. when you might just want to search their catalogs or read messages on a discussion forum. Give as little information as possible, and if they insist on information that doesn't seem justified, leave to go elsewhere. Some people give false information at such sites, especially if they don't plan to return in the future. Be especially cautious of "profiles" and "directory listings" for instant messaging programs or web sites.
5. Block or ignore unwanted users. Whether you are in a chat room or using IM, you should always check out what options/preferences are available to you and take advantage of the "Block all users except those on my buddy list" or adding unwanted usernames to an Ignore list in chat. If anyone bothers you and won't go away, put them on block or ignore!
6. Don't allow others to draw you into conflict. That may mean that you don't defend yourself from personal attacks. It's safer to ignore them and keep yourself above the fray. When you respond to a harasser in any way, you're letting him know that he has succeeded. No matter how hard it is to do, do not interact with a harasser. When he realizes that he isn't getting a reaction from you, in most cases he'll move on to find an easier target.
7. Lurk in a new forum to learn local customs. Read mailing list or discussion board postings for a week or more without responding or posting anything yourself. In chat rooms, just sit quietly for 10-30 minutes to see if the discussions that are going on are truly something in which you wish to engage. Don't respond to private messages in that time, either.
8. If a place becomes stressful, leave it. There are many stressors we cannot avoid easily in our lives, so why put up with those we can avoid? If someone is being asinine in a chat room or on a discussion board, there are countless others that are likely to be more pleasant. If another visitor to a chat room or forum is harassing you and the forum owner/moderator refuses to take decisive action, why would you want to be there? Don't allow yourself to get tied up in battles over territory.
9. When you change, really change! If you need to change your username or email address to break off contact with a harasser, using a variation on your real name or anything you've used in the past leaves tracks allowing the harasser to find you again fairly easily. If you've always been "Kitty" and you change your handle to "Cat," you haven't really changed. The harasser knows that you have particular hobbies or interests. For instance, perhaps you like to play Scrabble. If he's really obsessed or simply has too much time on his hands, he's likely to poke around in different Scrabble-related fora looking for feline names to see if he can find you again.
10. Watch what you "say" online. When you do participate online, be careful--only type what you would say to someone's face. If you wouldn't say it to a stranger standing next to you in an elevator, why in the world would you "say" it online?
11. Know what's in your signature file. Don't put your company name, title, email address, address, phone/fax number, etc. there unless your employer requires that you do so. If you must provide that information, restrict use of that email account to business interactions with co-workers and customers. Do not ever use it to participate in any public forum (mailing list, newsgroup, web-based discussion board, etc.).
12. Never use a business account for personal use. Simply leaving messages on a discussion board will reveal your IP address to others. That information can easily lead to a stalker knowing where you work and finding you offline. Restrict personal internet use to home and public access computers.
13. Ego Surf. Put your first name and last name in quotes in a search engine such as Yahoo!, Google or Dogpile and see if there are any results regarding you. You just might be surprised at what you find. Also put in the names of your spouse, loved ones and/or children. Remember to put their names in quotes to refine the search results. Better yet, use TracerLock or a similar service to do it for you on a regular basis.
14. Never give your password to anyone. Your ISP will never, ever ask you for your password while you are online or via email. In fact, they shouldn't ever contact you to ask you for your password, period. They can get it from their own records, if they really need it for any reason. If you call them for support, there are a few rather rare instances in which the support person might ask you for your password - but you called them, right? So you know it's really a support person from your ISP that you're talking to. There's no legitimate reason for anyone to ever contact you to ask for your password.
15. Don't provide your credit card number or other identifying information as proof of age to access or subscribe to a web site run by any person or company with whom you are not personally familiar or that doesn't have an extremely good, widespread reputation. Check consumer advocacy resources before giving out your credit card number to anyone, just to be sure that your trust is justified.
16. Personally monitor children's internet use, even if you have trained them in what information they can and cannot give out. There is no software in the world that can replace the active involvement of a concerned parent.
17. Instruct children to never, ever give out personal information - their real name, address, or phone number online without your permission. Consider posing as a stranger to befriend them just to see what you can learn.
18. Be very cautious about putting any pictures of yourself or your children online anywhere, or allowing anyone else (relatives, schools, dance academies, sports associations) to publish any photos. Some stalkers become obsessed because of an image. A random email address or screen name is simply much less attractive to most obsessive personalities than a photograph.

If you have a good resource for this type of crime, please send it to us via our Contact Us form.