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I’ve Had a Cyberstalker Since I Was 12

275 points by nols 11y ago

brandonmenc 11y ago
Seems like a great opportunity for a company that "bounty hunts" cyberstalkers - tracks them down then physically intimidates them for you.
- ch 11y ago
  Maybe they won't even charge for it, just maybe call on you someday - and that day may never come - but maybe, they'll call upon you to do a service for them. But until that day, you can just accept their justice as a gift.
- ryan-allen 11y ago
  I would expect that this happens more often than not, but via friends and family. If someone was stalking or harassing one of my sisters we'd find a way of handling it, legal or no. It's not preferable but if it's the only way to get results... Nobody deserves this kind of treatment.
  - JabavuAdams 11y ago
    Yes, in specific cases this might be the right answer. However we have to say "No, rule of law, blah blah" because we don't want everyone doing it or we're back to a tribal society with vendettas and blood-feuds.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      A society that will not take intimidation and threats to someone's livelihood seriously has already regressed to the level of tribal societies with vendettas and blood-feuds.
      - JabavuAdams 11y ago
        It's hyperbole to compare the median person's experience in the US to that of the median person in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
- JabavuAdams 11y ago
  Interesting idea, but there's no way to do this legally, and it would be prone to horrible abuses. Also, if someone is dangerous enough to intimidate ... well, you don't want to intimidate them and risk having them escalate back. Following that logic, you only end up in one place.
  - brandonmenc 11y ago
    It is a bad idea, but without legal recourse someone will eventually provide the service.
    - yarou 11y ago
      Someone already provides the service, and they happen to import high quality olive oil as well.
- NeutronBoy 11y ago
  Both Reddit and 4chan have demonstrated exceptionally well why this is a terrible idea.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    I shouldn't do this, but I will. In the specific case mentioned here, where state and Federal law enforcement won't take charge, why shouldn't she find a professional investigator to confirm who the perpetrator is, then use the same tactics he has used against her against him? After all, law enforcement refuse to take action right? So it appears that law enforcement wouldn't care if she ensured that he is kept out of the picture. (for the record, I'm playing devil's advocate)
    - dbcurtis 11y ago
      I'm not sure an investigator is the most productive course. If it was me, I'd start with a Cease and Desist letter from a lawyer. Cost: about 2 billable hours. If that fails, since there is, in fact, a law being broken, and now the creeper has ignored a C&D, get a court order. No need to involve police, they can continue writing speeding tickets and tending to other urgent matters. If the creeper ignores the court order, then see if you can get a bench warrant issued. Although, in this case, it sounds like the person is mentally ill -- what you can do about that varies greatly from state to state.
      - chris_wot 11y ago
        Now that's actually a very clever solution! Never considered this. Thank you.
- sheraz 11y ago
  I know you are probably getting down-voted into oblivion, but I'm with you. There are already services like this, they just don't have an LLC or an App :-)
nowarninglabel 11y ago
"When I got a Facebook account in 2006 he found me again and, not wanting to be rude, I accepted his friend request." It's hard to understand why, having previously already blocked this person elsewhere, they would accept a friend request from them. I suppose now, 10 years later, one can hope that people exact greater control over their online social networks.
- Mithaldu 11y ago
  We all make mistakes, especially when a situation does not seem particularly bad/urgent yet.
- swiley 11y ago
  I really hate it when people act this way, now I feel the obligation to try and read their mind and figure out if what I'm doing is upsetting them or not.
  - nostrebored 11y ago
    The responsibility to be socially aware is your own. The responsibility to not put people in awkward situations is your own. One of the many reasons not to flirt with people in service jobs.
    - striking 11y ago
      I find this concept questionable. There is a difference between someone who is legitimately stalking someone who very clearly does not want to be followed around (and they are aware of this!), and someone who is being really, really awkward (but totally unaware of the pain they are causing). What would you suggest the socially awkward person who doesn't understand that they're stalking do? You can't simply wish people were more socially self-aware, and to do so ignores a very large population of people who have trouble with social situations for reasons beyond their control.
      - nostrebored 11y ago
fiatmoney 11y ago
Most of these amount to libel, at worst. File suit. There are excellent reasons for police to be uninvolved in what amounts to people saying mean things, even if those mean things are directed at your employer or friends.
