Saturday, December 31, 2011

The Pick-Up Artist

Readers - this type of guy can work his game ONLINE probably even EASIER than off. Here's proof that these predators THINK OF THEIR PREY AS OBJECTS and are non-cureable. BEWARE!

Hypnosis

BY Alex Molotkow

In the summer of 2004, a newly single professional in his early forties wanted to sleep with as many women as possible. Sex being above all other considerations — time, money, shame — he took on the persona “Dimitri the Lover” and drafted a general sexual proposition for any “attractive, intelligent woman” who happened to read it. He printed a few thousand posters and hired a postering company. Together they placed them all over the city, from family-oriented neighbourhoods like the Beaches (where mothers’ groups ripped them down en masse) to York University campus (which alerted the police).

“I got dozens of responses. Dozens. And f**ked maybe 20 women, something like that. Not a lot,” Dimitri tells me. Of course, most people who saw the poster thought it was a joke. I did, until Dimitri hit on me in Starbucks two years later. I was taken aback, mostly because of the way he looked: tall and broad-shouldered, with dark, gelled-back hair. A stranger on the street might nickname him “Dimitri the Lover” as a joke.

Dimitri can spit out romantic hyperbole like a seasoned Don Juan, but his rants are reminiscent of Screw magazine’s Al Goldstein. His speeches, however eloquent, often spin off their axes and turn into wildly offensive tirades. He says he means no harm, though this might not be obvious to those who read his posters. Lately, he’s been posting ads for a community called Toronto Real Men. In early March, a notice for a meeting (“905 Keeps Your C**k Alive”) at Rancho Relaxo offended one person so much that they alerted the Toronto Women’s Bookstore. The store called the venue, which cancelled the event post-haste. “It just seemed like a joke when I saw it — I was shocked by it, but I didn’t think it was this serious thing,” says Rose Kazi, a Toronto Women’s Bookstore employee. “
That’s part of the reason why I went to Rancho — this might be a joke, but just so you know as a business, your name is on it.” On his website, www.dimitrithelover.com, Dimitri referred to the complainants as “bitter, moustached, man-hating, femi-nazi c*nts from socially regressive, evolutionarily non-sequitur organizations.”
With Toronto Real Men, Dimitri has joined the “seduction community,” the vast network of dating gurus and “pickup artists” (PUAs) popularized by Neil Strauss’ 2005 book, The Game. According to Frank B. Kermit of www.franktalks.com, a Toronto-based seduction guru who specializes in relationship management, the movement began in the early ’90s, as a newsgroup dedicated to the convoluted techniques taught by Ross Jeffries (Tom Cruise’s character in Magnolia is said to be based on him). Some of the men immersed in the seduction lifestyle seem to be engaged in a real-life role-playing game, where PUAs like “Swinggcat,” “Mehow” and “Juggler” vie for experience points. Others are just lonely with little confidence.
“Most of these people are just guys looking for some guidance where their parents or society in general couldn’t give it to them,” says Miso G., proprietor of www.naturalseducers.com, a company that offers weekend training programs for men at $1,200 to $1,500 a pop, and a moderator at Toronto Phoenix Society, an online forum for men. “[Guys] would never ask for advice on topics like these as freely as girls would.”

As with any self-help movement, there are plenty of hacks eager to capitalize on the downtrodden. There are also community organizations where nobody pays a thing.
“Think of it as alcoholics anonymous,” says Kermit, who has run “lairs” — free forums for men — in Toronto and elsewhere. Seduction groups have existed in Toronto for several years, but the movement remained obscure until Strauss’ book. Kermit’s Toronto Lair formed to absorb members from another group, the Toronto Social Network, which split in two (the other half being Toronto Phoenix Society) due to questionable leadership practices, including charging for mandatory seminars. Dimitri charges for Toronto Real Men, though he emphasizes that he doesn’t need the money. “They don’t get something for nothing,” he told me. “$250 a year, you’re a member. One meeting a month. I’m going to be offering courses to men on how to get f**ked, fast.”
Dimitri was born in Toronto in the early 1960s. He had a rough upbringing:
“My father was very physically and emotionally abusive. My mother was just a borderline manic, histrionic, dramatic woman, and I did not grow up really understanding what love was.” A nerdy overachiever in high school, he didn’t lose his virginity until he was 20. He became a physician, but lost his licence after pleading guilty to charges of sexual impropriety during house calls. His lawyers pressured him into the decision, he says. “I asked [one patient] out on a date, and we chatted a bit, I said give me a call sometime, gave her a goodbye hug. That was it.”

Two more women came forward with similar stories after reading about him in the newspaper, he continues, and one recalled that he had “spent too much time in the bathroom.”

“At the time, I was married. And my wife was sexually dysfunctional, I had not had sex with her in a year and a half. It was a very tough time, I was very horned up. And I was busy, between that and working, so for me it was easy to hit on chicks that were patients.”

In the aftermath, Dimitri says, he lost everything he owned and spent half a year on welfare. His sex drive remained intact, however, and without money for dates he became more direct with women. He credits the experience for ridding him of all regard for social norms. It also embittered him against what he considers to be feminist alarmism.

“[Toronto Real Men is] a rebellion against society, and what they’ve turned men into. I should never have gotten in trouble for what happened. I should have maybe gotten a slap on the wrist… [Toronto Real Men is] a rebellion against feminism, and really feminism is what’s created a lot of this. Sexual harassment in the workplace — it’s so overblown.”

The personal coaching courses he now offers, including “Women Worship You” and “Worship the C**k,” are intended to help men assert their masculinity.

