Cyberstalking: a new challenge for criminal law

Cyberstalking has recently emerged as a new and growing problem and is an area that will probably receive a higher profile within criminal law as more cases reach court (see Griffiths, 1999; Griffiths, Rogers and Sparrow, 1998; Bojic and McFarlane, 2002a; 2002b). For the purposes of this article we define cyberstalking as the use of information and communications technology (in particular the Internet) in order to harass individuals. Such harassment may include actions such as the transmission of offensive e-mail messages, identity theft and damage to data or equipment. Whilst a more comprehensive definition has been presented elsewhere (Bocij and McFarlane, 2002), it is hoped that the definition here is sufficient for those unfamiliar with this field. The stereotypical stalker conjures up images of someone harassing a victim who is the object of their affection. However, not all stalking incidents are motivated by unrequited love. Stalking can also be motivated by hate, a need for revenge, a need for power and/or racism. Similarly, cyberstalking can involve acts that begin with the issuing of threats and end in physical assault. We also make distinctions between conventional stalking and cyberstalking. Whilst some may view cyberstalking as an extension of conventional stalking, we believe cyberstalking should be regarded as an entirely new form of deviant behaviour

The volume and source of cyberabuse influences victim blame and perceptions of attractiveness

Cyberabuse is an escalating problem in society, as opportunities for abuse to occur in online public domains increase. Such acts are often defined by the frequency of abuse, and in many cases multiple individuals play a part in the abuse. Although consequences of such acts are often severe, there is typically little public sympathy/support for victims. To better understand perceptions of victims of abusive online acts, we manipulated the Volume (low, high) and Source (same-source, multi-source) of abusive posts in artificially-manipulated Facebook timelines of four fictitious ‘victims’. One hundred and sixty-four participants [United Kingdom-based; aged 18–59] rated ‘victims’ on measures of direct victim blame (DVB) and perceived social-, physical- and task-attractiveness. Results revealed significant Volume × Source interactions on DVB and social-attractiveness ratings. Few abusive posts authored by a single source yielded higher DVB and lower social-attractiveness ratings. Strong correlations between attractiveness and DVB were observed. We propose that our results could be due to an observer desensitization effect, or that participants interpreted the posts as indicative of friendly ‘teasing’ or ‘banter’ within an established social relationship, helping to explain why victims of online abuse often receive little sympathy or support

Counter Measures to Mitigate Cyberstalking Risks: A Value Focused Multiple Criteria Approach

A value focused multiple-criteria decision making approach is adopted to examine policies, procedures and technologies that can potentially reduce the risks of Cyberstalking. This research also has applicability for the broader field of cybercrime, any illegal action which uses electronic communication or devices or information systems containing the Internet, including identity theft, child abuse, sex crimes against minors, and online financial crimes (Legoze, 2012 p. 4). This research offers an overview of cybercrime and the principal objective is to examine Cyberstalking. Cyberstalking involves a pattern of threatening or aggressive behaviors that utilizes the Internet, email or other electronic correspondence (NCSL, 2013). Cyberstalking has disproportionately affected college students in the United States, yet also has been known to cause for ordinary citizens. This research provides general information about cybercrime and but mainly focuses on the deliberation of Cyberstalking in particular and provides useful guidelines for online users to avoid falling into victim-hood.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1054/thumbnail.jp

Analisis Manajemen Privasi Komunikasi Korban Cyberstalking dalam Facebook

The Internet grows broader from search engines to social networking sites like Facebook. Facebook offered facilities and new function (for examples: sosial network, micro blogging, messenger, image sharing, social bookmarking, blogging, video sharing, and Internet marketing) that lucrative to their users where the users could make friends, chat, and even discuss. Facebook likes a real life is not free from crime or even cybercrime. There are many kinds of cybercrime on Facebook, one of them is cyberstalking (a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear). Now, there are many cases of complaint that included authorities by certain people consequence of slander, kidnapping, fraud, defamation through Facebook. Thus, researcher wanted to know about cause of development of these cases. The purpose of this research was to find out why being the victims of cyberstalking and how communication privacy management done by the victims. This research also wants to find out the media literacy and media diet, along with how prevention and precaution for cyberstalking victims on Facebook. The approach of this research was qualitative with case study method using pattern of pairing techniques. Data collection techniques used in this research are Internet Ethnography, participant observation, interviews, media uses diaries, documentation, and archive recordings.The results from this research was cyberstalking victims on Facebook did not fully applied communication privacy management. In addition, media literacy has not applied to Facebook by them. The researchers interested to create a model of Facebook Literacy as prevention and precaution for cyberstalking victims. Facebook Literacy is a model which includes techniques and ways to use Facebook securely to prevent cyberstalking

Fighting Cybercrime After \u3cem\u3eUnited States v. Jones\u3c/em\u3e

In a landmark non-decision last term, five Justices of the United States Supreme Court would have held that citizens possess a Fourth Amendment right to expect that certain quantities of information about them will remain private, even if they have no such expectations with respect to any of the information or data constituting that whole. This quantitative approach to evaluating and protecting Fourth Amendment rights is certainly novel and raises serious conceptual, doctrinal, and practical challenges. In other works, we have met these challenges by engaging in a careful analysis of this “mosaic theory” and by proposing that courts focus on the technologies that make collecting and aggregating large quantities of information possible. In those efforts, we focused on reasonable expectations held by “the people” that they will not be subjected to broad and indiscriminate surveillance. These expectations are anchored in Founding-era concerns about the capacity for unfettered search powers to promote an authoritarian surveillance state. Although we also readily acknowledged that there are legitimate and competing governmental and law enforcement interests at stake in the deployment and use of surveillance technologies that implicate reasonable interests in quantitative privacy, we did little more. In this Article, we begin to address that omission by focusing on the legitimate governmental and law enforcement interests at stake in preventing, detecting, and prosecuting cyber-harassment and healthcare fraud