- tempestn 11y ago
  If it were a one-off incident I would agree with you. But a consistent pattern like this over years is stalking, and either is or should be a crime. In my opinion this clearly summarizes why: > For Franks, a big theme is that the “fundamental feeling of security that most people take for granted is taken away.” She has spoken to hundreds, maybe thousands, of victims in her research, who describe constant feelings “having to look over one’s shoulder” that keep them from engaging fully in their lives, online or off. I feel that's true even if you don't believe that the stalker will try to physically harm you. There is a huge emotional toll to dealing with that kind of thing, and it's not something that should just be tolerated. (That said, I recognize that police have limited resources, so putting more toward this would mean less for something else, or an increase in funding.)
  - fiatmoney 11y ago
    So sue! That and restraining orders are designed for exactly this.
    - tempestn 11y ago
      So why have crimes at all? If someone steals from you, or assaults you, you can always sue. The thing is, that shouldn't be the victim's responsibility.
      - fiatmoney 11y ago
        You're acting like libel just became a problem in the last 5 years. There are good reasons why we don't really have criminal defamation prosecutions anymore. They always involve tons of disputed facts, and they require tons of resources to investigate. Choice of cases is always political. Let me tell you who is a good candidate for a "cyberstalking" charge. You maintain a database of police involved in questionable shootings. When one of them gets canned from their present department, you track the new PD they're foisted onto, and make sure to let the local BLM chapter know about the bad apple they're about to get, and a lurid description of what you think their crimes are. Why, that sounds worthy of some prosecutorial resources (election year, after all). Aren't you glad you made being mean on the internet a crime? Get a fucking restraining order. It's ridiculously easy; too easy, in fact, to the point where they're routinely used as leverage in other civil disputes. Violation of restraining orders is a crime. This is a solved problem.
Mithaldu 11y ago
End result: The thing resolved itself, likely because someone else sued her stalker. I have to wonder though: If her local police was ignorant of actual laws applying to her case, as she indicated, couldn't she just tell the officers under which exact laws she is making a complaint? Further, if the local police is generally ignorant and incompetent, what would her chances for success be in using a lawyer to try and identify appropiate channels and contacting them?
- fiatmoney 11y ago
  Based on that excerpt, that NY statute looks pretty clearly unconstitutional. It also appears to criminalize, eg, vanilla customer complaints, as long as someone asked them not to. I'm not surprised the police weren't interested. Edit: she leaves out the condition "for no legitimate purpose", which makes it plausibly constitutional, but nearly unprosecutable. https://www.nycourts.gov/judges/cji/2-PenalLaw/120/120-45%283%29.pdf https://www.nycourts.gov/judges/cji/2-PenalLaw/120/120-45%28...
- sandworm101 11y ago
  >>> if the local police is generally ignorant and incompetent, what would her chances for success be in using a lawyer to try and identify appropiate channels and contacting them? Not great, but certainly better than the nothing offered by police. This situation seems to have ended when another victim took the steps to launch a lawsuit. Lawyers can do many things. This defendant was identified. She knew who he was. Legal threats are not fun. They aren't like being arrested, but are still not pleasant. The stalker gets the threat, seeks his own lawyer, and quickly realizes how deep he is into this thing.
  - Mithaldu 11y ago
    Ok, so she wasn't out of options. Just hadn't reached for the more expensive sticks yet.
    - sandworm101 11y ago
      They are not that expensive. She know the guy. No investigation is needed. A lawyer won't charge much to put a scary demand letter together, maybe a couple hundred at most but probably much less in such a situation. Going to a lawyer first, before the police, could also have softened much of that horrific experience. Going to the police WITH your lawyer also makes a real difference. It will at least get you past the reporting window and talking to an actual investigator. I did this sort of thing while a law student. Cops take lawyers much more seriously than victims. it's Wrong, it's harsh, but that is reality.
arbre 11y ago
There should be laws against this. A judge should be able to tell when a behavior is harassment, and forbid the harasser from contacting the person again with more severe charges if he does again.
- rory096 11y ago
  There are – that's a restraining order.
  - wheat74 11y ago
    I think that's the point he was making. I think his post was saying she should have pursued that sometime during those years of stalking.
    - enneff 11y ago
      If that was the point then it would have been better made explicit.