Dimitri claims to live by principles, though it’s difficult to distinguish them amid his inflammatory digressions. He’s honest about his intentions, and he speaks earnestly when not caught up in showmanship. Whatever he does with women, he insists that he always does it consensually. The many conquests he claims certainly make him a desirable seduction guru: he says he’s slept with 400 to 500 women, a modest figure given his compulsion for hitting on every halfway attractive woman he sees. When I went “cruising” with him around the St. Lawrence area, I watched him pick up several pretty girls with rapid efficiency. I also saw him weather several cold rejections, which he attributed alternately to ethnicity, “Paul Bernardo Syndrome” and confusion. He had a remarkable knack for determining who would be receptive to him. When they weren’t, he assumed they had been abused by another man. “If a woman doesn’t trust me, usually she’s a nut job,” he once told me.

Some feel as though Dimitri goes too far, online and elsewhere. “I do not associate with Dimitri the Lover,” Kermit says. “I had no idea the guy was as misogynistic as he is. [He’s] very charming and very entertaining… [but] I will not endorse people who promote the idea of violence, even as a joke.”

FOCUS

For a feminist, it’s difficult to respond to somebody whose MO is feminist-baiting. “If you want to have a party with straight men talking about how to get girls, you know, that’s fucked up, but I’m not going to stop you,” says Kazi of Toronto Women’s Bookstore. “But [Dimitri’s ad] was just disturbing. I don’t know — maybe he should just change his marketing angle.” Kazi and Alex MacFadyen, another bookstore employee, laugh it off. “We’re very sex-positive, so that’s not the problem,” MacFadyen comments.

“I encourage him to come in! And, you know, get a book,” says Kazi.

What would they recommend?

“What about C**t?” Kazi suggests.

MacFadyen howls. “The Ethical Slut!”

ORIGINAL


MORE:
Pick Up Artists or F**ked up Men?

The "Seduction" Community

A Whole Online Group for How-To

Friday, December 30, 2011

When It's Someone You Trust...

You never know who might try to hurt you on the internet

betrayel Pictures, Images and Photos

BY CATHERINE WALKER


OVER the past few weeks we have learned that 80 per cent of victims of cyber-stalking are women, and many have been the victims of ex-lovers, but although it seems relationships have a lot to do with online stalking it is not always men who are the stalkers. This week, we talk to a woman who was stabbed in the back by the person who she least expected.

Jane Burns (name has been changed to protect identity) was a normal young woman. In 2005, most of her friends at university were studying abroad, which brought her and another classmate a lot closer together than before. They spent hours together and told each other everything. Jane’s new best friend spent a lot of time on the internet, trying to meet men in forums. Jane worried her friend because she would often go to meet them after just a few weeks, thinking she had found her ideal man, and then resulting in disappointment, but little did Jane know it was herself she should worry about. Jane was in a long-distance relationship with a man abroad, but thanks to the internet they kept in touch every day.

One day, after she returned from a holiday at her boyfriend’s home, she went online and found an e-mail, apparently from him, which was directed to another woman, telling her he loved and missed her. Jane, with tears in her eyes, contacted her boyfriend to ask for an explanation. He, of course, knew nothing, but she felt deceived and hurt and told him she wanted to split up. Luckily, he insisted she checked whether the e-mail had really come from his address – it hadn’t. The address that had been used was the same, apart from a dash, which in the heat of the moment, she hadn’t noticed. On closer examination, the language was a little different, although the nickname used for her was right.

The only person who had this information was Jane’s friend, who also happened to have asked to read some of their e-mails just two weeks earlier. Why did she do this? Jane says she can’t imagine. But when she told her friend about the ordeal, without accusing her, she immediately went offline and the two have not spoken since.

You never know who is trying to hurt you on the internet, so be careful.


Trust turning to betrayal.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Study Shows Over 30% of Internet Dating Site Users are Married

Study Shows Over 30% of Internet Dating Site Users are Married

Newly launched PrivateDateFinder.com is the first and only dating site where you can find romance without anyone else knowing. The site offers a unique way to conceal both how you pay as well as eliminating all the tracks you leave behind. The result is confidential purchases and the comfort of knowing your activities remain private.

(Monarch Bay, CA.) – First Privacy Financial, LLC. announces the launch of www.PrivateDateFinder.com, the first and only dating site where you can find romance without anyone else knowing. The site offers a unique way to conceal both how you pay as well as eliminating all the tracks you leave behind. The result is confidential purchases and the comfort of knowing your activities remain private.

Research shows that over 30% of existing online date site members are either married or in relationships. However, no one has addressed this large segment who desire real privacy or those who never used online dating simply because they didn't want anyone else knowing. They simply do not want to get caught.

Jerry Klein, President / CEO of the First Privacy Financial said; “Private Date Finder offers a real solution to those who simply do not want anyone else to know they are using a dating site. In a USA Today poll an overwhelming 88% of respondents said they are concerned about their privacy and consider protecting it important. Now you can safely buy anything online and no one will know."

Private Date Finder includes free membership in EverPrivate, a proprietary patent pending web-based service that erases all your tracks from any PC without any downloaded software. Also included is a free prepaid PrivaCash MasterCard, a virtual Debit card issued instantly online that can be re-loaded at 35,000 retail locations.

Mr. Klein said; “We have partnered with Relationship Exchange to enable our members to have access to over 2 million existing online dating members from sites under their management. This provides Private Date Finder members a huge number of romance partners wherever they live, right from our launch. Sign-up is free and the EverPrivate features are available instantly.”

