CAUTION: Abusive Partners Use Social Networking to Stalk

By Marissa Carruthers

(Sunderland, U.K.) Abusive partners are turning to technology to find sick new ways of stalking their victims, the Echo can reveal.

An increasing number of Sunderland women are seeking refuge after campaigns of terror, including being stalked using GPS tracking devices and apps on mobile phones, hacking into computers and online harassment.

Experts say advances in new technology have given abusers a tighter rein on their victims by handing them extra tools to trace their every move.

Clare Phillipson, of Wearside Women in Need, said: “Abusive men will always find new ways to either exercise control over their partners or abuse them. We currently have concerns with new technology that enables men to stalk their partners using mobile phones.

“They are able to activate the sat nav function without anyone even knowing, and this means they can see exactly where they are all the time. There have been cases of men sitting there and watching people walking round the streets then use Google maps to see exactly what house they’ve gone into and get a complete picture.”

The organisation has also seen a worrying rise in the number of women being beaten for posting innocent status updates on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and computer hacking to keep tabs on their partners.

In extreme cases, women’s movements inside their home have been monitored by CCTV cameras put up by possessive partners wanting to spy on their spouse.

“Websites like Facebook also give men a tool to constantly monitor their partners,” said Clare.

“We have seen a lot of times when women have left innocuous messages like you and I would say, like ‘had a nice night out with my friend last night’, and their partner has got violent. In some cases with more affluent men, CCTV cameras have been put up inside and around a house that can be accessed any time through mobile phones or computers.

“New technologies are making it much easier. Before, you couldn’t be in touch with your partner 24/7, but now we’re getting women beaten up because she’s at work and had to switch her phone off.”

There has also been several reported cases of wife-beaters turning to social networking sites to continue their harassment campaign after their partner has left them.

“I would say to people that if they are separating they should look very carefully at their Facebook privacy settings and their friends,” Clare added.

“There are many cases of abusive partners using them to build up a whole picture of their lives.”

original article found here

Online Crimes of Fake Soldier Go Unpunished

By the time Cari Johnson caught wind of a Lebanon (OHIO) man’s online scam, victims in California, Connecticut and Texas already had sent him laptop computers, keys to their homes, personal photos and care packages they believed were headed to American soldiers serving overseas.

But the case of James E. Middleton, 47, of Ohio, demonstrates problems with cybercrime investigations, which cross multiple federal and state jurisdictions and present other dilemmas for investigators used to fighting land-based crimes. As a result, authorities have declined to pursue criminal charges against Middleton even though he admitted to scamming people.

“Where did this occur? It’s not like somebody broke into your house and you can take fingerprints,” said Sgt. Jeff Mitchell of the Lebanon Police Department, which declined to charge Middleton.

Confronted in January by his victims and a police investigation, Middleton said he took responsibility for his misdeeds and blamed his actions on loneliness and agoraphobia, and the companionship and calming effects he gained in relationships built over more than a year with victims nationwide.

He tricked donors into believing he was three different soldiers, including a female. He has since returned some of the items or reimbursed his victims. “Maybe it’ll help somebody else to realize how something that starts out so small can go so totally out of whack,” Middleton said in an interview with the Dayton Daily News.

The FBI’s Cybercrime Division is the top U.S. law enforcement agency charged with fighting online scams. Cases like Middleton’s rank far below a long list of FBI priorities topped by protecting the country from terrorists attacks, foreign intelligence operations and espionage, cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes.

“Is ( Middleton’s case) going to be something the FBI can devote its resources to? Probably not,” Washington-based FBI spokeswoman Jenny Shearer said. The inadequacy of the existing cybercrime law enforcement is the focus of continued global discussion.

In January, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime convened a meeting of international experts in Austria “with a view to examining options to strengthen existing and to propose new national and international legal or other responses to cybercrime.” In America, the FBI works with National White Collar Crime Center, a non-profit organization that tracks cybercrime rates and teaches law enforcement officials the latest techniques. The center and FBI, in partnership with the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance, formed the Internet Complaint Call Center about 10 years ago.

“What is unique about Internet crime is that a perpetrator can live in one state and perpetrate a crime in many other states. They cross jurisdictional boundaries,” said spokesman John Everett with the National White Collar Crime Center. Criminal justice in cyberspace Lebanon police said they were unable to prosecute Middleton, in part because the victims lived in three other states. A federal postal inspector said Middleton’s alleged crimes did not involve the U.S. mail system.

“It really irks me that nothing can be done,” said Johnson, who runs A Dollar to Care, a charity for soldiers and their families, from her home in Riverside. Her son, Dominic Johnson, is a military policeman with the Ohio National Guard. Middleton lives with his teenage daughter, and they share a personal computer. During an interview at his apartment, he said he had learned his lesson. “If I ever felt the want to do that, I would just get rid of my computer,” he said.

Multiple false soldier identities In a case involving a California victim, Middleton acted as a fictitious female soldier, Amy Anderson. For a Texas woman, he was soldier, Michael Wolfe. For a Connecticut woman, he was soldier Jason “Thumper” Hayes. In all three cases, Middleton had the victims send him care packages, believing he would get them to their special soldier through his fake connections at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Middleton met his victims in chat rooms on JustinTV.com, a website where people can post videos and pictures, request and listen to music, and engage in real-time chats.

Middleton said he began entering the chat rooms as fictitious soldiers to get noticed. “In my heart I knew I was wrong but I thought if I entered the room as a soldier it would be better and more people would want to talk to me,” he said in a statement to police.

Jennifer Schmitz of San Antonio, Texas, said she fell in love with soldier “Wolfe” after online communications and receiving love letters actually written by Middleton during a two-year period. “This was someone I put my life on hold for,” she said in a telephone interview. Acting as Wolfe, Middleton said he encouraged Schmitz to send him care packages and wrote her love letters. When Schmitz confronted Middleton by phone, “he said actually, ‘I’m in love with you,’” she said.

Middleton usually favored pretending to be “Thumper” when he communicated with Sheila O’Leary in Connecticut. However, she said Middleton pretended to be 21 different soldiers, as well as himself, during more than a year of contact. “I talked with all of them,” O’Leary said. “This was not his first time doing this.”

Middleton’s third victim, a California man whom he duped to believing he was a female soldier, declined to comment. Johnson said she became aware of Middleton through friendships she built online with the victims. She said her charity has a network of more than 5,000 soldiers and military supporters. Standing up for soldiers “Ninety-five percent of my postings, everything I type, usually is centered around the military or veterans,” she said. Johnson discovered Middleton was using photos of people in uniform to bolster his fake identities. “That’s what really made my blood boil,” she said. Johnson said Middleton should have been charged with crimes, including the Stolen Valor Act, a federal law that bars individuals from falsifying their military service. The law is in limbo due to constitutional challenges in three states.