      - cplease 11y ago
        If someone is not a relative or intimate partner, there's no easy way to get a civil restraining order against someone in New York the way you can in domestic cases. There either has to be a criminal prosecution to get a criminal restraining order, or you have to retain a lawyer and file a full-blown lawsuit in a court of general jurisdiction. It should definitely be enough for police to act if you establish that you demanded that contact cease and and that it continued unabated. In this case it seems that the author may not have clearly established it, perhaps did not understand the best way to frame this, and police were unhelpful and didn't want to be involved unless there were threats or a domestic incident involved (where mandatory arrests come into play).
sandworm101 11y ago
Am I the only one who thinks this sounds a little too perfect? A totally sympathetic female victim, the evil older male, the dismissive male police force ... it reads like a movie. I'm probably too jaded by such stories on the internet, but if she was in my office I would probably have a few questions. Of course if she was in my office then it would be far more than a story I read on the internet.
shalmanese 11y ago
There's a moment in the pilot of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt where the women are rescued from the bunker and put on a daytime talk show and Matt Lauer asks one of the women how she ended up in the bunker: "I had waited on Reverend Richard at a York Steak House I worked at, and one night he invited me out to his car to see some baby rabbits, and I didn’t want to be rude, so… here we are." And Matt Lauer responds: "I’m always amazed by what women will do because they’re afraid of being rude…" It's often hard for men to understand the societal pressure placed on women to be accommodating and not be rude and how this can be manipulated to constrain female agency in the world.
- cgriswald 11y ago
  I've found they also have an amazing ability to make excuses for the behaviors of others. I had an ex who got into a lot of sketchy situations because she refused to believe people were exactly who they were telling her they were. Guys would do inappropriate things that clearly bothered her, but she would claim they were "joking" or believe she misunderstood, etc. etc. So she wouldn't set any boundaries, and of course they would see that as a signal to escalate until she couldn't handle it anymore and would have to call in the cavalry. (That got old fast.)
  - dsfyu404ed 11y ago
    That ability to rationalize bad excuses you just described is an interstate highway with four lanes in each direction.
  - meowface 11y ago
    While many people are like this, it seems a bit unfair to stereotype all women as gullible.
    - fpgaminer 11y ago
      The behavior being described is not what I'd call gullible, but I agree with you that it is unfair to stereotype women with the characteristic.
st3v3r 11y ago
Honestly, this guy needs to be thrown away in a cell and forgotten about. He clearly is not willing to stop on his own, and, quite frankly, I can't see him stopping for anything other than being locked away.
- jkern 11y ago
  That's a pretty disturbing concept of justice
  - st3v3r 11y ago
    Why? This guy has, time and again, harassed this person after being asked to stop. He has shown that he does not care to follow the rules of civilized society.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - ank_the_elder 11y ago
      So there's no hope for his rehabilitation? I hardly think so. You also seem to believe that prisons exist merely to punish rather than deter and/or rehabilitate - which, incidentally, reveals the most cursory of understandings of the penal system.
      - st3v3r 11y ago
        No, I am very much in favor of rehabilitation over punishment. However, there are people who don't respond to that. I believe this guy is one of them. 12 years, and he didn't stop? That's not someone who's interested in rehabilitation.
    - rifung 11y ago
      > He has shown that he does not care to follow the rules of civilized society. I think it's much more likely he's mentally ill and doesn't understand them.
meowface 11y ago
While this must have no doubt been a horrid experience, I can see why the cops would not have considered it worthy of launching a criminal investigation. This is a perfect case for civil law: causing emotional distress, harassment, defamation, etc. You should attempt to sue him and get a no-contact order if you can.