(Why let a little thing like being married interfere with your dating?? - EOPC)

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

The Online Disinhibition Effect

In light of the Megan Meier Suicide Case, the Nikki Catsouras Crash Photos harassment and much of the rage & bullying that exposed cyberpaths do to their victims and anyone else who might speak the truth about them - this article might give some insight into what drives these predators.

The Lori Drews, the Doug Becksteads, the Charles Ed Hicks', the Jeff Dunetzs, the Dan Jacobys, the Beatrice Acevedos and all those we have exposed, will be exposed - or are out there right now feeling anonymous or omnipotent behind a keyboard.


It's well known that people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn't ordinarily say or do in the face-to-face world. They loosen up, feel more uninhibited, express themselves more openly. Researchers call this the "disinhibition effect." It's a double-edged sword. Sometimes people share very personal things about themselves. They reveal secret emotions, fears, wishes. Or they show unusual acts of kindness and generosity.

On the other hand, the disinhibition effect may not be so benign. Out spills rude language and harsh criticisms, anger, hatred, even threats. They can start their own website where what they think or feel reigns supreme. Or people explore the dark underworld of the internet, places of pornography and violence, places they would never visit in the real world. On the positive side, the disinhibition indicates an attempt to understand and explore oneself, to work through problems and find new ways of being. And
sometimes it is simply a blind catharsis, an acting out of unsavory needs and wishes without any personal growth at all.

What causes this online disinhibition? What is it about cyberspace that loosens the psychological barriers that block the release of these inner feelings and needs? Several factors are at play. For some people, one or two of them produces the lion's share of the disinhibition effect. In most cases, though, these factors interact with each other, supplement each other, resulting in a more complex, amplified effect.

You Don't Know Me (anonymity)
As you move around the internet, most of the people you encounter can't easily tell who you are. System operators and some technologically savvy, motivated users may be able to detect your e-mail or internet address, but for the most part people only know what you tell them about yourself. If you wish, you can keep your identity hidden. As the word "anonymous" indicates, you can have no name - at least not your real name. That anonymity works wonders for the disinhibition effect. When people have the opportunity to separate their actions from their real world and identity, they feel less vulnerable about opening up. Whatever they say or do can't be directly linked to the rest of their lives. They don't have to own their behavior by acknowledging it within the full context of who they "really" are. When acting out hostile feelings, the person doesn't have to take responsibility for those actions. In fact, people might even convince themselves that those behaviors "aren't me at all." In psychology this is called "dissociation."

You Can't See Me (invisibility)
In many online environments other people cannot see you. As you browse through web sites, message boards, and even some chat rooms, people may not even know you are there at all - with the possible exception of web masters and other users who have access to software tools that can detect traffic through the site, assuming they have the inclination to keep an eye on you, one of maybe hundreds or thousands of users. Invisibility gives people the courage to go places and do things that they otherwise wouldn't.

This power to be concealed overlaps with anonymity, because anonymity is the concealment of identity. But there are some important differences. In text communication such as e-mail, chat, and instant messaging, others may know a great deal about who you are. However, they still can't see or hear you - and you can't see or hear them. Even with everyone's identity visible, the opportunity to be PHYSICALLY invisible amplifies the disinhibition effect. You don't have to worry about how you look or sound when you say (type) something. You don't have to worry about how others look or sound when you say something. Seeing a frown, a shaking head, a sigh, a bored expression, and many other subtle and not so subtle signs of disapproval or indifference can slam the breaks on what people are willing to express. In psychoanalysis, the analyst sits behind the patient in order remain a physically ambiguous figure, without revealing any body language or facial expression, so that the patient has free range to discuss whatever he or she wants, without feeling inhibited by how the analyst is physically reacting. In everyday relationships, people sometimes avert their eyes when discussing something personal and emotional. It's easier not to look into the other's face. Text communication offers a built-in opportunity to keep one's eyes averted.

See You Later (asynchronicity)
In e-mail and message boards, communication is asynchronous. People don't interact with each other in real time. Others may take minutes, hours, days, or even months to reply to something you say. Not having to deal with someone's immediate reaction can be disinhibiting. In real life, it would be like saying something to someone, magically suspending time before that person can reply, and then returning to the conversation when you're willing and able to hear the response. Immediate, real-time feedback from others tends to have a very powerful effect on the ongoing flow of how much people reveal about themselves. In e-mail and message boards, where there are delays in that feedback, people's train of thought may progress more steadily and quickly towards deeper expressions of what they are thinking and feeling. Some people may even experience asynchronicous communication as "running away" after posting a message that is personal, emotional, or hostile. It feels safe putting it “out there” where it can be left behind. In some cases, as Kali Munro, an online psychotherapist, aptly describes it, the person may be participating in an "emotional hit and run."
It's All in My Head (solipsistic introjection)
Absent face2face cues combined with text communication can have an interesting effect on people. Sometimes they feel that their mind has merged with the mind of the online companion. Reading another person's message might be experienced as a voice within one's head, as if that person magically has been inserted or "introjected" into one's psyche. Of course, we may not know what the other person's voice actually sounds like, so in our head we assign a voice to that companion. In fact, consciously or unconsciously, we may even assign a visual image to what we think that person looks like and how that person behaves. The online companion now becomes a character within our intrapsychic world, a character that is shaped partly by how the person actually presents him or herself via text communication, but also by our expectations, wishes, and needs. Because the person may even remind us of other people we know, we fill in the image of that character with memories of those other acquaintances.

