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| ==See also== | |||
| ==Gang Stalking, Privacy Laws, & Abuse of Web Resources== | |||
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| ==External links== | |||
| The designation '''gang stalking''' was officially recognzied by the to denote an emerging class of collective behavior (e.g. mobs, riots, crowds) in which corporate shills and industry stakeholders collaborate to harass or defame individuals whose unconventional wisdom or criticism ruffles pride or threatens material interests (see Eleanor White's for frequently asked questions). | |||
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| * US based | |||
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| Since the enfranchisement of the term, gang stalking has been most frequently noted in reference to cooperative networking among anonymous and technically skilled individuals within unmoderated Usenet news groups. | |||
| The keyword "gang stalking" now draws over 50,000 results in a Google Web search. | |||
| ==Usenet as Stalking Environment== | |||
| According to Google, Usenet network of news groups is the world's largest and most decentralized collection of forums. Nearly every Internet Service Provider links to Usenet (some under their own branding); consequently, a message in these news groups bearing your name will not only rank prominently in the results of a Google/Yahoo search of your name, but also rank more highly than authoritative Web sites containing references to your name. | |||
| For this reason, Usenet is an environment attractive to individuals who want to manage how an adversary is seen through the eyes of a search engine. The most notable case of search engine vandalism is the case of Brad Jesness. The Google Web Search on his name () reveals 12,200 results, over 80 percent of which are anti-Jesness dossiers, messages, and even domains registered to bear his own name for optimal search engine placement. | |||
| Usenet also supports anonymity in ways other Web-based forums do not. Not only do more than 95 percent of contributors to Usenet use aliases, but 95 percent of contributors use tools (i.e. anonymous remailers and public posting services) that conceal data identifying the location of their personal computer. This fact alone means that contributors to Usenet are not only anonymous, but also untraceable. | |||
| ===Sci.Psychology.Psychotherapy News Group as Illustrative Case=== | |||
| The unmoderated Usenet news group had been chartered for use by mental health delivery professionals (psychologists, psychiatrists, marriage/family counselors, social workers, etc.) as well as students of therapy and therapy clientele for discussion of psychological disorders (e.g., depression, eating disorder), broad approaches to treatment (e.g., psychodynamic, Rogerian), and specific interventions recognized by the academic or professional community. It is discussed here as an illustrative case, but in no way is the phenomenon of cyberstalking, a pervasive and enduring trait of Usenet, confined to this one news group. An empirical survey of its contents revealed that over 90 percent of messages in this news group not only fail to address psychotherapy or science, but that no less than 90 percent of the messages submitted over any temporal unit of analysis (i.e. month, year, 8-year period) are ] designed to incite anger in another. It is discussed here as an illustrative case because while one would expect cyberstalking to originate in news groups created to serve as flame communities (e.g. alt.flame, alt.fucknozzle, and alt.brad.jesness.die.die.die), one would not expect that perhaps the single most remarkable hotbed of cyberstalking is a psychotherapy news group to which many psychology department web sites blindly link. One would also not expect academics and practitioners to participate in the cyberstalking. | |||
| Sci.psychology.psychotherapy quickly evolved into a living laboratory of social phenomenon ranging from witless zinging to libel to severe-to-profound cyberstalking. | |||
| The forum galvanized considerable interest in collective behavior, Internet crime, and ] with special attention paid to the magnitude and variety of mischievous acts that are achieved when a gang of anonymous digerati use Internet services to assume control of specific individuals, from what these individuals do on the Web to how they are perceived through the eyes of a search engine. | |||
| The stalking often off-roads into the material life of the targets, disrupting business affairs, soliciting aggression against targets at disseminated residential address, and dragging associates and family into the defamation as a means of intimidating the target and estranging him or her from sources of support. | |||
| ==Relationship to Gang Activity== | |||
| While the concept of gangs traditionally refers to low socioeconomic and minority youth, the leadership of cyberstalking gangs in Usenet may include academics, practitioners, digerati (e.g. hackers, network administrators), and corporate shills, who facilitate and inform the labor of non-degree holding supplicants and belligerents with criminal and/or psychiatric histories. For example, gang members in sci.psychology.psychotherapy include a doctoral candidate in cognitive psychology, a 61-year-old forensic psychologist who once served a term of office on his state's board of psychology examiners, an academic who resigned his position, the author of a chapter for a bestselling book about Google hacking, the director of a mental health day treatment center, and the owner of a now defunct spam blocking company. | |||