- SwellJoe 11y ago
  My problem with that perspective is that the law is clear on the subject: It is a criminal matter, according to the cyberstalking statutes across the country. If police don't like the law, they probably shouldn't have chosen a career of enforcing the law. (Certainly there are unjust laws, and I would hope officers would choose to exhibit some sort of leniency or looking the other way in minor cases of those sorts...but, in this case the response seems to be one of simply not believing the victim is worthy of their time and attention, despite the fact that the legislature of their state instructed them to consider protecting those victims a part of their job.) Pursuing a civil case requires money and time that many people don't have to spare. There are very few pro-bono cyberstalking attorneys out there, and unless and until it becomes common for their to be large payouts for victims (and their attorneys) there's unlikely to be an industry built up around it (as in the case of workman's comp, personal injury, medical malpractice, and class actions over corporate malfeasance). And, I don't know that we want to look to those industries for the preferred practices for preventing harm to young women and girls who are overwhelmingly the victims in these cases. I'm not saying the criminal justice system, or police, are the right way to handle it, either, though probably not for the same reason as some folks here have expressed. I think police have a history of further inflicting harm on rape victims, for example, and I don't now if I want that kind of harm to also be inflicted on girls and women who are victims of cyberstalking. It sounds like the experience of the author in interacting with police was similarly demeaning and dismissive to what some rape victims report about their experience going to the police, so I guess that's just where we're at in these kinds of crimes. In short, I don't know what the right answer is, and I don't like police or the criminal justice system, but I'd rather they err on the side of protecting victims, when they are deciding what cases to pursue and how to allocate resources. They had a victim in their office, and they opted to snicker at her, and tell her to get lost.
cplease 11y ago
Okay, so this creep's behavior pretty clearly rises to the level of harassment at a minimum. But legally the FIRST thing to do with a stalker or harasser is to TELL them unequivocally that you want NO further contact. Preferably document in writing; in New York, you can record conversations that you are party to. At this point further unwanted contact becomes more clearly a criminal matter. Too often, those on the receiving end ignore or laugh off bad behavior. This is natural enough, but unless someone is clearly threatening, if they haven't been told unequivocally to stop all further contact, then they can always argue, sincerely or not, that they didn't know their contact was unwelcome. Or that in any event they were free to continue their advances. The closest the author explicitly posts is "I caved and sent him a message asking him to please stop messaging me so much or I’d block him." That is unlikely enough to suffice as "clearly informed to cease that conduct." All it would take is a message saying "never contact me again." Period, full stop. Better yet, add "or I will report you to police." At that point, further contact is actionable, criminal harassment. That being said, much of this cyberstalker's behavior is independently harassing, e.g. forged emails to friends etc. But putting someone on notice is a first step to protecting yourself. It is premature to go to police to say, "X is bothering me, I'm not afraid of him and I haven't told him firmly to go away, but I really want him to go away." If someone isn't in any way actually putting you in fear, and all that is involved is unwanted communications/nonphysical contact, then it's on you to first tell him to go away before involving police. Then if he won't, you have an unambiguous complaint. Edit: The author does also describe some poor policing. Good community-oriented policing centers around mediation. Ideally the police in this situation would not simply say "it's not a crime" and make the complainant feel helpless and ignored, but would try to solve help solve the problem. Specifically by taking a report and offering to communicate to the person that all further contact is unwelcome and may lead to a criminal complaint, and documenting this. This type of approach is likely to help bring an end to the behavior, or in the alternative lay a foundation for a future, actionable criminal complaint. In the best case, behavior improves, complainant can move on with her life, police don't have to deal with future complaints, everybody wins. Sadly many departments just don't want to get involved or have the resources to deal with community mediation, even if it pays for itself over time.
- jsmthrowaway 11y ago
chris_wot 11y ago
I know this is entirely inadequate, but what about suing for defamation? The police, I fear, want to start getting a bit more proactive. When someone is able to get away with sabotaging someone else's life with complete impunity from authorities, a lot of people take actions in their own hands.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
btilly 11y ago
Yeah, it sucks, but no surprise. Stalking is an old, old problem. And the police won't do anything until it turns violent. You can stalk normal people, movie stars, business people - pretty much anyone other than a psychiatrist. (It turns out that psychiatrists have a really easy time getting their stalkers committed to insane asylums.) I know a woman who owns nothing in her own name, changes her phone number frequently, and whose own family often does not know how to reach her. All to make it harder for her stalker to keep tracking her down. When she acquired the stalker she was high profile so the FBI actually did send someone to give her advice. The advice was basically that she was screwed, how to best hide, and to get trained guard dogs. I wish I was joking.