As the character now becomes more elaborate and "real" within our minds, we may start to think, perhaps without being fully aware of it, that the typed-text conversation is all taking place within our heads, as if it's a dialogue between us and this character in our imagination - even as if we are authors typing out a play or a novel. Actually, even when it doesn't involve online relationships, many people carry on these kinds of conversations in their imagination throughout the day. People fantasize about flirting, arguing with a boss, or very honestly confronting a friend about what they feel. In their imagination, where it's safe, people feel free to say and do all sorts of things that they wouldn't in reality. At that moment, reality IS one's imagination. Online text communication can become the psychological tapestry in which a person's mind weaves these fantasy role plays, usually unconsciously and with considerable disinhibition. All of cyberspace is a stage and we are merely players.

When reading another's message, it's also possible that you "hear" that person's words using your own voice. We may be subvocalizing as we read, thereby projecting the sound of our voice into the other person's message. Perhaps unconsciously, it feels as if I am talking to/with myself. When we talk to ourselves, we are willing to say all sorts of things that we wouldn't say to others!

It's Just a Game (dissociation)
If we combine solipsistic introjection with the escapability of cyberspace, we get a slightly different force that magnifies disinhibition. People may feel that the imaginary characters they "created" exist in a different space, that one's online persona along with the online others live in an make-believe dimension, separate and apart from the demands and...
responsibilities of the real world. They split or "dissociate" online fiction from offline fact.

Emily Finch, an author and criminal lawyer studying identity theft in cyberspace, has suggested that some people see their online life as a kind of game with rules and norms that don't apply to everyday living (pers. comm., 2002). Once they turn off the computer and return to their daily routine, they believe they can leave that game and their game-identity behind. Why should they be held responsible for what happens in that make-believe play world that has nothing to do with reality? After all, it isn't that different than blasting away at your pals in a shoot-em up video game... or so some people might think, perhaps unconsciously.

We're Equals (neutralizing of status)
While online a person's status in the in-person world may not be known to others and it may not have as much impact as it does in the in-person world. If people can't see you or your surroundings, they don't know if you are the president of a major corporation sitting in your expensive office, or some "ordinary" person lounging around at home in front of the computer. Even if people do know something about your offline status and power, that elevated position may have little bearing on your online presence and influence. In most cases, everyone on the internet has an equal opportunity to voice him or herself. Everyone - regardless of status, wealth, race, gender, etc. - starts off on a level playing field. Although one's status in the outside world ultimately may have some impact on one's powers in cyberspace, what mostly determines your influence on others is your skill in communicating (including writing skills), your persistence, the quality of your ideas, and your technical know-how.

People are reluctant to say what they really think as they stand before an authority figure. A fear of disapproval and punishment from on high dampens the spirit. But online, in what feels like a peer relationship - with the appearances of "authority" minimized - people are much more willing to speak out or misbehave. There are those online that turn every disagreement into an "attack" and they can pick & choose what they want to hear and see and tune out anything that doesn't agree with their philosophy or way of thinking.

Interaction Effects
Of course, the online disinhibition effect is not the only factor that determines how much people open up or act out in cyberspace. The strength of underlying feelings, needs, and drive level has a big influence on how people behave. Personalities also vary greatly in the strength of defense mechanisms and tendencies towards inhibition or expression. People with histrionic styles tend to be very open and emotional. Compulsive people are more restrained. The online disinhibition effect will interact with these personality variables, in some cases resulting in a small deviation from the person's baseline (offline) behavior, while in other cases causing dramatic changes.

About the Author:
John Suler, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at Rider University. This article comes from his online hypertext book The Psychology of Cyberspace which describes his ongoing research on how individuals and groups behave in cyberspace. His work has been reported by national and international media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the BBC, and CNN.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

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.’



Monday, December 26, 2011

Website Ordered to Close Because of Harassment


(U.K.) A website that allows users to 'name and shame' lawyers whose services they are unhappy with has been ordered to close after the High Court ruled its publisher had breached libel, data protection and harassment laws.

The High Court ruled that solicitorsfromhell.co.uk should be shutdown and its publisher Rick Kordowski permanently barred from re-publishing some information contained on the site in the future. Kordowski was also banned from transferring control of the personal data contained about solicitors named on the site from himself to others.

The Law Society, representing all firms and solicitors in England and Wales, led the calls for the injunctions against Kordowski. It successfully claimed the comments on Kordowski's website contained "malicious and defamatory allegations about solicitors" and that personal data contained on the site had been processed unlawfully. It also successfully argued that Kordowski had caused harassment to the lawyers because the postings had caused them distress and alarm.

Mr Justice Tugendhat said that Kordowski was a "public nuisance" who was "in effect a vexatious litigant who is a defendant". The judge rejected his claims that solicitorsfromhell.co.uk provided a "public service". Kordowski had said the 'blacklist' of firms and solicitors contained on the site helped people choose legal services and encouraged members of the public to "expose wrongdoing" in the legal profession.

The judge rejected Kordowski's claims that the comments contained on the site were protected by a general right to freedom of expression. Kordowski had failed to claim "any defence known to the law of libel" in order to justify the comments about lawyers and firms on his website, he said

"He has not pleaded truth or honest opinion, and although he mentions [the right to freedom of expression] and public service, he has not formulated any defence of qualified privilege on a basis recognised by the law," the judge said.

The judge ruled that Kordowski be banned from further libelling law firm Hine Solicitors and individual lawyer Kevin McGrath. Kordowski was also banned from further personal data processing and harassment in relation to Hine's lawyers or McGrath. Mr Justice Tugendhat applied the data processing and harassment ban to all solicitors named or at risk of being named on solicitorsfromhell.co.uk, permanently preventing Kordowski from unlawful personal data processing or harassing activity against those individuals in the future. The judge said that it was "beneficial" to extend the ban to cover those individuals and said it was in the public interest to do so.

