Internet harassment and stalking is a crime

[night-hawk-1]

Internet harassment and stalking is a crime

This article is Reprinted with permission from the original author.

Many off you may have read it and considered the points raised.

Some information may have changed since the original article was written back in 2004 but many have been helped by this advice so I feel its important to all that participate with online discussion boards.

 eBay in my opinion does too little in this area and doesn’t appear to even have a formal policy or procedure on this, or atleast non that they have directed any one to despite repeated requests.

Help protect the community
Please add more recent law changes covering this and also links to report such behaviour.
This it will become part of the FAQ section


The original article Reprinted with permission

Protecting Your Identity on Discussion Boards

I recently had occasion to contact e-crimes in regard to an internet harassment issue. I asked the guy there (lovely man) how we could all protect ourselves from:

1) auction bombing
2) identity issues
3) harassment
4) stalking


His ideas were as follows:

1) Make yourself a posting ID for boards that are a public forum.

2) Try to keep the posting ID as a posting ID only eg. no buying or selling on that ID.

3) Register a PO Box or work address with eBay

4) Register a mobile phone #, rather than your home phone.

5) Change your settings in Outlook Express to say your user ID instead of your real name. eg. when i send out emails, it should come up wolette or Debs. It is not advisable to have your surname in there.

6) Tell no one what your posting ID is. Some one might be your friend today, your enemy tomorrow.
 
7) Don't give out too many details regarding your family, eg how many kids, their names and ages
8) Do not give even a rough location of where you live eg. state a region, rather than the actual town where you live.
 
9) Keep all emails that are of an harassing nature - you can give these to e-crimes and they can trace the computer they come from.

10) If you do not have the option of using a posting ID and have to post with your transactional ID, again, register or change the details to a PO Box or work address, and a mobile phone.

11) Avoid confrontations with others who might be harassing you. Ignore the comments and move to another thread.

12) If the harassment continues, contact eBay.
 
13) If the harassment escalates to fake emails, abusive emails and stalking, print out copies of all emails, and any thread URL's plus post numbers to the E-Crimes division in your state.

14) You can also forward copies of any abusive emails to the sender's ISP. To do this click forward and send the entire email, with an explanation to abuse@theirISP.com.au . Insert their ISP where it says 'theirISP'.

Internet harassment and stalking is a crime, as is impersonating others. It needs to be reported to the appropriate authorities. I stronly urge anyone who has this happen to them, to make the necessary reports and make the internet a safer place for all.

This information would apply equally to other discussion and chat boards on the internet.

.

[frangi]

Great thread, Night Hawk and pertinent

A woman was compelled by the courts to pay several thousand dollars compensation not all that long ago, re: comments she made about another member of a forum (who just happened to live in another part of the world) and internet stalking and harassment can prove quite costly to the offender/s.

Like you, I've never seen ebay address this issue.  It would prove extremely costly to ebay (both financially and in terms of damage done to its reputation) were it proved that individuals privy to supposedly confidential information re: one or more ebay members, or persons claiming affiliation with ebay staffers, were discovered guilty of online stalking/harassment.

[Lady Rose]

My friend had a badge on ebay and got a offer from a English buyer for a hundred dollars, so she put buy now on it for him and sold it.
Next day she had a email from another over seas buyer telling her it was worth $300 and he wanted it and told her she was a Aussie tosser, he also said he would bomb her auction and give her negs.
He most have really wanted that badge LOL

[gr8-expectations]

waves to lady rose and all the familiar faces as well as the new, yup they must really have wanted the badge wose, lol, nasty tho.

how was the rodeo?

[imperfect]

Very important Topic!!

Even though we may feel we are among friends here, there are a couple out there that will stop at nothing to harass, stalk and attempt to damage the people who have joint here.

I have been attached over night, I can't say much as it is now with the police and all information is being investigated.

Please be careful on here, we all know who these people are so be vigilant, be careful and never let your guard down, they are evil!

[matildasplace]

I don't understand why ebay turn a blind eye to the obvious trolling and harassment.

I guess no one has ever bothered to take the legal step with having it stopped but I imagine ebay could be held liable if they have been made aware of a situation yet chose to turn a blind eye.