- jsmthrowaway 11y ago
  > And the police won't do anything until it turns violent. Try violating a restraining order taken out against you and see if you maintain that opinion. The behavior you describe as well as that of the article qualifies for seeking a restraining order, which this entire discussion seems to have forgotten is in existence. Once you have a EPO/TRO/PRO, then the police care when it is violated. A lot. It's easy for them to enforce and requires no investigation, which is the thorn that hits a lot of people when they try to get cases like this going with the police. As an example, my father went to jail more than once for violating my mother's PRO. It's also on the person's record, which is why it is good to involve a lawyer if someone files one against you. I'm one more contact from my own stalker away from filing for one, but he seems to have forgotten about me for now. I'm mystified that the FBI advised your friend and the topic of a restraining order did not come up at all. I spoke with the FBI about my stalker after he threatened to kill me across state lines and it was the first thing they told me to do. Undoubtedly, there is more to your anecdote. In California, as long as you choose the right kind (i.e., not domestic for civil), restraining orders are fairly trivial to get. In some cases you can get a legally-binding TRO from a judge, in a day, for free. They also show up on computers in a police officer's cruiser in California (thanks to the digitization of all of it in CLETS), so if you are literally standing in front of a person on whom you have a EPO/TRO/PRO and get a cop's attention, the crime is open and shut and they will arrest, speaking from experience. Bonus in California and maybe elsewhere: if you successfully take out a restraining order on someone, they have to surrender all their firearms or sell them (yes, really). Seriously. Restraining orders, people. The courts are at your disposal, and they're not just for domestic violence. Edit: Except in New York, apparently, where the author of the article lives. Go New York. New York readers: vote to fix that incredibly moronic situation at once, then travel to a sane state on this like California and go back home with one of ours, which should be enforceable there. Seriously, in the Internet age, the complete absence of a non-dating civil protective order mechanism is an absolute and disgusting shame, and means your only recourse from the courts exists if you make out with your stalker. What a grandly perverse incentive you have there from your judicial system. I'm actually worked up about this from learning it in this thread, and sympathize far more with the article author now than I did before I knew that. California resources: - http://www.courts.ca.gov/1260.htm http://www.courts.ca.gov/1260.htm - http://www.courts.ca.gov/selfhelp-domesticviolence.htm http://www.courts.ca.gov/selfhelp-domesticviolence.htm (dating/relationship/etc) - http://www.courts.ca.gov/1044.htm http://www.courts.ca.gov/1044.htm (not dating, impossible in New York, apparently)
dsfyu404ed 11y ago
So this woman is unlucky enough to both be the target of a persistent stalker and persistent stalker who manages to stay withing the letter of the law while being incredibly annoying. Big deal, people get struck with lightening and bitten by sharks from time to time too. She just happens to be able to write about her bad luck in a particular corner of the internet that gets more than nil for traffic. Sure it probably freaks her out a lot (and rightfully so) but did she really expect any authority to be able to take action on that basis. Think of the kinds of shit that would hit the fan if "distasteful behavior that freaks others out" was enough to get someone arrested (and all the life ruining things that go with it).
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
DanielDent 11y ago
Is it weird that when I saw the article title, I thought it was going to be about the NSA?
rl3 11y ago
>I was never physically afraid of Danny and never will be. I would be. Danny clearly has more than a few screws loose.
- fabulist 11y ago
  It seems like they've had a lot of time to learn which ones, though.
  - rl3 11y ago
    True, although anyone that's both that obsessive and that malicious deserves to be considered a potential physical threat—barring some sort of major physical disability. Even then, it's remotely possible they could still cause physical harm by proxy.
fabulist 11y ago
One thing I learned in this article is that it's someone's job to call the victims of stalkers, apologize on their behalf, and ask to be notified if the behavior continues. It makes me wonder what process is initiated if they inform the lawyer that "Danny" has resumed harassing them. Will the lawyer call "Danny" and tell his client to shut up? Will he be billed for that time? Is the idea that, given a sufficiently expensive lawyer, he won't be able to afford his stalking habit? It is interesting that they appear to have published this under their real name. No doubt "Danny" has read it with interest.
joyeuse6701 11y ago
I feel for this person. I recently had a stalker over the summer, a family friend whom I met at my sister's wedding. He had some sort of break down, declared me to be his lover, received my email via unwitting family members. Luckily someone had raised the alarm. Said stalked flew out of state fully expecting to find me and be with me. It did not happen, but I certainly was preparing for an altercation and was traumatized by every unexpected knock or ring at the door.