"Freedom of expression can only advance the objective of truth if the participants in a debate aim at truth," Mr Justice Tugendhat said in his ruling.

"If a free market is to work, consumers must assume that suppliers are offering their goods or services in good faith, and not deliberately misleading the public. Participation in a market involves responsibilities. In the same way the right to freedom of expression ... is subject to ... responsibilities. Deliberately to introduce falsehoods into public debate is like contaminating food in the shops. And where the internet is concerned, the motive is often the same: extortion or revenge," the judge said.

"Discouraging people in need of legal advice from instructing good lawyers is as much against the public interest as encouraging them to instruct bad lawyers. At worst it may lead to miscarriages of justice ... At the least it will lead to restrictions on the consumers' freedom of choice, and to distortion of the free market in legal services," he said.

"If restrictions are to be enforced on behalf of the public, Parliament normally does this by legislation which makes the conduct in question a criminal offence. The Data Protection Act (DPA) goes some way towards this. It can protect from unfair discrimination those suppliers who trade as individuals, as solicitors happen to do, as well as employees or prospective employees. And it does create criminal offences and a mechanism for enforcement by the Information Commissioner. Where the DPA does not apply, the suppliers who have large resources may invoke the common law to protect themselves. But there is a need for someone to protect the public. The procedural remedy of representative proceedings, coupled with an injunction, may be the best that the law can offer at present to protect the public from the unjustifiable dissemination of false information about the suppliers of goods and services. It is also the means by which the court may protect its limited resources in time and judiciary from having to deal with large numbers of claims by different claimants against the same individual on the same or similar facts," the judge said.

Mr Justice Tugendhat said that because solicitorsfromhell.co.uk had contained false statements about lawyers Kordowski, as the data controller, had breached basic principles of UK data protection laws that require personal data to be accurately stored and processed fairly and lawfully.

Because Kordowski had not processed lawyers' personal data in accordance with their rights – another principle of UK data protection laws – the judge ordered Kordowski to "block, erase and destroy the data which is the subject of this action".

Under the DPA "if a court is satisfied on the application of a data subject that personal data of which the applicant is the subject are inaccurate, the court may order the data controller to rectify, block, erase or destroy those data and any other personal data in respect of which he is the data controller and which contain an expression of opinion which appears to the court to be based on the inaccurate data".

The Law Society had written to Kordowski asking him to delete the personal data of lawyers mentioned on the site but Kordowski said he would only delete the information if he received a fee to do so. When Kordowski indicated his intention to transfer ownership of the data contained on the site to foreign owners the Law Society obtained an injunction temporarily banning the transfer. The Law Society claimed that transferring ownership of lawyers' personal data contained on the site would amount to unlawful data processing and harassment.

Under the DPA individuals have a right, under certain conditions, to require organisations that store their personal data to "cease, or not to begin" processing of that information if it "is causing or is likely to cause substantial damage or substantial distress to him or to another, and that damage or distress is or would be unwarranted".

Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled that the requests made in its letter to Kordowski were justified because Kordowski had not processed personal data of lawyers listed on the site fairly and lawfully. The judge therefore ordered Kordowski to stop processing that personal data. He also extended the temporary ban on Kordowski transferring ownership of the data to permanent.

Under the DPA "If a court is satisfied, on the application of any person who has given a notice [that they want damaging and distressing personal data processing to stop] which appears to the court to be justified (or to be justified to any extent), that the data controller in question has failed to comply with the notice, the court may order him to take such steps for complying with the notice (or for complying with it to that extent) as the court thinks fit".

The Law Society had argued that solicitorsfromhell.co.uk contained "malicious and defamatory allegations about solicitors" which "causes serious damage to the reputations of the solicitors, firms and others who are listed on it, causing them financial loss, embarrassment, anxiety and distress". It said Kordowski was "harassing those listed" on the site and doing the public a "disservice" by "encouraging them to use inaccurate information to choose a solicitor".

Under the Protection from Harassment Act a person is generally deemed to have committed an offence if, on more than one occasion, they "pursue a course of conduct which amounts to harassment of another, and which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment" of someone else.. Under the provisions of the Act a person is deemed to "ought to know" that their conduct "amounts to harassment of another if a reasonable person in possession of the same information would think the course of conduct amounted to harassment".

Those who are in breach of the Act can be jailed or fined. The High Court can issue an injunction "for the purpose of restraining [an individual] from pursuing any conduct which amounts to harassment" and if the person who requested the injunction believes that the individual "has done anything which he is prohibited from doing by the injunction", they can "apply for the issue of a warrant for the[ir] arrest".

Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled that because solicitorsfromhell.co.uk was a "prominent website" and contained "ongoing" publication of the comments made about solicitors that it would be "reasonable to infer in every case that those [lawyers] posted [about] would suffer such distress and alarm on at least two occasions". The judge has prohibited Kordowski from harassing the lawyers listed or at risk of being listed on solicitorsfromhell.co.uk in the future.

original article found here

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Stalking Privacy on Facebook, One Psycho at a Time



phisby John Fontana

If you were asked who could harvest a trove of personal data from 10 million Facebook users in just three weeks you might guess company CEO Mark Zuckerberg over Jason Zada. You'd be dead wrong.

Who is Zada? He offered something scary at Halloween and nearly 10 million strangers stepped up and provided him access to their personal Facebook information to get it. Unwittingly walking him past their privacy settings and into their policy-protected data vaults. Maybe you were one of them?

Certainly more than 10 million people viewed Zuckerberg's private photos a few weeks ago when a Facebook bug exposed them to the public. But Zuckerberg was hacked, Zada's millions were socially engineered, accomplices in their own fleecing.

What sophisticated tool did he use? Facebook Apps.