Great thread Hawk!

[Primaryaim]

Pollyanna, That is rather alarming. From what I read of these threads it is all harmless and no one has been targeted. We are specifically trying to ensure that is always the case. Let eBay be the host to nastiness and we will be the host to friendliness.

[Father Jack]

I don't understand why ebay turn a blind eye to the obvious trolling and harassment.

Not only trolling and harassment, there's the business interference that follows disagreement.  The lowest of low acts.

[*wheels*]

Prim, it is unbelievable the lengths some people will go to try and cause disruption! Spending hours trawling through threads to find something that can be used as ammunition.

What a miserable life they must have! Who knows what is their motivation. Is it just attention seeking? Or Spite? Revenge? Jealousy? When it is an attack on your business or personal life it needs to be taken seriously.

This is a reminder to us all to take care with any personal info that is posted anywhere on the web.

Pollyanna, I hope the Police investigation gets results.

[Primaryaim]

So true Feck, how do these people sleep at night?

[night-hawk-1]

Prim the attack was not via this site.

But similar to the hacking attempts on this site on saturday and I believe the disruption to one of my email services for a period on Saturday.

It would appear that certain high profile people have links to some very unsavoury types and with a network to collect contact details of users contact details.
 

[debra9275]

hi hawk,

you wonder why they even bother to do it really

[Father Jack]

So true Feck, how do these people sleep at night?

I honestly don't know, Primula.  A disagreement is just that - a disagreement.  I've given up posting on eBay boards as I can't afford it to affect my business   

[night-hawk-1]

hi hawk,

you wonder why they even bother to do it really

I believe I know why they do it

I believe they do it to remove competition to make themselves shine as the most successful seller and eBay authority.

I believe they do it to silence any one that dares to speak out or disagrees with them because they need to feel as if they are the most important person on eBay.

In my opinion its out right harassment and intimidation to scare and shut people up.

And after the hacker attacks in recent days I would need to wonder how ethical they and their friends really are.

But as another famous poster that seems to have been harassed into being quiet would say.

That’s just what I think  But I am not very bright.

[Father Jack]

hi hawk,

you wonder why they even bother to do it really

I'd go with mental illness.  Narssi-somethinoranother.

[*Ubbie Max*]

G'day Feck.

What a top avatar. Is that the Priest  in the UK tv series who was always four sheets to the wind?
One of the  other two priest  was as dumb as dirt & I think the third Priest was Father Ted?
Great show.

[Father Jack]

Greetings ubbrd and thank you for your welcome.

Aye, 'tis indeed a cartoon of Father Jack Hackett from Father Ted.

The cantakerous, rum-soaked, leacherous and foul mouthed old begger has provided me with many a laugh.

Of course, he's the antithesis of my own mild mannered, sweet natured disposition 

[Golden Silence]

Hi Feck, yes, NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) is something that has come to my mind a number of times in the past few months, along with BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), both insidious mental illnesses.

Then again, some people just have nothing better to do with their time and doing things mentioned above, gives them a sick sense of being "productive".

Kind of on a par with people who create viruses. It's hard for normal people to fathom the whys.

[brumbymg]

Coming from a technical background, I can see the challenge for creating a computer virus being an intriguing one and, for some, an irresistible one.

An exercise in problem solving - for a problem that doesn't really exist, but still a challenge, an unanswered question and this can become an obsession by the technical mind that immerses itself so deeply.

From this, a viral mechanism is born. It can do whatever the programmer wants, within the parameters of its access to the host.  The purist techie would be happy with that ... and maybe set it into the wild, to do some innocuous stuff - nothing malignant - and would possibly have a way of it being removed, so no ongoing effects exist.  This would be a complete solution.

Where the problem arises is from these skills being utilised by people with issues who deal with them by causing pain to others or by criminal elements for more concrete objectives.  (Please note, this is just my opinion and I make no pretence of any professional competency about mental or criminal factors.)

[col52]

I don't understand why ebay turn a blind eye to the obvious trolling and harassment.