Johnson said she is concerned that Middleton and others who get away with their scams will continue their alleged cybercriminal activities. ‘If they’re successful and they don’t get caught, what’s going to stop them?” Johnson said. “You can go online and pretend you are whatever or whoever you want to be.” Lebanon police said their investigation was hobbled by the advanced state of the case when Johnson notified them. “Mr. Middleton and these people pretty much had it worked out between themselves before we caught up,” Mitchell said.

Middleton said he began the scam following the deaths of his mother and other relatives. He said he was driven by loneliness that fed the agoraphobia he has suffered from for 16 years. “I started out, oddly enough, as a female,” he said. “It just absolutely snowballed.”

Middleton said his only military experience was when he twice failed to complete basic training at Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey. He also learned military terminology aiding him in pretending to be a soldier from family members. “I’ve had family members in almost every branch except the Coast Guard,” he added.

Since these incidents, Middleton said he goes online only to check the weather and look at maps. He said he no longer visits social networking sites. “I don’t enjoy the computer anymore,” he said, adding that new medication is helping deal with his mental issues. Still Middleton said he felt he deserved to be punished. “That part I still have no answer to,” he said. “How do you morally repay someone?”

original article here

Facebook Scams of Narcissists

By Samuel López De Victoria, Ph.D.

Did you know that if you spend time at social network websites like Facebook you
might be a narcissist?

Of course not everyone who uses Facebook is one. A recent study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (Buffardi and Cambell, 2008) found how social networking web sites such as Facebook can attract narcissists. Here are some of the positive traits narcissists can exhibit:

1. Initially likable.
2. Perceived as leaders.
3. Perceived as exciting.
4. Perceived as entertaining.
5. The capability to obtain sexual partners.

Narcissists can give the illusion of closeness, having empathy, and warmth yet they also are relational opportunists. They use their relationships to enhance themselves. In other words, they can be “show-offs.”

Narcissists are also known to be controllers, manipulators, aggressive, unfaithful, and given to playing mind-games.

The study reveals that social network websites can serve as a place to be shallow and not committed. Friendships can be superficial. These types of websites provide a forum where the narcissist can exercise high control of how he/she is perceived giving an edited image. Narcissists love to look at themselves, talk about themselves… any way they can be the center of the universe. One observation was that narcissists tend to post many pictures of themselves with others and at parties.

Other characteristics which raters evaluated were the amount of clothing worn versus modesty and physical presentation. They also considered if they were portrayed as fun, provocative, self-promoting, sexy, and self-centered. Narcissists tended to present themselves as important through the expression of their opinions. (sounds like Beckstead, Capers & Dunetz) Their ability to persuade others enhanced their perceived image.

In the end, the study appears to show that narcissism is associated with such things as self-promotion, sexiness, attractiveness, and provocative pictures of themselves (this includes action shots of them doing some sort of sport or athletic activity).

The study could imply that websites such as Facebook may contain high numbers of narcissists because of easy access to having a large social network. Social networking websites can provide narcissists with forums where they pursue their addiction to grandiosity while maintaining shallow relationships. These sites can be fertile grounds for the narcissist to work in. Those looking for love and romance on these social sites need to be aware of the scams of a narcissist in a relationship that could end up extremely painful over time.


Reference
Buffardi, L. E., & Campell, W. K. (2008). Narcissism and social networking web sites. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1303+.

original article here

Over 400 Online Bullying Incidents in Wales in 2011

(U.K.) Almost 400 incidents of cyber harassment and bullying were investigated by police in Wales last year, we can reveal.

Victims of abusive, threatening or harassing messages sent via social networks included teenagers as young as 14.

The problem has increasingly hit the headlines in recent months with celebrity victims Katherine Jenkins and former Miss Wales Imogen Thomas complaining publicly about being subjected to vitriolic online attacks.

Away from such high profile cases, in the South Wales Police force area alone 331 harassment-related incidents classed as “e-crime” were investigated, but resulted in just three arrests.

A Freedom of Information request identified 46 cyber crimes in the Dyfed-Powys Police area, resulting in 12 arrests. Offences included 10 hate crimes, one kidnapping and one threat to kill. Eight victims were under the age of 20. In North Wales, where 18 crimes on social networks were recorded, police investigated one offender for harassment while using a false identity.

Two cases were referred to the High Tech Crime Unit in Gwent, involving harassment messages, and e-mails sent to trustees of an organisation alleging homophobic harassment and bullying. However no further action was taken.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop) Centre is currently running a programme called Thinkuknow to educate children and young people about the dangers of “trolling” they face online.

A spokesman said: “Trolling is a description given to someone’s online actions that are deliberately inflammatory or abusive. It ranges from posting a nasty comment on a social networking profile, or a football forum to extreme and persistent abuse.

“It could include harassment, bullying or anything that causes distress to another. The effects can be devastating. Too few people realise that in acting this way online you can quickly break the law. People may think they can remain anonymous when they are online, that they can say and do things they wouldn’t dream of doing in real life without consequences.”

A spokesman for eCrime Wales said: “The e-Crime Partnership, which includes the four Welsh police forces, works to raise awareness of e-crimes of all kinds. The fact that these incidents are now being reported by the public reflects the fact that people in Wales are becoming more aware of the issue generally and of the importance of passing details of such attacks to the police.”

Jonathan Bishop, a South Wales-based internet expert who recently ran a Trolling Academy tutorial, said that as the numbers of arrests were low, fixed penalties and Asbos should be used against cyberbullies for less severe offences. It would be more appropriate then if local authorities, particularly where vulnerable persons are affected, used their powers under New Labour’s anti-social behaviour legislation to issue fixed-penalties to those who harass others, he said. “Local authorities also have the powers to apply for Asbos against persons, which could tell the cyberbullies that they can go to jail for up to two years if they continue their abuse.”

Criminal cases involving the malicious use of false identities on social networks are becoming increasingly common.

In August James Edward Dunn, 28, from Middlesbrough, was jailed for seven years for raping a 15-year-old girl he had lured into meeting by lying about his age on Facebook.

At the time the investigating officer, Detective Constable Jolene Morrison, had urged teenagers who use Facebook to “only speak to people that they know” and to be aware that the person they think they are talking to may not actually be that person.

In September Sean Duffy, 25, from Reading, was jailed for 18 weeks for taunting the families of four dead teenagers on online tribute sites.

And in November, police in Mid Wales vowed to crack down on “trolls” after a 14-year-old sex abuse victim was subjected to an online smear campaign after her attackers were brought to justice.

Mr Bishop, a town councillor for Treforest, said the use of false identities – by “Snerts” who post messages to harm others, and “E-Vengers” who are driven to harm others they feel have wronged them – is a serious problem.

original article found here

In Just One Hour Online...

It took just one hour for internet experts to find out almost every private detail of one woman's life

Steve Boggan challenged web experts to see how much they could discover about his partner. The results were chilling...

As I sit writing this, I am feeling vaguely grubby — guilty even — in the way a neurotic husband might after hiring a gumshoe to go trawling through his wife’s secrets.

