By Carl Weiss
 |
| Image courtesy of thebusinessofme.com |
With Valentine’s Day right
around the corner I thought I’d take the time to give all of our readers a
little lesson on what can happen when that long lost love refuses to get
lost. What I am referring to is the all-too-common
practice of cyberstalking. Along with
hacking, this technocrime is on the rise worldwide. If you want to avoid being your significant
other’s online punching bag, you need to take precautions before the bloom is
off the rose if you hope to have a moment’s peace when your relationship hits the rocks.
If you perform a search of
the newsfeeds you will find that cyberstalking is performed by all ages, races,
sexes and economic brackets. An equal
opportunity nuisance, everyone from grade schoolers to senior citizens have
been accused of the crime. And let there
be no doubt that since 1999 the act of cyberstalking has been considered a
crime. That was the year that California
became the first state in the Union to pass a law specifically addressing
cyberstalking. The law itself was an
outgrowth of legislation that has been on the books since 1913 that addressed
harassment via telephone. The chief
difference between that and cyberstalking laws enacted since 200 is that it
makes it illegal to use email or any form of electronic communication to
threaten, abuse, annoy, embarrass or terrify another person. These laws were further beefed up in 2009
with the passage of a cyberbullying law that protects minors from online
harassment and intimidation.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the successful
prosecution and conviction of cyberstalking cases has been less than
stellar. That’s largely due to the fact
that conviction requires proving intent to do harm which is often nearly
impossible to prove in a court of law. What can
make prosecution of this cybercrime even more difficult is the fact that it is
child’s play to use a false name or anonymous email address to mask a stalker’s
true identity. So even if you know who
it is that is harassing you, good luck proving it.
How Do I Hack Thee?
Let me Count the Ways
Even worse is the fact that
with the advent of technology, harassing texts and emails are only the tip of
the iceberg. Off the shelf software can
provide an obsessed cyberstalker with the means to quite literally track your
every move.
A recent study from NPR stated
that more than 85 percent of domestic violence shelters surveyed had victims
who were tracked using GPS.
I Smell a RAT! An even more insidious form of cyberstalking is referred to
as ratting, where perpetrators use a Remote Access Trojan to commandeer the
webcam on a laptop, tablet or cellphone in order to become an electronic
peeping Tom.
A newsfeed from express.uco.uk stated that “Rachel Hyndman, a 21-year-old student from Glasgow, who discovered
she was being spied on in her home by an online Peeping Tom. She noticed her webcam had switched itself
on while she was in the bath. A hacker had accessed her computer via a RAT
(Remote Access Trojan) virus which often appears in an email as an advertising
mailout. However, once downloaded it
gives the sender control of the infected computer. If a digital stalker like
Rachel’s has access to your computer they have the power to switch on your
webcam to spy on you, operate your keyboard, view emails and access your
personal files.”
While the article goes onto state that Rachel contacted
an IT professional that helped her track the perpetrator down and scare him
off, what most people don’t understand is that this is not a crime that is
limited to male stalkers. Far from it.
 |
| From gov.mb.ca |
In a news story a little closer to home, ABC News posted
a video that featured a St. Augustine, Florida resident Joe Goode whose life was
turned upside down when he tried to break up with his fiancé. After hacking her way into his social nets
and email accounts, she proceeded to send pornographic photos of Joe to his
employers. But that was only the start
of the harassment. Next she had him
arrested not once but three times by doing everything from telling the cops
that Joe was making harassing calls to using a voice morph app to record calls
that purportedly came from him. (This cyberstalking trick is referred to as
spoofing in the industry.)
Later Joe’s cyberstalker expanded her scope to include his
new girlfriend (who was accused of child pornography) and even Joe’s
landlord. Coming back into the US after
a brief vacation, Joe even gotdetained by US Customs after they receive an
“anonymous tip” that he was smuggling drugs.
In a blog post on psychcentral.com entitled Cyberstalking
Worse Than Stalking, mental health researchers compared people who had been
victims of stalking and those who had been victims of cyberstalking. Their findings were surprising to say the
least.
·
Victims of cyberstalking had to engage in more
‘self-protective’ behaviors, pay higher out-of-pocket costs to combat the
problem, and experienced greater fear over time than traditional stalking
victims.
·
Technology has changed what they call the
‘risk/exposure’ profiles for victims, making stalking easier and
self-protection harder.
·
Technology in cyberstalking cases may be more
harmful to the victim’s psychological well-being and reputation, thus more
decisive in spurring quicker self-protective action,” said the researchers.
·
The study also revealed differences between age
and gender of victims. In cases of stalking, approximately 70 percent of the
victims were women, while female victims only represented 58 percent in
cyberstalking cases. The average age for stalking victims in the sample was
40.8 years old, while cyberstalking victims averaged 38.4 years old.
The
Best Defense
 |
| cybbullying.wikispaces.com |
While many anti-stalking resources
caution the public to avoid revealing too much of their personal lives online,
this is not always a practical solution to someone whom you formerly knew and
loved. Let’s face it folks, lovers are
way too far inside the wire for you to successfully employ passive defense
measures. Sad to say, but the minute
you pull the plug on a love interest if you want to have some measure of
cybersecurity, you need to initiate the following damage control sooner rather
than later.
1.
Change your
passwords on all your social nets and email accounts.
2.
Consider changing
your phone number.
3.
Do not accept any
emails or texts from a jilted lover.
4.
Do not open any
attachment from anyone you do not know.
5.
Add additional
security to your computer, tablet and smartphone.
While these measures are in and of themselves no
guarantee that a scorned lover will simply walk away from a relationship, short
of packing up and moving to another state, it is about as good as it gets. Because like it or not, in this technological
age many people only hack the ones they
love.
Below are some other resources you should check out if
you think you are a victim of cyberstalking”
Carl Weiss is president
of Working
the Web to Win, an
award-winning digital marketing agency based in Jacksonville,
Florida. You can listen to Carl live
every Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern on BlogTalkRadio