| Like traditional gangs, Usenet-based gangs are engaged in wars for the purpose of controlling turf, with "turf" in this context denoting the public reputation of a community / organization. Since Usenet is the ultimate environment for free speech (i.e. public and unmoderated with no ownership or oversight), the gang serves as a mechanism of mob rule, harassing and defaming what it cannot control through conventional moderation and censorship. | |||
| The gang in sci.psychology.psychotherapy (SPP) assumed control of SPP and often demands certain people cease contributing to the news group. The targets are usually individuals who express either (a) unconventional wisdom, (b) criticism of an institution or community in which the gangmembers claim membership (e.g. Psychology), or (c) views based on original research or single-source reflection and presented with a passionate or idiosyncratic style that appears to put the messenger at the center. Therefore, most attacks cite as justification for stalking campaigns the messenger's individuality, arrogance, or narcissism. | |||
| The gangs coordinate their abuse of search engines, domain registrars, and other organized bodies of knowledge (e.g. Amazon.com customer book review / Misplaced Pages) to assume control of the way the target is viewed on the Internet. Gang members divide labor to satisfy a full range of objectives, with some members portraying a victim in a '''comically false and unflattering light'''. The mythology of frivolous failure is invoked, with references to a victim ranging from friend-less hamburger flippers to unemployed pedophiles. By contrast, other gang members (or the same gang member on another day) portray the same victim in a '''controversial light''', as a material threat or risk to the public interest (for the purpose of mobilizing stakeholders and service providers to harass and sanction the victim). | |||
| The image the gang in sci.psychology.psychotherapy manages for its victims and for the Usenet populace is in part reflected by the menacing nature of their aliases: (Indian Death Goddess), Reaper, (AKA Taylor Jimenez), Hooded Man, , (AKA Profiler, Body Snatcher), Ghoul, , , Fyre & Sulphur, and Satan. | |||
| Many of these aliases were adopted by mental health practitioners or academics who had been accustomed at one time to posting under their given names, some of whom have been omitted from the list above for transient activity, including a consultant to California school districts (who abandoned the gang 7 years ago), a British psychologist, and a therapist convicted for unlawful sexual contact with his patient's 9-year-old son. | |||
| A competency model for cyberstalkers as well as a character analysis of individual stalkers and a discussion of strategic partnerships and divisions of labor are presented in reports titled and . | |||
| ==Gang Stalking Tools & Tactics== | |||
| ===Data Democratization and the Personal Information Search Engines=== | |||
| Companies referring to themselves as personal information search engines began making your personal information available over the Internet near the turn of the millenium. They are empowered by federal law and accorded the status of an industry. Senator Warner (R-VA) disclosed that the U.S. government allows the industry to "regulate itself" (personal communication, 2002), prompting arguments by privacy rights advocates that cyberstalking must also be considered an industry. And now with a few clicks of the button, you can dredge anyone's current address, address history, criminal background, magazine subscriptions, and the identities of anyone with whom they ever shared a domicile (e.g. family). | |||
| All at a click of a button. All in the name of data democratization. The growth of this industry resulted in greater awareness, accessibility, and affordability of these cyberdredging tools, as these businesses promote themselves in ads and lower prices to compete for your profits. | |||
| The price tag is further mollified when distributed among gang members. A very abridged list of companies representing this industry includes US SEARCH.com Inc., Intelius, Zaba Search, Maverick Internet Ventures, Inc., and Confi-chek, Inc. | |||
| ====No Simple Way to Restore Privacy==== | |||
| Having your telephone number unlisted does not mean your telephone number is not available to the public. This is the single biggest misconception people have about having an unlisted number. Un-listing your telephone number simply keeps it out of directory assistance and white pages. | |||
| Many personal information search engines contain useful information on their Web sites, but faxing or mailing the proof of identity required to opt of out of all these services is like trying to use ten fingers to plug fifty holes (and counting) in a dam. The search engine staffers caution that the only effective means to keep yourself out of these databases is to submit a change of address form at your local post office to forward all personal correspondence and bills to a post office box. | |||
| A survey of personal information search engines revealed that only 70 percent provided, without significant arm twisting, information to people requesting procedures for opting out of the database. | |||
| ====A Treasure Trove of Personal Data==== | |||
| Moreover, information considered public (and therefore fair game for personal information search engines) includes telephone numbers, household demographics, street addresses, church and school alumni directory information, birth notices, death notices, marriage notices, social security numbers, and maiden name of maternal parent. Only medical records, employment records, tax returns, and personal financial records are protected by law. | |||
| ===Google, Yahoo, and The Search Engines=== | |||