There is a 15-page report in front of me chronicling virtually every aspect of my girlfriend’s life: past and present. That includes her friends, education, embarrassing pictures, former boyfriends and long-forgotten relatives.

Much of the information is new to me. And the uses to which it could be put — uses I hadn’t dreamt of until this week — are chilling.

Armed with this information, criminals could use her identity to commit fraud or resurrect minute details of her past, her movements and friendships to lure her into scams or even dangerous liaisons.

It could be used to con her into revealing her bank details and credit card numbers.

My internet snooping began because the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt — a man not known for worrying about internet surfers’ privacy — suggested recently that young people might want to change their identities in the future in order to separate themselves from a past lived too openly on the internet.

We all know Facebook pictures of you dancing at a party with a traffic cone on your head might come back to haunt you. But change your identity completely?

Surely, I wondered, there isn’t enough out there to warrant that.

So I decided to find out how much I could discover about my partner of 12 years, Suzanne, just by using the internet.

Before you think I’m a rat, I should point out that Suzanne, a 39-year-old with a soft furnishings business, agreed to it.

I began in the way lots of identity thieves do: with her name and address. Of course, I knew these details, but identity thieves often discover them by ‘dumpster diving’: looking through dustbins for a discarded piece of mail.

I passed Suzanne’s name and address — but no other details — to Adam Laurie, a 48-year-old computer security and internet privacy advocate.

He shared the information with Chris Sumner, 39, another security expert, who works for a multi-national corporation.

Or at least, that is Sumner’s day job; by night, he analyses vast amounts of information publicly available on the internet to see what it can tell him about criminal activity — in this case, how fraudsters are using social networking sites to choose their victims.

Using sophisticated and completely legal computer techniques, he looks for patterns in the behaviour of internet users to uncover otherwise hidden links.

In the case of social networking sites, he can see just how close two people, or groups of people, really are to each other.

He had met neither me nor Suzanne and knew nothing of her existence until given her name and address.

A day later, his findings dropped into my email inbox.

Picking Suzanne’s life apart, he told me, had taken him just over an hour.

This is because, in common with millions of people in Britain, Suzanne uses the social networking sites Facebook and Friends Reunited, and has signed up to the business networking site LinkedIn and Flickr, the photo-sharing website.

By also using the genealogy website ancestry.co.uk, Sumner was able to piece together the names of all but one of Suzanne’s relatives, including cousins.

Using electoral rolls on 192.com and by searching on Google, he found the addresses of her parents and lots of her friends and colleagues.

From her LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, he found the names of Suzanne’s primary and secondary schools, and a college she had attended in Derby. He also discovered she had studied fine art at Central St Martin’s College of Art & Design in London.

He also had details of Suzanne’s qualifications and pictures of her from her days at school. The snaps weren’t hers — an old schoolfriend had put them on Facebook.

There were some naff hairstyles, but that was as deep as the embarrassment went. Only you know whether a trawl of pictures of you would be more damaging.

But Sumner didn’t stop there. He was able to tell me that Suzanne had travelled extensively in Europe, Asia, the Caribbean and the South Pacific.

This was because she had used an application on Facebook that linked to the travel website TripAdvisor. You fill in where in the world you have been to keep your relatives up to date. But anyone can see it.

He was not only able to list all 41 countries she had visited, but also the 162 towns and islands to which she had been.

Sumner was able to tell me Suzanne’s exact movements by cross-referencing her TripAdvisor entries with photographs she had posted on Flickr.

When you click on a picture on Flickr, a small box gives you access to detailed information that is entered not by you, but by your camera. So, the date and time of the shot are included.

Now that phones and cameras have GPS, there are even concerns that the location of where you uploaded the picture — normally where you live — might be visible.

From a mixture of all of these websites, Sumner listed Suzanne’s likes, dislikes, hobbies, the 34 towns and cities she had visited in Britain, the places where she used to socialise in her youth and details of her former jobs in the newspaper industry.

In fact, it’s fair to say that after just one hour’s trawling he knew more about many aspects of my girlfriend’s past than I did.

Shocking? Perhaps. Yet also astonishingly easy. Suzanne had voluntarily signed up to these websites and, bit by bit, put most of this information out there herself — and forgotten much of it.

However, what I found even more disturbing is that much of what Sumner found was supposed to have been visible only to people whom Suzanne had accepted into her inner circle of ‘friends’ on each networking website. This turned out to be dangerously naive.

Over the years, standard privacy settings— notably for Facebook — have changed, so what you once thought was private has become public.

You are notified about these changes, but if you forget to adjust your individual settings to return to the old level of privacy (which can be fiendishly complicated) then some of your private information becomes available for everyone to see.

‘There are some weird, strange quirks that let you into places you aren’t supposed
to go,’ says Sumner.

‘For example, on Facebook you may not be allowed to see someone’s photographs because they’re private. But if they post a message with one of their photos attached, you are given the option of seeing their whole album. And as you can imagine, that can be embarrassing.’

According to Sumner and Laurie, organised criminals are using this information
in increasingly sophisticated ways to target victims.

‘Criminal gangs are carefully fishing for victims,’ says Laurie. ‘In the past, they would have sent out thousands and thousands of spam emails in a scattergun fashion — and many still do.

‘These are called phishing scams and involve fake requests from banks asking
people to confirm their account details, passwords and so on. The hope is that, once in a while, someone would be silly enough to reply.

‘Today, they are much more targeted. For example, with the information we got about Suzanne from Flickr, you would be able to see where she visited, when, and, if there were captions on the pictures, with whom.

‘After that, the criminals (or romance scammers) would tailor a scam. If they noticed that, say, she was a regular visitor to Malawi, they would make an introduction online, claiming they were a friend — for example, called Dave — of someone she visited there with five years ago.

‘Surely she remembers them? From that beach — her friend was there, too ... yes?

‘Usually people are too embarrassed to say they don’t remember. Then ‘‘Dave’’ claims he is setting up an orphanage — would she like to make a contribution towards it?

‘Or they might simply say they’re a friend of a person you were with and say he’s gone back there, broken his leg and they’re having a fund-raising collection to airlift him home. It’s crude, but effective.’

Sumner says it can get even more complex, with software tools that can work out who is friends with whom among your online groups of contacts.

‘Once you have established a person’s inner network, you go back into their history to find someone they knew at school who isn’t in that network of close friends and who hasn’t signed up to networking sites,’ he says.

‘Then you join those sites in their name, establish yourself with their online identity and ask your original target to accept you as a friend on, say, Facebook.

‘Before you know it, you are inside their life as a trusted person they think they used to know.

‘Once you are in, you can read about what your target and their friends are up to, such as when they are going on holiday. With that information, you can burgle their homes.

‘You can even ask to be Facebook friends with their children. This is a particularly frightening way for someone to stalk you or your family. They can introduce themselves as a Facebook friend of Mum or Dad. And then it’s only a couple of steps away from something awful happening.