Zada was the creator of TakeThisLollipop.com, a viral Facebook app that collected your Facebook pictures and profile information and put it in the middle of a psycho stalker video.

It was hailed as brilliantly scary. The video ends with the psycho getting out of his truck at a house. Your photo taped to his dashboard. Zada said it was a message about privacy.
"If you look at the video, the scariest part is that your information is in the video. The piece is scary because a person is violating your privacy, not because it's bloody or there's anything jumping out," he told AdAgeDigital.

Actually the scariest part is that your information is in the hands of the Facebook application developer - in this case Zada, who it turns out is benign. His intent was to entertain and his app clearly stated it was not saving your information. But what's to stop a real life psycho from doing the same thing and saving the data? Nothing really.

Facebook has a set of usage policies for its Facebook Platform, which is what developers use to create apps. Among other requirements, the policies dictate application owners must delete all user data if they stop using the platform or Facebook shuts down their app. And policy says app developers must 'delete all data you receive from us concerning a user if the user asks you to do so.'

If developers are running a business, policy means something. If you're running a scam, policy talk is cheap.

How can a real-life psycho (or scammer, phisher) get your 'protected' data? Ironically, exactly the same way Zada did.

Set-up an app that lets users grant you access to their data, show them a video or offer a game, collect their information, stalk in real life.

In Zada's video you see the psycho is looking at a map to your house. Where do you think that information came from?

What Zada proved is that the Facebook stalker scenario is real-life. The potential psychos you block via privacy settings know your back door is unlocked. A scam would likely run the same as TakeThisLollipop. It sprung up on the Internet, went viral and disappeared in 20 days.

Could it have been sleuth hackers, the Russian mafia, the cliché computer hermit in his parent's basement?

It's an email phishing scam mimicked on the social web. It relies on user habit and social engineering - surfing, prurient interest, etc.

Do users know (or care) Facebook apps by-pass privacy settings? One developer I spoke to said after he wrote his first Facebook app he revoked access to every Facebook application he had signed on to. He was dumbstruck by the amount and depth of user information his app made available to him. When he tested it against his own Facebook account, no matter how tightly he screwed down his privacy settings, the app still had access to just about everything it requested.

TakeThisLollipop.com proves that a fool and his password (and data) are soon parted. Facebook is a ripe audience; unwittingly picked apart.


original article found here

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Anonymous Anger Rampant on Internet

by Todd Leopold

There's a whole world of people out there, and boy, are they pissed off.
anger Pictures, Images and Photos

On political blogs, the invective flies. Posters respond to the latest celebrity gossip with mockery or worse. Sports fans set up Web sites with names that begin with "fire," hoping coaches, athletic directors and sportscasters lose their jobs.

And though there are any number of bloggers and commenters who attempt to keep their postings and responses on a civil level, all too often interactive Web sites descend into ad hominem attacks, insults and plain old name-calling. Indeed, there are even whole sites devoted to venting, such as justrage.com (one screed there was titled, "I don't give a flying f***, so f*** you") and mybiggestcomplaint.com.

This is not a world Emily Post would want to be caught in after dark.
"The Internet can be a great tool," said Sara Black, a professor of health studies at St. Joseph's University who takes a particular interest in online bullying. "Like any tool, it can also be misused."

One reason for the vitriol that emerges on the Web, experts say, is the anonymity the Internet provides. Commenters seldom use their real names, and even if they do, the chance for retaliation is slim.
"In the [pre-Internet era], you had to take ownership [of your remarks]. Now there's a perception of anonymity," said Lesley Withers, a professor of communication at Central Michigan University. "People think what they say won't have repercussions, and they don't think they have to soften their comments."

Contrast that with a face-to-face conversation, or even a phone conversation, where you can judge people's moods from facial movements or vocal inflections, observes University of Texas psychology professor Art Markman. iReport.com: Second Life avatars grapple with reduced nonverbal communication

"It's hard to be aggressive when you're face to face," he said.

Moreover, he points out, aggression often carries a subtext of power.
"A lot of times, real anger is an attempt to get control over a situation where the person doesn't usually have it," he said. In that respect, comments to blog posts are attempts to strike back.

Those power games are innately grasped by children and teens, with schools serving as a perennial social laboratory.

Cheryl Dellasega, a Penn State women's studies professor, ticks off hypothetical examples that could have come straight from the scripts to "Mean Girls" or "Heathers."
"Girls who are getting teased come home and let their [aggressors] have it by putting something on their blog and starting a rumor campaign," she said. And instead of rumors simply making the rounds among peer groups -- which can be bad enough -- "they go out to a much bigger group, a worldwide group. The impact is devastating, and it's as easy as clicking a button."

"Kids don't realize that one post can destroy somebody's life forever," she added.

Indeed, such incidents have made headlines. In 2006, 13-year-old Megan Meier committed suicide after becoming attracted to a boy on MySpace who then turned on her. The boy turned out to be a hoax created by a neighbor family that included a former friend of Meier's.

In August, The New York Times Magazine did a story about trolls, some barely out of their teens, who antagonize others for the sake of "lulz": "Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh," one ex-troll told the publication.

Adults aren't immune by any means. A Japanese woman, angry at her online "husband," killed his avatar after he divorced her. A South Korean actress committed suicide after being harassed by online rumors following a divorce. Celebrity gossip sites are full of snarky comments about stars; reaction from readers is often brutal, turning the story into the online equivalent of a pile-on.

Markman is quick to observe that he doesn't believe there's more anger out there. But, he said, "there are more ways of expressing it on the Internet."
"We've all had interactions with unpleasant people, but we don't confront them. We take it out elsewhere," he said. "What the Internet has created is groups of people where there are no repercussions with being too aggressive."

