Cyberstalking is stalking through electronic means, using the internet to monitor, harass, and slander victims. It can involve hacking, tracing IP addresses, and impersonation. Children are particularly at risk. Slander is common due to anonymity. Several US states have anti-cyberstalking laws.
The term Cyberstalking refers to the act of stalking an individual or group through electronic means, especially the Internet. Cyberstalkers use the communication capabilities and access to information made available by the Internet to monitor, solicit, slander, and otherwise harass their cyber victim, who may be an individual or a group.
The gathering of information about an individual or group typically must be done in a threatening manner to qualify as Cyberstalking, where a threat is made or implied. Cyberstalkers can use ordinary electronic means such as search engines, bulletin boards, social networking sites, emails and other tools to monitor their victims’ activity. Cyberstalking can also involve illegal means such as hacking into the computer to breach the victim’s personal information or attacking the victim’s hardware and data with viruses and other electronic hacks. Tracing a victim’s Internet Protocol (IP) address is also a common form of Cyberstalking, used by Cyberstalkers to locate the victim’s home address.
Contacting or soliciting the cyber victim or their associates is a common form of harassment in cyberstalking. Since the advent of chat rooms, instant messengers and internet networking tools such as MySpace and Facebook, children and adolescents have become particularly at risk for cyberstalking, whether targeted by their peers for cyberbullying or solicited by sexual predators. To combat this, several law enforcement teams have organized task forces that include individuals posing as children or teenagers online to proactively seek out and catch child predators. Dateline NBC’s show, To Catch a Predator, is a popular example of such a cyberstalking operation, featuring online sexual predators being taken to a home where they believe a young man is waiting for them, questioned by the show’s host, and subsequently arrested.
Slander is a particularly prolific component of Cyberstalking due to the ease with which a Cyberstalker can post defamatory allegations on the World Wide Web while maintaining anonymity and thus avoiding repercussions. Cyberstalkers often set up websites or blogs specifically to post defamatory information about their victim, which can then be compiled into a simple search engine query of the victim’s name, thus damaging their reputation. Cyberstalkers can also impersonate themselves online to distribute pornographic, derogatory, or otherwise defamatory information under the victim’s name.
In 1999, California became the first state to pass an anti-Cyberstalking law. Since then, states like Arizona, Alaska, Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New York, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Wyoming have prohibited forms of cyberstalking as part of their broader anti-stalking and harassment laws.
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