‘Teenagers, in particular, are very indiscreet and post hundreds of pictures of themselves, sometimes drunk with their friends in the living room in front of the plasma screen TV or home cinema.

‘Not only are these the sort of pictures that will come back to haunt them in the future — potential employers aren’t supposed to look at these, but they do — but it’s also a dumb way to show burglars what property you have and where it is.

‘Especially after your children have told all their “friends” when the house is going to be empty.’

Sumner described how some of the information he gained from Suzanne would have helped him to get hold of her bank and credit card details. I won’t reveal exactly how he did it, but it involved using some of her social networking information to gain her confidence, then posing as a friend and asking if her business would make some curtains for him with a sample of material he’d seen on another website.

The catch would be that he had set up that other website himself and when she visited it some rudimentary programming he had installed would help him acquire her credit card details.

I ask Suzanne if she would have fallen for the scam. ‘It’s hard to know, but based on what he said, why wouldn’t I have gone along with the requests of a potential customer?’ she says.

There are other ways, too, that criminals can use personal information harvested from the internet. For example, people often use the names of their children or
pets as passwords for online shopping sites.

If criminals can find these names, by gaining access to your social networking circle, they can try to hack into your accounts on popular shopping sites such as Amazon and view your shopping history, or even order expensive goods to be sent to a pick-up address. (I did not ask Laurie or Sumner to attempt this because it would be in breach of data protection law.)

What can we do about all this? Well, not a lot, other than to be aware your information can be used in more sinister ways than you can possibly imagine, and to be on your guard.

As for your children, they can be warned to modify their behaviour and to think twice about what they write and post online and whom they accept as ‘friends’.

According to Linda Weatherhead, principal policy advocate for the campaign group Consumer Focus, social networking sites bear much responsibility for this explosion of potentially useful information.

‘It is a complex problem, but one simple way of making things safer would be to have all our information kept private as the default setting,’ she says. ‘Then it would be up to you how much you want to relax them as you decide to share more of your private
information.

‘Beyond that, we just have to be careful what we put out there — you can advise children about what they are doing, but you can’t wrap them in cotton wool. You can never make anything completely safe.’

But if Adam Laurie and Chris Sumner are right, then the risks of social networking extend far beyond a few embarrassing photos.

In particular, be careful who your ‘friends’ are; they could turn out to be your worst enemies.

original article here

How Cheaters Use the Internet to Seek New Romance

Are you in a relationship? If you are, cheating may be a concern of yours. After all, cheating is an issue that many of us have become alto familiar with. You may have been cheated on in the past, you may have known someone else who has been, or you may have learned all about cheating from the television and movies.

If you suspect that your partner is cheating on you, they may be using the internet to do so. Why?

Because the internet has made it very easy for cheaters to seek new romance. Not only is the internet making online affairs easy and convenient, but many cheaters think the internet makes it harder to get caught.

Unfortunately for them and luckily for you, the computer often tells the tale.

As for how men and women use the internet to seek new romance online, there are a number of different approaches taken. One of those is social networking websites. Now, it is important to know that social networking sites, like MySpace, have increased in popularity over the past few years. Just because your partner uses a social networking website, it does not mean that they are cheating on you. They may truly just be interested in connecting with old friends.

Be cautious, however, of a profile that you cannot see or access or the appearance of old girlfriends.

Dating websites are also how many cheaters use the internet to seek new romance online. Unfortunately, dating websites are more risky than social networking websites. If your husband, wife, girlfriend, or boyfriend uses an online dating site, they may have the intention of actually meeting the person at the other end of the computer. This is when an affair stops becoming just an emotional affair and often starts becoming a physical affair. If you ever find that your partner is using an online dating website, be aware because there is a good chance that they are cheating on you or intend to start soon.

As it was previously stated, the internet does make it easier for cheaters to start romances online, but it is also relatively easy to catch a cheater online. To get started, check your computer’s internet history.

To do so, open up a new Internet Explorer or Firefox window. Along the top of the page, you will see the history icon. Clicking on this will tell you all of the websites visited in the past few days.

Be suspicious of no information, as it may mean that the history was purposely cleared.

A keylogger program, also occasionally referred to as a keyword tracker, can also be installed on your computer. These programs work to capture each word that is typed on your computer. If you think that your partner is communicating with their sex partner or partners online through email or in chat room sessions, you may be able to see exactly what it is they are saying. These types of programs can be expensive, but they can also provide you with the proof that you need.

You can read more about KeyLogging here ...

You can also always take the direct approach. If your partner is using the computer and acting secretive, demand to see what they are looking at. Walk over to the computer immediately, request that they get up and you take their seat. View the computer’s internet history immediately. This allows you to see what they have been looking at online before giving a computer savvy cheater time to cover their tracks.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

How Married, Middle-Class Predators Prey on Others

This story talks about vulnerable teenagers - but all you'd have to do is replace 'teenagers' with disabled or divorced or lonely or vulnerable or trusting ADULTS - and the modus operandi and result would be EXACTLY the same - EOPC

By Mark Williams-Thomas

Somewhere out there, as you read this, a man sits hunched over his computer, his brow furrowed in concentration as he taps away at his keyboard.

But he's not booking cinema tickets or tracing his family tree or doing any of the things that have made the internet such a valuable tool of modern life.

No, the sickening truth is that he's pretending to be a 13-year-old girl and he's in one of those internet chatrooms so beloved of our teenagers.

Using modern text-speak to pass muster as a teenager, he taps out an innocent-sounding question, the sort one teenage girl might ask another.

'Hve u gt a boyfriend - lol?' 'No,' replies the very real 12-year-old, giggling as she types.

Back comes the reply: 'Wd u like one?' The trap is about to be set.

The man, of course, is a paedophile; one of the most feared and loathed figures in today's society. But the girl, sitting at her computer in the comfort and supposed safety of her own bedroom. . . well, she could be my daughter, your daughter or anyone's daughter.

As a father, I know it's important not to overstate the danger our girls are in but, as a former policeman and professional child protection consultant, I also know the paedophile threat is out there. It's very real, it's very nasty indeed and the connection between those internet chats and images of paedophilia are all too common.

I've spent the past 18 months shadowing the officers of Scotland Yard's Paedophile Unit and, despite being a former detective with more than 12 years of experience in child protection, I've been horrified by what I've seen.

It's not just the appalling nature of the photographic images that so alarms me; it's the number of them. Barely a decade ago, we thought it was bad enough that there were a few thousand of these images being passed around paedophile rings. Now there are literally millions.

It's become not just a worldwide problem, but a worldwide business, too, with organised crime gangs increasingly keen to muscle in on the lucrative trade for this truly disgusting material.

What you have to remember is that for each and every one of those images, a child has been coerced, assaulted and badly hurt. Many will have been raped and, in a few tragic cases, the victim may even have been killed. That's the reality of modern paedophilia.

Despite the horrific nature of these crimes, the problem seems to get worse every year.