Indeed, though electronically transmitted anger has parallels throughout human history -- the bitter letter, the village gossip -- the speed at which it travels, and the number of people who may come in contact with it, is something new, says St. Joseph's Black.
"[Electronic] media can increase potential for violence in a number of ways," she said in an e-mail interview. "First, it introduces ideas (good and bad) that people may not have come up with on their own. Second, it is easier to depersonalize the victim, facilitating perpetration. Third, aggressive behaviors may be reinforced with points, attention or status, especially in games."

Withers has seen that first hand. She teaches a course on the "dark side of communication" at Central Michigan, involving "the mean or evil things we do on a day-to-day basis," as she describes it: cheating, for example, or lying.

As part of the course, several of her students work on a collaborative project with students at other schools, and they come together in Second Life, the virtual reality environment. If someone isn't pulling his or her weight, says Withers, others can be harsh in their judgments -- harsher than in real life, because the anger is expressed at the person's avatar. Sidebar: Dealing with anger in Second Life

Which led at least one of Withers' students to forget that the avatar was attached to a real person.
"One student went off on another student and she was sitting in the classroom a few rows behind him," she said. "He knew she was there, but didn't -- there was that distancing."

Is there a way to restore civility to the Internet? Among children and teenagers, say Dellasega and Black, it's up to parents to exercise control.

"I think parents need to take responsibility," Dellasega said. "They give kids computers and leave them alone. ... When a child is 8 or 9, the computer should be in a public place. Kids should understand that using a computer is a privilege, not a right."

Schools can also play a role, she says.
talk to the hand Pictures, Images and Photos

Black adds that parents should set clear rules on behavior and build empathy in their kids by having them reach out to those who are different.

As for adults, human nature dictates that people will always lash out at others, whether it's over a perceived insult or simply because of a power differential. Web sites may ban the worst offenders, but they'll almost always pop up elsewhere, using a different name, e-mail address or even computer.
"Some people are just bitter and angry," said psychiatrist Dr. Terry Eagan, medical director of the Moonview Sanctuary in Santa Monica, California. "Sometimes, they're against everyone, other times against a specific group. That person can get really stimulated and can say all sorts of horrible things. But I don't think it's not like they didn't exist before."

Whether the problem will get control of us, or we will get control of the problem, is in the way we face up to it, he says. Anger, he says, is rolled up with anxiety and fear, and nothing creates more fear like a lack of understanding.

"I tell patients that I'd rather know everything about people; information is powerful," he said. "When the climate of the world is more fear-based, it permeates everything."

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

SITES BY VICTIMS OF CYBERPATHS
(we believe many of these people have a right to be upset and using writing as a healing & informational tool for them can be very empowering)

Cyberstalker: Felicity Jane Lowde

Marilyn McAboy

Jakob Maltese

The Laura Knight-Jadczyk Fraud

Nancy Lynne

Too Good To Be Real

Kim Stewart - Bink, Briesis, Allie

Victim of Gareth Rodger Speaks Out

One Victim of William Michael Barber Tells Their Story

Sandra Brown MA - No License


(readers -- if you know of others, please tell us!)

Friday, December 23, 2011

10 CLUES OF AN ONLINE AFFAIR


by Bill Mitchell

1. Your spouse/ partner spends excess time online. Who doesn’t use a computer today? I know a few people. They are excellent for paying bills, staying in touch with family, friends, customers, finding street locations, and a host of other productive endeavors. We can not live without them and shutter when a lighting storm threaten our usage. Just look at kids and their instant messaging. They will go without dinner just to keep in touch with their circle of friends. Try to pull them away, it’s no easy task. Does your spouse resemble your kid’s magnetism to the computer? Discover why this need is so powerful before it’s too late.

2. Passwords, instant message “buddy lists”, internet email accounts and emails are concealed - even protected from you! Do you find your spouse needing his “own space” at the computer? Is there a real reluctance when you ask to know his passwords? What’s there to hide? These questions all have obvious answers. The act of hiding information is deceptive by nature. Of course, those of us who have worked in “Corporate America” understand the need to protect company secrets. But what legitimate “family secret” are we hiding? Listen, any time a spouse becomes secretive with you, it fulfills a direct need they demonstrate. Why? You are like the judge, referee, or source of authority creating that “sense of accountability” over them. Furthermore, they are breaking matrimonial law if committing adultery. There is, in many courts, a price to pay!

3. Computer use after you have gone to bed, when you fall asleep or in the middle of the night. Have you been awaken by the absence of your spouse at night and found him at the computer? If this behavior becomes a pattern you certainly need to be concerned. While work demands a sense of commitment and loyalty, working late repeatedly after you have fallen asleep is a little odd.

4. Your partner abruptly shuts off the internet and/or computer when you approach. This is panic and unexplainable behavior. The rationalization is “when all other contingency plans fail, just shut that thing off and don’t get caught.” This foolish act is also called a “computer crash” and has the potential of damaging both hardware and software. The loss of files occurs when a computer is cut off abruptly. Many spouses have reported this behavior just prior to hiring us. We consider it a significant indicator of a deviant behavior. Now, bear in mind your spouse may be viewing pornography and fear reprisal. This may explain the need for panic.

5. The computer and monitor are always positioned away from your sight. The study of body language has become useful to many investigators, especially those of us who administer lie detection examinations. An obvious sign of deception and a common mistake the cheater make is blocking your view. They need the time to clear a screen, turn off the monitor, or change to another internet page when threatened with exposure. Intentionally turning the monitor or laptop away from view is an indicator they don’t want you to see something. Over time this act develops into a habit and confers greater freedom from detection. In most instances, having the lead time to hide the truth from you is all they need.

