Appendix 4
Kalman Brattman: Cyberstalker
Information on Cyberstalking
from the Website WiredSafety.org
“Cyberstalkers are often driven by revenge, hate, anger, jealousy, obsession and mental illness. While a cyberharasser may be motivated by some of these same feelings, often the harassment is driven by the desire to frighten or embarrass the harassment victim.
Sometimes the harasser intends to teach the victim a lesson in netiquette or political correctness (from the harasser’s point of view). Often the cyberharassment victim is merely in the wrong place at the wrong time, or has made a comment or expressed an opinion that the cyberharasser dislikes. We have even seen cases where the victim is merely being targeted because they are the first ones the cyberharasser encounters when they are in a ‘bad mood.’” [Downloaded 7/5/08 from www.wiredsafety.org/cyberstalking_harassment/csh1.html.]
The website WiredSafety.org lists three types of cyber stalkers: obsessional, delusional and vengeful.
Cyber911 Emergency
Delusional stalkers “frequently have never had any contact with their victim beyond the boundaries of their own mind. They may suffer from mental illness like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or erotomania. What they have in common is a false belief that keeps them tied to their victims. ….
“A delusional stalker is usually a loner, unmarried, socially immature and does not possess the interpersonal skills to maintain friendships and relationships….
“Delusional stalkers are very difficult to get rid of and many go on for many years fixated on one person.
“The last type of stalker is the vengeful stalker. They get angry at their victim due to some slight either real or imagined.”
[Downloaded 7/5/08 www.wiredsafety.org/cyberstalking_harrassment/stalker.html]
Definitions of Cyberstalking
from Wikipedia
“Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or
other electronic means to stalk someone.
“It has been defined as the use of information and communications
technology, particularly the Internet, by an individual or group of
individuals, to harass another individual, group of individuals, or
organization. The behavior includes false accusations, monitoring, the
transmission of threats, identity theft, damage to data or equipment, the
solicitation of minors for sexual purposes, and gathering information for
harassment purposes. The harassment must be such that a reasonable person, in possession of the
same information, would regard it as sufficient to cause another reasonable
person distress.” [Bocij, Paul. Cyberstalking: Harassment in the Internet
Age and How to Protect Your Family. Praeger, 2004, p. 14.]
"Stalking is a form of mental assault, in which the perpetrator
repeatedly, unwantedly, and disruptively breaks into the life-world of the
victim, with whom he has no relationship (or no longer has), with motives that
are directly or indirectly traceable to the affective sphere. Moreover, the
separated acts that make up the intrusion cannot by themselves cause the mental
abuse, but do taken together (cumulative effect)" (Royakkers 2000:7, cited
in CyberStalking: menaced on
the internet, http://www.sociosite.org/cyberstalking_en.php).
“When identifying cyberstalking "in the field," and particularly
when considering whether to report it to any kind of legal authority, the
following features or combination of features can be considered to characterize
a true stalking situation: malice, premeditation, repetition, distress, obsession, vendetta, no
legitimate purpose, personally directed, disregarded warnings to stop, harassment,
and threats.”
[Bocij, Paul. Cyberstalking: Harassment in the Internet Age and How to
Protect Your Family. Praeger, 2004, pp. 9-10.]
“False accusations.
Many cyberstalkers try to damage the reputation of their victim and turn other
people against them. They post false information about them on websites. They
may set up their own websites, blogs or user pages for this purpose. They post
allegations about the victim to newsgroups, chat rooms or other sites that
allow public contributions, such as Wikipedia or Amazon.com.” [http://www.jahitchcock.com/cyberstalked/skippress.htm].
“Attempts to
gather information about the victim. Cyberstalkers may approach their victim's friends, family and work colleagues
to obtain personal information. They may advertise for information on the
Internet, or hire a private detective. They often will monitor the victim's
online activities and attempt to trace their IP address in an effort to gather
more information about their victims.” [McFarlane, L., & Bocij, P.
(2003). An exploration of
predatory behavior in cyberspace: Towards a typology of cyberstalkers. First
Monday, 8(9). Downloaded 7/5/08 from http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_9/mcfarlane/]
Case Study of Cyberstalking
For a case study of an attack see: Fighting Cyberstalking, by Skip Press.[http://www.jahitchcock.com/cyberstalked/skippress.htm]
Analysis of Cyberstalking Behavior by McFarlane and Bocij
This article
attempts to describe the predatory behavior of cyberstalkers, including
statistical data on their actions and including their effect on their victims.
An exploration of
predatory behavior in cyberspace: Towards a typology of cyberstalkers.
by Leroy
McFarlane and Paul Bocij
Abstract
An exploration of predatory
behaviour in cyberspace: Towards a typology of cyberstalkers by Leroy McFarlane
and Paul Bocij
Over the last few years
governments, law enforcement agencies, and the media have noted increases of
online harassment. Although there has been a great deal of research into
'offline stalking', at this moment in time there has been no formal research
that attempts to classify cyberstalkers. This study aimed to identify a
classification of cyberstalkers by interviewing victims. Twenty-four
participants were interviewed and their responses logged on a 76-item
Cyberstalking Incident Checklist. A typology of cyberstalkers was developed.