As Detective Chief Inspector Nick Stevens, who heads the unit, puts it, he could have three times the staff he has and still be struggling to cope with the demand for their services.

The big question, of course, is who is looking at these appalling images and then going on, in far too many cases, to plan and commit their own assaults on children?

What my time at the Paedophile Unit has revealed is that the days when a lazy stereotype of a paedophile - a male, middle-aged loner, often still living with his parents - are long over.

Yes, child protection officers do still come across the sad and dangerous individuals who could be described in that way, but increasingly they are arresting a new breed of paedophile.

Often married and with children themselves, they can be well-educated and highly successful in their field.

Passing them in the street - and it could easily be your street - you wouldn't give them a second glance. But despite often having no criminal record, they pose every bit as serious a threat to our children as the more readily identifiable 'dirty old men' of the past.

'In the past couple of years we've arrested magistrates, lawyers, company directors, police officers, people in the media,' DCI Stevens tells me. Chillingly, it seems paedophiles and offenders really do now come from all walks of life.
Webcam

Take Andrew Lintern, for instance, one of the men I saw being arrested, who had travelled to London from Hertfordshire in the hope of having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

He was 55, married, highly qualified as a scientist working in IT, professional and, it later emerged, an Oxford graduate.

And yet when officers from the Paedophile Unit raided his home, they found nearly 20,000 indecent images, including video-clips of a 17-month-old baby being assaulted.

Lintern later confessed that the man assaulting the baby in the videoclips was, in fact, himself - an admission that no doubt contributed to him being ordered to be detained indefinitely when he came before Southwark Crown Court earlier this year.

What's brought about this change in both the number of paedophile and the backgrounds they come from, of course, is the internet.

Twenty years ago, a predatory paedophile would have had to loiter around parks, funfairs and swimming pools to gain access to children, where his suspicious behaviour - in full public view - would often have raised the alarm before he could cause any real harm.

But computers and the internet have brought an end to all that. Now a paedophile can be chatting to a vulnerable young teenager - even watching her on a webcam - after just a few clicks of his mouse.

The internet has become famous for bringing people together - relatives, old school friends, prospective husbands and wives - but it also has a dark side, and it doesn't come much darker than bringing a paedophile and his victim together.

That's what happened when Andrew Lintern logged onto an internet chatroom pretending to be a nine-year-old girl and began a conversation with 'Jessie', whom he believed was a 13-year old-girl.

Only, just as the nine-year-old girl wasn't who she said she was, nor was Jessie. In fact, she was John Taylor, a middle-aged detective and a Covert Internet Investigator (CII) with the Paedophile Unit.

'Thousands in the UK have looked at child pornography'
To catch the new breed of paedophile, you see, has required a new form of policing and Scotland Yard's Paedophile Unit has led the world with its pro-active approach.

Since 2005, it's been using officers posing as young girls in internet chatrooms and on social networking sites to draw these paedophiles out into the open.

The idea is not to entrap them (which would be against the law), but simply to communicate with them long enough for them to break the law, either by engaging in sexual grooming, sending indecent images to a minor or by encouraging them to commit an indecent act.

Often, it is the investigation which follows the suspect's arrest on one of these charges that unearths evidence of even more serious crimes.

Such is the burden of proof that Paedophile Unit investigators are able to assemble that, more often than not, the defendants plead guilty.

Having worked alongside them for so many months, I am hugely impressed with their professional commitment and their determination to secure a conviction on the most serious charge they can.

After the excitement of a successful arrest, this, they say, is where the real work begins.

As one of the detectives told me: 'You've got to get their mobile phones examined, their computers examined, their cameras examined and look at every single image. Multiply that by the number of prisoners and it's a phenomenal amount of work.'

It's a meticulous and time-consuming approach, but it works.

Take Dean Hardy, a Kent businessman who, following a tip off from Europol, the European law enforcement agency, had been arrested for downloading child pornography from the internet.

Convinced but, as yet, unable to prove Hardy had also been assaulting children, his home was searched and a camera memory stick found which revealed pictures of an adult male's hand abusing a young Asian girl.

Proving the hand in the picture was Hardy's required something that had never been done before - a side-by-side photographic comparison and enough points of proven similarity to convince the Crown Prosecution Service, in the first instance, to take the higher charge of sexual assault to court and, in due course, for a jury to find him guilty.

In the end, however, the level of evidence so painstakingly assembled by the Paedophile Unit detectives was so great that Hardy pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to six years in prison earlier this year.

So how many paedophiles are there out there, trawling the net for underage girls? The truth is that not even Nick Stevens, head of the Paedophile Unit, knows. 'I believe there are thousands of people in the UK who have looked at child pornography.' What he doesn't know is what proportion go on and try to make contact online with a child and then meet them.

All I can add, having watched the Paedophile Unit at work and worked myself in the same field, is that we under-estimate the scale of the problem at our peril. The internet has opened a door, and I believe that many men have already stepped through it and more will follow.

The statistic that keeps coming back to me is that of 300 men arrested by the Paedophile Unit since 2005, most had no previous convictions.

To put it another way, if John Taylor hadn't pretended to be 'Jessie', Andrew Lintern, a man we now know had been abusing children for a decade, would still be out there.

What can be done about this growing evil? Well, a number of things. Scotland Yard's Paedophile Unit has led the world with its approach to catching paedophiles, and I'd like to see other enforcement agencies around the world following their example. But I'd also like police forces everywhere to remember that this is a crime with a victim as well as a perpetrator.

If we're clever and fortunate, we can send that perpetrator to prison for a very long time, but there's a danger that we forget the often terrifying ordeal his victims may have experienced. They need our help and, at the moment, they're not always getting it.

I'd also like to see internet service providers and those hosting chatrooms and social networking sites to be held responsible for the content they carry. Some sites need to closed down entirely; others need to be far more effectively moderated.

original article here

Hate & the Internet

Does the internet encourage insidious and bullying behaviour?

I remember the first time I logged into a chatroom. It was 1996, and I was using my mum's AOL account to mooch around the world wide web, which was still very much in its infancy. I was in that glorious, unrestricted period of life between college and reality, and the web seemed to offer splendid, unrestricted access to the outside world in a way that no generation had known before.

So it was with cocky confidence that I joined the "general" room as "Dan" (of undisclosed gender) and instantly discovered the thrill of anonymity. Behind my digital mask, I began a brief but satisfying tirade of mockery, contrariness and antisocial behaviour. Of course, compared with the stream of epithets that Xbox Live users encounter playing online, my efforts were pretty tame – I didn't question anyone's sexuality, make any racial slurs or say anything particularly negative about anyone's mother. But the sense of release I experienced in 10 minutes of childishness has remained at the back of my mind ever since I started studying the web; it helps define our behaviour online.

For some, this new technology not only facilitates, but actively encourages insidious and novel social ills. Blogs and forums are no-go zones for people who hope for rational conversation; cyberbullying has been blamed for several recent suicides; and white power, homophobic and jihadist organisations have colonised the web, preferring its potential to old-fashioned pamphleteering. It looks as if the web makes it possible for us to hate one another more easily, more efficiently and more effectively.