Not only trolling and harassment, there's the business interference that follows disagreement.  The lowest of low acts.

there's the business interference that follows disagreement

That is what I reported on last year when ebay would do nothing to help..........they eventually did though. However, they most surely would not have had I not carried through with my threat!
I did it then, I will do it again if necessary.

[i-need-a-martini]

It would appear that certain high profile people have links to some very unsavoury types and with a network to collect contact details of users contact details.

Hmmm, very interesting seeing as my email account has been getting some bizarre emails in the last few days. An interesting assortment of strange requests and spams which have had me baffled. Most of these have been 'forwarded on' but I haven't been able to see who the sender is.

Being the tech-head loser that I am, I am shugging my shoulders and hitting delete but I have thought the co-incidence of the timing of these odd.

Should I be concerned?

[i-need-a-martini]

And what is even more interesting is that I thought I might change a few settings on various accounts (just in case!) and have just changed my email address that I have on file with you guys.

When I went back to my email account to re-activate my account I found that there was no email! Strange I thought. But then noticed I had one message in my Junk Folder. Sure enough, it's my email from ozroundtable!! Seeing as I have never bothered to organise any of my settings in my email account, I can only assume some anonymous person has been doing it for me for a reason only known to them. Curiouser and curiouser...

[Poddy]

Martini,

The new email address that you registered, is it a new email address or have you had it for a while?

If it is an existing email address have you made any changes to you email filter settings
If  you have the filter at its highest settimg then only mail that comes from people in your contact list will go to your in box and the rest go to the junk box

Poddy

[night-hawk-1]

Let me guess the email address you are getting strange emails on is the one you had listed with eBay?

Some have even reported threatening early morning phone calls after disagreeing with a certain poster.

[i-need-a-martini]

Let me guess the email address you are getting strange emails on is the one you had listed with eBay?

Now how did you guess that you clever thing you?!

And after all that effort to hack in, they must have been so disappointed to see how utterly boring it is lol! Its an email account I use only for my posting ID and occasional ebay buy.

Poddy, I have no filters set on this email account. Nevere bothered. The odd thing is that I thought I'd go back and remove 'ozround' from the Junk Folder settings but it wasn't even listed in there. So how did it get there in the first place? Very odd indeed...

[Poddy]

Is it a new account Martinus
(I call you Martinus because there is only one of you, unlus you have a twin then it can be Martini) hehehehe

Some new accounts default to a very high security level.........so high that they filter EVERYTHING as junk Grrrrr.

[i-need-a-martini]

Nope. Had this account for years and years.

No big deal as there really is very little to gain from this email address or my ebay details.

I am just amused at why anyone would bother? Talk about living in Loserville. Imagine how much could be achieved if they used that power for good rather than for evil lol!

[Karen]

Martini, they've probably added your address to the send-spam lists. It's your punishment for being norti and disagreeing with the disagreeable 

[*CountessA*]

I have heard that some people do offer others' email addresses to spam lists. Never mind - a bit of tweaking to the settings and you will never have to worry about the junk mail.

As to people's emails from OzRoundTable ending up in the junk mail folder, as Poddy's mentioned, some filters are very aggressive - set by default to junk ANY mail from a sender not in the Contacts list.

Solution: ask one of the admins to email you. When the email arrives, check your junk mail folder, select the OzRoundTable email, and add the sender to your Contacts list.

[LiisaSx]

I too have been getting an odd assortment of happenings..my email also is a throw away so good luck to them on that score, even IF they could manage to get in, which is highly unlikely however should the continued attempts on various other sites linked to my name continue they may be in for a very very nasty supprise, what they forget is those that know how can return the favor 500 fold with far more devastating results so I wish them all the luck in the world... they will need it.

[da_ewok]

I pity anyone trying to gain access to my accounts!

The address itself warns people to stay away

[i-need-a-martini]

What I don't get is why go to all that trouble just to send spam? And its not even interesting spam like those penis enlargement emails that I find so funny. You'd think they could think of something more imaginative to do if they had all my details.  :

Oh well, if my mail box gets too full its no skin off my nose to close that account and start another...

Anyway, I'm off to do some gardening so everyone enjoy their day. Particularly to Hawk - happy birthday!