By Carl Weiss
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| Photo Credit: inspireleads.com |
Valentine ’s Day, a day for sweethearts, lovers, married
couples and anyone with love in their hearts. But what happens when love is
lost? What happens in our modern society when ex-lovers, sweethearts and
couples hit the skids and go their separate ways? What happens when one or both
of the ex-enamored ones decided they didn’t get treated right, or worse, they
decided to dish out some malevolent treatment of their own?
With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, I thought I’d
take the time to give all of our readers a little lesson on what can happen
when a former long, lost love refuses to get lost. I’m talking about the all-too-common practice
of cyberstalking . Along with hacking,
this technocrime is on the rise worldwide.
If you want to avoid being your significant other’s online punching bag,
you need to take precautions before the rose becomes a thornier issue, if you
hope to have a moment’s peace should your relationship go kaput.
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| Photo Credit: cyberstalking.web.unc.edu |
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| Photo Credit: tanzaniatoday.co.tz |
The Hack Attack is Back
With today’s sophisticated technology, harassing texts and
emails are only the tip of the iceberg.
Off-the-
shelf software can provide an obsessed cyberstalker with the
means to quite literally track your every move.
A
recent study from NPR stated that more than 85% of domestic violence
shelters surveyed had acknowledged that some of their tenants/victims had been
tracked by a GPS device.
I Thought I Saw a Peeping Rat
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| Photo Credit: cbsnews.com |
A newsfeed from express. uco . uk stated:
“Rachel Hyndman, a
21-year-old student from Glasgow, discovered she was being spied on in her home
by an online Peeping Tom. She noticed her webcam had switched itself on while
she was in the bath. A hacker had accessed her computer via a RAT virus, which
often appears in an email as an advertising mailout . However, once downloaded it gives the sender
control of the infected computer. If a digital stalker like Rachel’s has access
to your computer, they have the power to switch on your webcam to spy on you,
operate your keyboard, view emails and access your personal files.”
The article goes on to say Ms. Hyndman contacted an IT
professional that helped her track the perpetrator down and scare him off. However, what most people don’t understand is
that this is not a crime only limited to
male stalkers. Far from it.
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| Photo Credit: abcnews.go.com |
Later, Joe’s jilted cyberstalker expanded her scope to
include his new girlfriend (whom she accused of child pornography) and even
Joe’s landlord. Arriving back in the US
after a brief vacation, Joe was even detained by US Customs after they received
an “anonymous tip” that he was smuggling drugs. Remember the axiom, “Hell hath
no fury like a woman scorned.”
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| Photo Credit: sydn35.blogspot.com |
Victims of cyberstalking had to engage in more “self-protective”
behaviors, pay higher out-of-pocket costs to combat the problem, and
experienced greater fear over time than traditional stalking victims. Technology
has changed what is known as the “risk/profiles” for victims, making stalking
easier and self-protection harder. “Technology
in cyberstalking cases may be more harmful to the victim’s psychological
well-being and reputation, thus more decisive in spurring quicker
self-protective action,” said the researchers. The study also revealed
differences between age and gender of victims. In cases of stalking, approximately 70% of the
victims were women, while female victims only represented 58% in cyberstalking
cases. The average age for stalking victims in the sample was 40.8 years old,
while cyberstalking victims averaged 38.4 years old.
Safe Text
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| Photo Credit: pinterest.com |
Sad to say, but the minute you pull the plug on a love
interest, if you want to have some measure of cybersecurity , you need to
initiate the following damage controls sooner rather than later:
- Change your passwords
on all your social nets and email accounts - Consider changing your phone number
- Don’t accept any emails or texts from a jilted lover
- Don’t open any email attachment or text from anyone you don’t know
- Add additional security measures to your computer, tablet and smartphone
While these measures are, in and of themselves, no guarantee
that a scorned lover will simply walk away from a relationship, short of
packing up and moving to another state ― better yet, a different country ― it’s
about as good as it gets. Because like
it or not, in this technological age, many people only hack the ones they loved.
If you think you’re a victim of cyberstalking , here are some
additional resources:
If you’d like to read similar articles, check out “The
Hack Attack is Back,” “Is
Google Watching You?,” "Cyberstalking for Fun and Profit" Or, simply type the phrases “hacking,” “cybersecurity ,”
and similar terms in the search box at the top of our blog.
In this article, I discussed the growing trend and
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in the Comment section below. I hope the information in this article was
helpful.
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Carl Weiss is president of Working the Web to Win, an award-winning digital marketing agency based in Jacksonville, Florida. You can listen to Carl live every Tuesday at 4 p.m.
Carl Weiss is president of Working the Web to Win, an award-winning digital marketing agency based in Jacksonville, Florida. You can listen to Carl live every Tuesday at 4 p.m.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMaybe "VD" doesn't stand for Valentine's Day but for Violation Digitally.
ReplyDelete