My mantra is that the web is an agnostic communication platform: it can do nothing to us except reflect who we are. However, as my own little descent into cyber-trollism attests, there are aspects of it that do encourage antisocial behaviour.

The biggie is anonymity, according to Dr Karen Douglas from the University of Kent, who studies the psychology of hatred online. We can log into a forum under a pseudonym, lob a hate bomb and then fade away into the digital ether. It's like playing a trick on Halloween; it's childish, it seems insignificant, and it's kinda fun. Unfortunately, such actions can have real-life consequences depending on who the hatred is directed at, how often it happens and whether there's support in place if the victim needs it.

But is anonymity alone the issue? Philip Zimbardo, professor emeritus at Stanford University, has been studying why people do evil since the 60s, and he says that environmental social cues are equally as important. In his famous Stanford prison experiment in 1971, a random selection of psychologically stable subjects were transformed into brutal prison guards after being given mirrored sunglasses and uniforms and told to play the role.

To reindividuate anonymous members of online crowds, forums, blogs and news sites – including the Observer's – are increasingly asking commentators to register their real names before posting any material (even if they then do so using a pseudonym). It's believed that the forging of this simple link between the virtual and offline persona is why relatively few counter-normative attitudes are expressed on sites such as Facebook, where exposing yourself as racist can turn you into a social pariah. Unless, of course, your friends are racists too. And that's a more difficult problem to solve.

Data traffic indicates that, online, we are increasingly talking to people just like ourselves, relying on our friends' directions to navigate the web. It's ironic that, rather than opening us up to an ever-greater number of opinions and attitudes, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter may actually be narrowing our worldview, confirming what we already believe and reinforcing attitudes we hold already.

So what happens when we only communicate with people like ourselves, and the messages we share only reinforce our mutual hatred? It's a technique radical religious and racist organisations have always used to make sure their members conform, but now they're employing technological tools to create global communities of like-minded ideologues.

Groups such as Stormfront.org and GodHatesFags.com use the web for networking, self-promotion and recruitment. They give support and intellectual ammunition to existing members, rarely explicitly inciting violence. Thankfully, it appears that efforts to convince non-believers to convert to their cause are rarely successful – although we have yet to see the impact of their children's zones (with links to games, and alternative information for schoolwork, that reinforce their ideologies).

It's not all bad news, however. Just as the web is a powerful tool to get the message out, it's also a good vehicle to expose its flaws. The rampant opinions that dominate online life challenge users to be critical of the content they consume, and considerate in how they construct effective counter-arguments.

Online hatred is real, and it can have a very real effect. But we are in command of the technology; it's not in charge of us. And as for anonymity, back in 1996, even though I hid behind a false name, I didn't throw a hate bomb into that chatroom and run away; no, I was booted out. And frankly, my moment of humiliation was exactly what I deserved.

original article here

Jailed for Internet Harassment

(U.K.) A man who used social networking sites to mount a year-long harassment campaign against his girlfriend has been sentenced to four months in jail. Shane Webber, 23, from Nottingham, posted sexually explicit images of his then girlfriend Ruth Jeffery, 22, to her family and friends.

District Judge Anthony Callaway said the offence was a "gross violation of Miss Jeffery's privacy". Outside Southampton Magistrates' Court, Ms Jeffery said the sentence "will never make up for the hurt he has put me through".

The criminal campaign began in April 2010 when Miss Jeffery aborted their child and he became angry. He posted 10 to 12 images of a nude or sexual nature of his girlfriend and also of himself with her on to sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Tumblr and Google Picasa, the court heard.

One set of pictures was called 'Nude Jeffery' and was sent to many close friends and family of the computing science student at Loughborough university.

Webber tried to implicate one of his friends, Lee Evans, by putting the posts in an email address bearing Mr Evans's name, leading to his arrest. Speaking after the case, Detective Constable Michael Connelly said Webber had even called police to check on how the investigation to find the stalker was going. On one occasion he shouted at DC Connelly that it "needed a proper officer" looking into it. He was only found out when Miss Jeffery's family made their own inquiries and the emails were traced back to him.

In a victim impact statement which was read out, Miss Jeffery said: "I have been absolutely devastated by the fact the person I shared everything with caused me so much hurt and harm."

The court was told the harassment has caused her to be depressed and lacking in confidence and had forced her not to trust anyone. She said she had been "intentionally controlled, belittled and harmed" by Webber, and that Webber's behaviour was "cruel and calculated".

Miss Jeffery's family were very suspicious that Webber was behind the harassment, causing friction in the family as she defended him. Eventually her father, Gordon, made his own investigation and traced the postings to a site registered to Webber and he was arrested and interviewed by police.

The defence told the court that Webber had Asperger's syndrome and he and his family had suffered from abuse including his parents' house having the words "sicko" and "psycho" daubed on it.

"He has been having a nasty time since this hit the tabloid press," his legal team said. "He seems to have realised he has received a dose of his own medicine. He realises, for the first time, the devastating impact this has had on Ruth and her family."

As well as the jail term, Webber was handed a five-year restraining order and was told not to contact Miss Jeffery or post images of her online. Outside court, Miss Jeffery said: "I am extremely pleased with the outcome. "The maximum sentence in a magistrates' court will never make up for the hurt he had put me through but I am pleased I can now put it behind me. I was absolutely devastated when I found out it was him. I could not believe it was Shane. I did not want to believe it."

Webber admitted one count of harassment at an earlier hearing.


original article found here

Jailed for Running a 'Vicious' Internet Smear Campaign

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

original article here

Burglars Use Twitter & Facebook to Scope Out Targets

by Andy Bloxham

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

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

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

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

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

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

original article here

Social Networking Encourages Cyberstalking

Many use Facebook.com daily without being aware of the cyberstalking threat.

When students put their phone numbers, addresses and other personal information on a social networking site like Facebook, they increase their chances of being a cyberstalking victim, said Michael Kaiser, executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance.

Kaiser said that because people between the ages of 18-24 have the highest victimization rate, due to the popularity of Facebook and MySpace.com, it's important for students to protect themselves against cyberstalking.

"People should be really guarded in sharing personal information," Kaiser said. "I wouldn't suggest that the Internet is a place to write an autobiography."

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project's January 2009 report about adults and social networking websites, 75 percent of Internet users in the 18 to 24 age group have a profile on a social networking Web site.

A social networking Web site is a place for people to connect with each other by creating a profile that each individual can customize with pictures, contact information and details about interests, such as music and movies, to reflect that person's personality. Kaiser said an e-mail address is usually the only information needed to become part of a social networking Web site.

Some tips Kaiser had for students were install a firewall, anti-spyware, use the highest privacy settings on social networking web sites and limit the information they put online.

Kaiser advised students that they should "be really careful about who you let into your circle."