6. Clears all internet history after chat sessions, usage or installs software to automatically rid this information. There are times when a computer becomes filled with unwanted files. Computers run faster when less “temporary” files use up valuable “ram memory.” This is prudent maintenance for any computer user. What I am referring to in this sign is the repeated habit of purposefully clearing information from discovery. While this information is retrievable through the science of Computer Forensics and Google Cache holds a lot of things people think they've deleted, you won’t find it readily available. On the market now is software that actually helps the cheater. The actual purpose of this new software tool is to hide any trace of computer internet usage. Do you find this a little suspicious? I do.

7. Exhibits a compulsive need to be online and seems defensive when confronted to stop.When are you coming to bed?” “We really need to go, now, what’s taking so long?” “Can’t you do that later?” Have you asked these types of questions? Teenagers often become “obsessed” with instant messaging. If you have kids who use the computer, you know. They have trouble walking away from the PC. This same desire or need displayed by your spouse is cause for alarm. A compulsive, defensive pattern of behavior shows a strong need to continue. You need to know why.

8. Shares personal information, photos or events with people who are strangers to you in emails, chatrooms or while instant messaging. Setting up a profile for instant messaging is commonplace. Kids love to fill them up and share with friends on the buddy list. I’ve witnessed spouses who send nude pictures of themselves over the internet. They share very personal information that should be reserved to the marital home. Maybe it’s time to track this information with software that collects this data. Today more courts are allowing emails and computer usage data as evidence. It’s advisable to consult an attorney in your state beforehand!

9. Plays online games and frequents "personals" chatrooms. This is where it starts. Play a few games, win or loss but then we need to chat. Well if chatting is fine, why not include your spouse? You can’t, so why do it?

10. Exhibits the eight warning signs illustrated in "The More You Know – Getting the evidence and support you need to investigate a troubled relationship"

Thirty plus years of investigative experience is poured into this new release. It’s a “must have” resource guide for every woman’s personal library.


2005 Bill Mitchell All rights reserved.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

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.”


(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)

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

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.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Suing Google Doesn't Always Work

by Christopher Danzig

Even stately Englishmen are no match for Google.

I had never heard of Max Mosley until yesterday, when I read he was suing Google in Europe to block all search results regarding his alleged participation in some sort of Nazi sex orgy.

Ironically, when you search for Mosley’s name now, you get a zillion news stories with headlines like “Max Mosley sues Google over ‘Nazi orgy’ search results‎.”

Let’s learn more about Mosley, the former president of Formula One, and his decidedly unsexy legal battle against Google….

From The Guardian:

Max Mosley is suing Google in France and Germany in an attempt to force the internet company to monitor and censor search results about his alleged sado-masochistic orgy.

The former Formula One boss revealed he is taking legal action against Google during his testimony before the Leveson inquiry at London’s royal courts of justice on Thursday.

Mosley is battling to remove from the internet false and libellous references to an alleged “Nazi-themed” orgy and a News of the World video. …

“The fundamental thing is that Google could stop this appearing but they don’t or won’t as a matter of principle,” he told the inquiry. “The really dangerous things are the search engines.”

Mosley is also threatening to sue Google in California.

And this is not the first time public figures have not-so-nicely asked Google to censor search results they dislike. The other obvious case involves Rick Santorum, who made headlines in the fall criticizing the unpleasant top Google result for his last name. In 2003, sex columnist Dan Savage started the bare-bones website, Spreading Santorum, which simply defines his last name as a nasty sexual term, in response to what Savage perceived as the former senator’s anti-gay statements.

In both Mosley’s and Santorum’s cases, the miffed public figures insinuated that Google could eliminate the search results if it wanted to. Santorum claimed his conservative ideology was the reason Google refused to do anything about the search ranking.

But Google does protect itself legally. When it receives specific, court-ordered takedown notices, from the government or individuals, it frequently complies. (If you have ever run searches relating to illegal music or movie sharing, DMCA takedown notifications often appear on the Google search results page.) Mosley even acknowledged that Google has taken down hundreds of references to the allegedly defamatory stories. But the company will not honor personal requests or requests to censor entire search terms.

At this point, Google spokespeople have a pretty tight statement they use to explain their actions. The company’s response to Mosley was almost exactly the same as it was to Santorum:

“Google’s search results reflect the information available on billions of web pages on the internet. We don’t, and can’t, control what others post online, but when we’re told that a specific page is illegal under a court order, then we move quickly to remove it from our search results.”

On a practical level, Tim Worstall at Forbes gives a good explanation of why the act of suing search engines simply creates more stories for them to index:

[A]ny court case arguing that Google must not add to the search engine stories which mention the untrue allegations will be reportable: for court cases and evidence are reportable under privilege. So every time Mosley sues he’s generating more newspaper pieces which Google can, entirely legitimately, add to the index. For they’ve been reported under privilege.


Finding yourself on the Internet for unflattering reasons can be humiliating, especially if the information is untrue. A whole cottage industry has grown up around people trying to prevent their old mugshots from being easily searchable. Even Natalie Portman has said she won’t do nude scenes in movies because she doesn’t want the scenes ending up online.

For better or worse, Google is the gatekeeper for the online world we live in. It would be a completely unfeasible system if people could pick and choose, without a specific legal justification, what kinds of results to allow search engines to index. It is for the same reason news outlets will not remove stories just because someone doesn’t approve of the coverage. I feel bad for Mr. Mosley, but he’s only making things worse for himself. And his attorneys should know better.

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