Introduction
The effects of stalking upon its victims have been well documented. Months or even years of continuous exposure to unwanted attention and/or threats often lead victims to change their daily habits, and even cause psychological trauma. Fremouw et al. (1997), in their study of 600 psychology undergraduates, found that some of the victims were willing to disrupt their normal routines in order to avoid their stalker. Some were even willing to carry pepper spray, a knife, or even a gun. Pathé and Mullen (1997) found in their investigation that over 75 percent of the victims reported feelings of powerlessness and a quarter of their respondents admitted that they had seriously considered or actually attempted suicide. A study by Sheridan et al. (2001), which involved a survey of 95 stalking victims in the U.K. found that 59 percent of respondents reported feeling frightened, and 44 percent altered their behaviour as a result of being stalked.
Despite more than a decade of
research into stalking there is still no clear definition of this phenomenon.
Meloy and Gothard have defined it as "an abnormal or long term pattern of
threat or harassment directed toward a specific individual" [1].
Pathé and Mullen have described it as "a constellation of behaviours in
which one individual inflicts on another repeated unwanted intrusions and
communications" [2].
These behaviours include "... following, loitering nearby, maintaining
surveillance and making approaches ... [via] letter, the telephone, electronic
mail, graffiti or notes attached for example, to the victim’s car" [3].
Westrup proposed it as "one or more of a constellation of behaviours that
(a) are directly repeatedly towards a specific individual (the target), (b) are
experienced by the target as unwelcome and intrusive, and (c) are reported to
trigger fear or concern in the target" [4]. […]
The authors also put forward the
fact that in all the classifications concerning offline stalking (for example,
Zona et al., 1993; Mullen et al., 1999; Sheridan et al. [5],
2001), many perpetrators tend to focus their obsession on one victim at a time,
due the time and energies needed for the surveillance of their target. These
typologies, (as well as other offline classifications), do not explain the case
study that was presented by Bocij et al. (forthcoming) where the cyberstalker
harassed a number of victims online. If the view that cyberstalking is a
natural extension of stalking is to be maintained then these points (and others
presented in the paper) need to addressed. […]
Bocij and McFarlane (2002) have
attempted to put forward a more comprehensive definition:
"A group of behaviours in
which an individual, group of individuals or organisation uses information
technology to harass one or more individuals. Such behaviour may include, but
are not limited to, the transmission of threats and false accusations, identity
theft, data theft, damage to data or equipment, computer monitoring and the
solicitation of minors for sexual purposes. Harassment is defined as a course
of action that a reasonable person, in possession of the same information,
would think causes another reasonable person to suffer emotional
distress."
[…]
Mullen et al. (1999) … classified
five types of stalkers [including]: Resentful stalkers harass their victims with the specific
intention of causing fear and apprehension out of a desire for retribution for
some actual or supposed injury or humiliation.
[…]
The Cyberstalker’s Motivation
Four major themes surrounding the cyberstalking relationship emerged from the data. They were the 'vindictive', 'composed', 'collective', and 'intimate' cyberstalkers.
Vindictive cyberstalker
This group is so named due to the ferocity to which they victimise those whom they pursue. They threatened their victims more than any other group and in the majority of cases they actually stalked their target offline. A third of the perpetrators were known to have had a previous criminal record, and two-thirds were known to have victimised others before.
In half the cases the participants stated that the harassment started over a trivial debate or discussion, which blew up out of all proportion. In a third of cases there was no apparent reason and the rest of the victims commented that there was an active argument involving both parties. The victims estimated that these cyberstalkers had a medium to high level of computer literacy. The vindictive cyberstalker utilised the widest range of ICT methods to harass their target (for example, spamming, mailbombing, and identity theft) than any other group. They were also only group to use Trojans to gain access to their victim’s machines and/or infect them with viruses. Three-quarters of victims also declared that they received disturbing messages from the communications of this group, for example, bizarre comments, rambling conversations, unclear unrelated comments, intimidating multimedia images and/or sounds, for example skull and crossbones, pictures of corpses, screams, etc. These messages possibly indicated the presence of severe mental health issues.
Composed cyberstalker
The composed cyberstalker is so named because it is theorized that their actions are aimed at causing constant annoyance and irritation to their victims. These cyberstalkers were not trying to establish a relationship with the victim but wished to cause distress. These types of perpetrators generally issued threats.
On the whole, participants estimated that these cyberstalkers had a medium to high level of computer literacy. Only one of the cyberstalkers in this group was known to have a criminal record, and only one was known to have had a previous history of victimization. No members of this group was known to have had a psychiatric history, however three of the perpetrators went on to conventionally stalk their victims.
McFarlane, L., & Bocij, P. (2003). An exploration of predatory behavior in cyberspace: Towards
a typology of cyberstalkers. First Monday, 8(9). [Downloaded 7/5/08 from http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_9/mcfarlane/]