Along with the active steps that students can take to protect themselves, Kaiser suggested that students enter their names into a search engine to see if they come across information that they didn't know was there.

"People don't even know sometimes how much information about them there is on the Web," Kaiser said. "People leave trails all over the Internet and stalkers will use those trails."

He said stalkers would use anything from an e-mail address to a phone number, street address or instant message, to stalk a victim.

Nick Penta, a pre-veterinary science freshman, said he thinks an ex-girlfriend stalked him over MySpace. He said she sent him several messages and viewed his profile about 20 times a day to learn about his new girlfriend.

Kaiser said stalking is defined as repeated actions that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear.

Penta added that he wasn't scared of his ex's actions.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice's January 2009 report "Stalking Victimization in the United States," of the 3.4 million Americans who reported being stalked, 25 percent reported being cyberstalked through email or instant messaging.

Stephen Orlando, a pre-business freshman said he experienced the same jealous behavior by an ex, over the Internet.

According to the report, 75 percent of stalking victims were stalked by someone they knew.

"The vast majority of stalking is done by people who know each other," Kaiser said.

Even taking into account Orlando and Penta's experiences with exes over the Web, the two men have not chosen to make their Facebook profiles private and non-viewable to users whom they have not given permission.

Kaiser advised students to "use the highest privacy settings you can on any of the social networking sites." Amy Cheng, a pre-physiology freshman, said her Facebook profile is private and she doesn't post her personal information on the page.

"I don't put anything on there that I wouldn't show my mom," Cheng said about information on her Facebook profile.

Emily Smith, an undeclared freshman, said that although her profile isn't private, she doesn't put any contact information on her Facebook profile.

She added that if she had more of an issue with cyberstalking she might consider changing her profile to private. Orlando said that he thinks that cyberstalking is more of an issue for women than men.

"There's a lot more creeper stalker people looking for girls than guys," he said.

Penta said that the difference could be attributed to the fact that some women put relatively provocative photos on their individual profiles.

"They're easier targets, just because their pictures might be more revealing," Penta said.

Whatever the reason, the Department of Justice report did concede that women run a much greater risk for being victims of cyberstalking than men.

Whether the victim is a man or woman, the fact that friends and family support the stalking victim is crucial, Kaiser said.

For more information on cyberstalking, Kaiser said that students should visit the National Center for Victims of Crime's Web site, www.ncvc.org or the National Cyber Security Alliance's Web site, www.staysafeonline.org.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

Internet Becoming a Pathway to Violations

by David Linton

Officials say people with restraining orders against them are using social networking to contact victims and victim's friends & families.

(Massachusetts, USA) A man embroiled in a domestic dispute with his estranged wife contacted her friends in an effort to see their kids, which was prohibited by a restraining order.

"She should let him see their father. She has issues with him. It shouldn't get in the way of the kids. Pass on the love," he allegedly said.

Prosecutors argued that the defendant, 38-year-old George Manchester of Fall River, violated a restraining order by trying to contact his estranged wife through her friends.

Only Manchester, who denies the allegations, did not speak to the friends directly or send them a letter.

Prosecutors say Manchester, who police say has a history of domestic violence and violating restraining orders, reached out through cyberspace on the social networking website Facebook. "Your honor, it looks like he's coming up with more creative ways to violate the restraining order without getting caught," Assistant District Attorney Kelly Costa argued last month during a bail hearing for Manchester in Attleboro District Court.

The use of social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace by domestic abuse defendants prohibited from contacting their victims is becoming more common, authorities say, as the use of the websites has proliferated in society.

North Attleboro police Detective Michael Elliott says he's investigated numerous cases in which restraining orders were violated by people using social networking websites, as well as e-mail and cellphone texting.

"Just because it's not in person doesn't mean it's not a violation," said Elliott, who has investigated numerous cybercrimes. "Violations using the phone and violations over the Internet are very similar."

Officials at New Hope, a non-profit women's shelter and domestic abuse support agency, say technology is a good way to keep in touch with family and friends, but it also has been used to torment domestic abuse victims.

"Many of New Hope's clients have in some form or at some point had technology used against them by their abuser, and perpetrators of violence are becoming increasingly 'tech-savvy' in using various devices to abuse or locate their victims," New Hope spokeswoman Laura Hennessey Martens said. "It is important for survivors to know that while living in an abusive home or even after leaving their abuser, social media, cell phones and other technologies can continue to be used against them and may jeopardize their safety," Martens said.

In Bristol County, there have been cases in all four district courts in which defendants have violated restraining orders through text messaging or social networking sites.

In one New Bedford case, a man is alleged to have taken his ex-girlfriend's cell phone and texted her friends, threatening to kill her, said Gregg Miliote, a spokesman for Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter.

"We've had defendants threaten to kill victims and burn their houses down. It seems that in the past few years it is an ever more popular way for defendants to violate restraining orders," Miliote said.

There are no local statistics to show the number of incidents, Miliote said, but prosecutors in the domestic violence unit have been successfully prosecuting more and more defendants for violating restraining orders through cyberspace.

"It's not unusual," Miliote said.

A U.S. Justice Department survey released last year noted that 1 in 4 stalking victims reported some form of cyberstalking by e-mail or instant messaging - and that was based on information gathered in 2006.

With the increased popularity of social networking and smartphones within the past few years, authorities say instances of cyberstalking or prohibited contact due to a restraining order is almost certainly higher.

Social networking, whether by e-mail or websites, is becoming more popular among all age groups, with 86 percent of those 18 to 26 using social networking sites, up from 16 percent in 2005, according to a survey released last month by the Pew Research Center.

Users 30 to 49 shot up from 12 percent in 2005 to 61 percent in May 2010.

The fastest growth occurred in the 50 to 64 age group, with the figures more than doubling in one year. Last year, 22 percent said they used social networking sites, jumping to 47 percent in May 2010, according to the Pew survey.

Martens says domestic violence victims can protect themselves.

While each domestic violence survivor's situation is unique and may require different strategies to "stay ahead" of his or her abuser, some basic technology safety tips include:

If using a computer that your abuser might have access to, be sure to clear your browser. However, computer use can still be monitored and Internet use is impossible to completely clear.

It is recommended that survivors instead use a computer that the abuser does not have access to.

Keep personal or identifying information offline. Online photos and postings can be used to track victims' whereabouts. This includes photos and postings by family and friends of a survivor.

Keep in mind that, even when selecting privacy settings at the highest level of privacy, there is still no guarantee that the information will be or will remain private.

Keep in mind that cell phones, car safety tracking systems and other technologies have GPS tracking devices that can be used by abusers to locate their victims.

More information is available on New Hope's website http://www.new-hope.org

original article here

How True Love or Tragedy is Only a Click Away

The Dangers of Online Relationships & Stalking:
How True Love or Tragedy is Only a Click Away
The Story of Kerry Kujawa
Author Raymond Chan was a classmate of Kerry Kujawa's for several years in Sugar Land, Texas. Kerry's tragic story serves as a poignant example of the dangers of online relationships with offline consequences.