| Privacy rights advocate Tim Johnsey recently posed an interesting question: "Have we lost our right to fuss about wiretapping and the Patriot Act if we support search engines like Google that represent a more proven and pervasive threat to the privacy of our citizenry?" Search engines like Google offer average citizens a way of spying on their neighbors by allowing not only a search of a person's name, but more importantly, of a person's e-mail addresses and computer source address (i.e. IP address). | |||
| The most effective demonstration of the damage that can be inflicted on a victim through Googling is presented in this report by a social psychologist. | |||
| And the most damaging aspect of these search engines could not have been more effectively summarized than by a cyberstalker in the unmoderated Usenet news group sci.psychology.psychotherapy: "He who controls Google, controls the world." Cyberstalkers seek to control how their targets are viewed by the world through the eyes of a search engine. A few simple procedures ensures a complete monopoly over the image of an enemy ... | |||
| ===Register a Domain Bearing Name of Victim=== | |||
| Members of the cyberstalking gangs are fond of registering domains in the name of victims. If the victim's name is Joe Farrell, they may register joefarrell.com. This web site is guaranteed to rank highly in a Google or Yahoo search of the name "Joe Farrell." | |||
| ===Use the Double Level Protection of Go Daddy=== | |||
| Privacy advocates and stalking researchers are noticing an alarming spike in the number of abusive domains registered through domain registrar Go Daddy Software Inc. and protected through the privacy services of Go Daddy subsidiary Domains by Proxy. Domains by Proxy subsititutes its own corporate name, contact, and address information for the name, contact, and address information of the domain's true owner. Certified mail to the General Manager's Office of Domains by Proxy will trigger an arbitration, and Domains by Proxy will rescind its privacy services if the owner of the abusive domain does not comply with instructions to contact the complainant by a deadline. However, the rescinding of the proxy data will almost always reveal fraudulent data underneath. | |||
| Extensive research revealed that Go Daddy Software Inc, which remains the registrar of the domain and curator of the fraudulent domain data, does not reply to complaints delievered through abuse@godaddy.com. Go Daddy customer service representatives verified that there are no telephone menu items for abuse or general correspondence (only for new sales and existing customers), and abuse@godaddy.com remains the only company-recognized mechanism for addressing issues of abuse. | |||
| Extensive research by private contractors revealed that the name of the individual listed as the owner of the domains is an alias and that, shortly after a complaint, the address listed in the domain data changed from a post office box in Tampa Florida to a post office box in Grover Beach, California. | |||
| Privacy advocates admonish against phoning the number in the abusive domain data to verify accuracy. The defamed complainant in this case did just | |||
Revision as of 04:28, 4 January 2006
Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk someone which may be a computer crime or harassment. This term is used interchangeably with online harassment and online abuse.
A cyberstalker does not present a direct physical threat to a victim, but follows the victim's online activity to gather information and make threats or other forms of verbal intimidation. The anonymity of online interaction reduces the chance of identification and makes cyberstalking more common than physical stalking. Although cyberstalking might seem relatively harmless, it can cause victims psychological and emotional harm, and occasionally leads to actual stalking.
Cyberstalking is becoming a common tactic in racism, and other expressions of bigotry and hate.
Cyberstalkers target and harass their victims via websites, chat rooms, discussion forums, open publishing websites (e.g. blogs and Indymedia) and email. The availability of free email and website space, as well as the anonymity provided by these chatrooms and forums, have contributed to the increase of cyberstalking as a form of harassment. Also contributing is that cyberstalking is as easy as doing a google search for someone's alias, real name, or email address.
The first U.S. cyberstalking law went into effect in 1999 in California. Other states include prohibition against cyberstalking in their harassment or stalking legislation. In Florida, HB 479 was introduced in 2003 to ban cyberstalking. This was signed into law on October 2003. The crime of cyberstalking is defined in Florida Statutes 784.048(1)(d) which is one of most strict of such laws in the United States. However, law enforcement has often not caught up with the times, and officials are in many cases simply telling the victims to avoid the websites where they are being harassed or having their privacy violated. Some assistance can be found by contacting the web host companies (if the material is on a website) or the ISP of the abuser. Many victims note that persistence is key. At times the seriousness of the impact of this type of violation is not comprehended and the third party facilitators of cyberstalkers tell the victim to work it out with their harasser.
The seriousness of the publishing of private persons participating in chatrooms on the Internet was brought to the forefront by the 2005 slaying of the entire family of Hossam Armanious of Jersey City, who was known for opposing certain Muslim beliefs with the suspicion that the murders were related to the publishing of private information about this family.
 | This law-related article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |
See also
External links
- www.cyberbullying.us
- The National Center for Victims of Crime US based
- CyberAngels
- State Computer Harassment or "Cyberstalking" Laws, National Conference of State Legislatures.