An Unexpected Phone Call
Late last April I got a phone call one afternoon from a good high school friend of mine who attended Texas A&M University. Not expecting the call, I good-naturedly asked how things were going.

It was not a social call. There was no good news, and things were not going well.

Earlier that day police had identified the body of Kerry Kujawa, a fellow A&M student and an old classmate that we had gone to school with for years. Kerry's body had been found, badly decomposed and unidentifiable, in a field on a remote ranch in the Texas hill country. The story around Kerry's tragic death would come out over the next day, and its nature shocked all of us who had known him.

Kerry had been having an online relationship with whom he thought to be a young woman under the screen name 'kelly_mc', meeting and communicating through an online chat room. Her real name was "Kelly McCauley", and seemed to be a nice pre-law student who was trapped in a destructive relationship, and Kerry was one of those people who wouldn't let her stay in such an emasculating position. They seemed to grow closer and closer over the months, and eventually Kerry started to ask Kelly to meet face to face, so that he could help her. He apparently grew insistent on helping her, and on April 7th, 2000, Kerry left campus to meet her in San Antonio.

A week or so later Kerry's family and friends received an email from Kerry saying that he was ok and would be staying with Kelly for a little longer. Online, Kelly had been telling others in the close-knit chat room that she and Kerry were engaged and would be getting married soon.

In the end, this fairy tale fantasy would prove to have been a terrible tragedy. A couple weeks later Kerry's friends started to worry about his continued absence from school and field a missing-persons report. Just the day before, police had discovered Kerry's body, but had not yet been able to identify it. The news came as a crushing blow to Kerry's family, friends, and all those who had known him.

Who was 'kelly_mc'?
Kerry's online love interest, 'Kelly', was not who he or anybody else thought she was. By interviewing the operators and frequent participators of the chat room, police obtained the phone numbers and addresses that the person had given out to contact her at. Authorities were also helped by carefully examining the computers Kerry had used to send and receive emails from 'kelly_mc'. 'She' was actually 31 year-old, 6' 2" Kenny Wayne Lockwood, a former McDonald's assistant manager who lived with his parents in an upscale neighborhood in San Antonio. He had no felony convictions and described by one neighbor as being the "last [person one would assume] for being involved [in the murder]." Others neighbors described him as "quiet, a real computer geek."

It would later come out that Lockwood had used the persona of 'Kelly' to talk with other young men in addition to Kerry, luring them with an appealing story and pictures of an attractive young woman to further the ploy. To conceal his identity, Lockwood met Kerry under the pretense of being Kelly's brother, then shot and killed him and disposed of his body. To delay the discovery of the murder, Lockwood sent the email purporting to be Kerry and continued to assume the persona of 'Kelly' in the chat room and furthering the story of the two supposedly in love.

Remembering Kerry
To those of us who had known and grown up with Kerry, the news of his death came as a terrible shock. The story of his murder, however, came as an even greater surprise. Kerry was a smart, highly intelligent, and computer-savvy individual. He was not the stereotypical 'computer geek' who spent his entire social life in front of a monitor and kept indoors or a 'jock' who would have been ignorant and not understanding of computers and the inherent risks. Instead, he was a sociable individual, an avid track athlete, and a notable engineering student.

Having talked with him on an almost daily basis throughout high school, I can say that Kerry was not a soft hearted, idealistic, or romantic individual. Furthermore, he was one of the brightest minds at my high school, ranked high in the class and one who took a challenging schedule of AP courses and extra-curricular activities. I would never have guessed that Kerry would be one to be tricked into such a deep and deceptive ploy by someone else; if anything, I can recall some of the joking pranks that he had played on others. All of us who previously had read or heard stories of failed online relationships in the media and dismissed them now had to rethink our beliefs. We had to re-examine our online lives and our hollow belief that we were somehow invulnerable to the situations that these stories presented.

Kerry's death forced all of us in the community and schools to rethink our notions of the Internet and the online world. It is too easy to think of the Internet as a collection of web pages and dot.coms, a resource of information and services that exist in a space parallel but separate from the "real world." However, the Internet is as much a community of people as it is a collection of pages and files, and those people very much exist in the same world that we do. The difficulty one finds in trying to categorize and potentially control the content of static pages becomes exponentially more complicated when applied the mildly analogous realm of miscellaneous interpersonal communication online.

As the idiom goes, on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog.

The World of Online Stalkers
Online chat has become increasingly popular in recent years, offering a way for individuals to meet and talk with others in an environment that seems anonymous and open. As Kerry's story illustrates, it's both easy to meet new people online and easy to forget that these people can come from all walks of life. While people are reluctant to chat with a random person on the street, it tends to be considerably easier for people to talk freely and openly online, under the context of being essentially anonymous. However, a certain danger arises when this sense of security lulls online participants into divulging into their real-life worlds.

A common sentiment among the non-tech savvy in the early days of the Internet was that the online world was disproportionately populated with socially deviant individuals; a seamy underground world best to be avoided. As the online presence has grown, people have come to realize that the online population tends, in a general sense, to mirror the general one. However, the real power in the network is its power to connect individuals who previously had no opportunity for meeting in any real life context. The power to connect those with like interests, but also the power for those with socially deviant desires to seek and stalk their prey more easily and to confide in others who would never admit to their tendencies offline. Online stalkers harass and follow those they meet online, sometimes, as in Kerry's case, with tragic real world consequences.

As with all other aspects of the Internet, anonymous people online should be considered with the same suspicion and regard that is accorded to content. Given the ease by which anyone can publish content online, the source of information is often closely analyzed and critiqued before being considered seriously. Likewise, anyone can log on to the Internet and enter a chat room - it is always prudent to know when to trust and distrust another online.

The Scope of the Problem
While it is easy both to under- and over-state the problem, the truth remains - online stalking occurs with enough prevalence to justify caution and preventive measures among the online public. Statistics, given the uncoordinated nature of the Internet, are few, but an August 1999 study on cyberstalking by the US Attorney General for the Vice President paints a disturbing picture on the ease and seriousness of the problem. Given the severity of offline stalking - the report states that one out of every twelve women have been stalked at some point in their lives - the implications of online techniques are troubling. Even lacking direct quantitative measurement, the report cites anecdotal evidence from law enforcement and ISPs to show that "cyberstalking is a serious - and growing - problem." In addition, while it is tempting to dismiss cyberstalking as merely harassing emails and messages that can be easily ignored, it is a serious crime that can often be a prelude to offline offenses. Also, given the growing integration of online services into daily life, stalkers can interfere more and more with everyday activities such as email and online transactions.

Conclusions
Stalking is an issue of considerable concern in the offline world; the Internet serves to broaden their reach and accessibility. People who would normally have to self control to not harass others in public might not think of online interaction in the same vein. Furthermore, this new level of accessibility to questionable and illegal content poses another pressing problem - addiction to online sexual content.