popeshoe 11y ago
Not a woman, but Garry of Garrysmod fame has a very interesting set of blog posts about dealing with and eventually befriending his internet stalker in an attempt to curb the guy's worst behavior. http://garry.tv/2015/11/10/stalkers-and-abuse-part-1/ http://garry.tv/2015/11/10/stalkers-and-abuse-part-1/
golergka 11y ago
OK, first of all: I don't question that this guy turned out to be an asshole and a stalker and that author is a victim. But I can't help but raise a question of definitions here. He was a stalker for 4 years, not for 12. His behaviour during first years of their relationships wasn't something that I would even remotely call "stalker behaviour". Up until this point: > I caved and sent him a message asking him to please stop messaging me so much or I’d block him. “Ok. good luck on your quest,” he wrote back three minutes later. “Huh,” I thought. “That was easy.” Then he sent three more angry messages in quick succession and I blocked him on Facebook. there's literally nothing in the description of his behavior that calls for the term "stalker". (Later — of course).
kriro 11y ago
What's with the image overlay. Can't read the text. Is that some sort of art? It looks cool but makes the site unusable. Entire layout seems broken (latest FF, OSX) Edit: seems to be broken on the entire site not just for this article
benten10 11y ago
...so how many women are actually commenting on this post? Raise your hands please? Hahaha, this is a classssic hackernews discussion. "There is absolutely no discrimination. Women are held to the same standards as men. They just complain. Saying that women have it unfair is ITSELF sexist" type arguments are the best (for entertainment value). @dang and other hackernews people: Regardless of if you agree with them or not, you do realize that this will reflect on Ycombinator's perception/PR right? No amount of office hours for women is going to counter this RIDICULOUS volume of INSANELY UNAWARE sexism going around in these forums. I mean, for YCombinator's sake I hope you guys agree with most of the comments here, otherwise this is just deadweight on whatever your 'diversity' aims may be. Calling them lazy, complaining fools is how you put the bullseye on your backs for the time when the pitchforks come out. Just saying. This is ridiculous. It doesn't have to be this way. Really.
- marcusgarvey 11y ago
  thanks for saying this. it's shocking to see the cesspool that the comments become whenever gender and race issues are raised on this site. are people really this clueless?
LordKano 11y ago
So... Why didn't she just give him a firm, but polite "I'm not interested"? I'm not saying that stalking and/or harassment are acceptable. I'm just saying that she probably could have avoided 14 years of misery if she had just politely told the guy that there was no potential for anything more. Women need to learn to reject people in whom they're not interested. They think they're being "nice" or at the very least, being "not mean" but they are being incredibly cruel by letting the other person think there's hope when there isn't. Don't expect him to take the hint. Tell him directly.
- andreasvc 11y ago
  You're blaming the victim. Do you really believe she didn't tell him no clearly? > Women need to learn to reject people in whom they're not interested No, that's not the problem, women get plenty of experience with that. People should not stalk or harass, period.
  - goda90 11y ago
    People should not stalk or harass. Authorities and all other members of society should take stalking and harassing seriously. BUT potential victims should take reasonable measures to protect themselves too(not saying that a "firm rejection" is enough or even safe though). I hope Internet safety instruction becomes more of a thing in our education system.
    - andreasvc 11y ago
      I know and the post did mention such a firm rejection. I'm just stating that the problem is rather that there are people who don't take no for an answer.
    - LordKano 11y ago
      Exactly. What she did would be interpreted by someone with limited social skills as sending mixed signals. She went out for a meal with him when he showed up unannounced and gave her a gift. She'd block or ignore him sometimes and engage him other times. No, he shouldn't have harassed her but she should have been clear from the beginning that the attention was unwanted.
YouYouMeMe 11y ago
Amazing. "I caved and sent him a message asking him to please stop messaging me so much or I’d block him." ... "so much or I'd block him." <--- the stalker?
- hollander 11y ago
  Yep, it's reinforcement all over. Everything she does that does not shut him off completely, without notice, without any reaction, that is rewarding to him. I don't blame this girl for this, because she did the best she could, but from the outside it is rather clear how this works. The problem is probably mostly emotionally, on her side. For some reason she could not end it completely and hand it over to the police.
  - ctdavies 11y ago
    Sorry, but it does sounds to me like you are blaming the victim when you write "The problem is probably mostly emotionally, on her side." It's her stalker who has the emotional problem. Calling her emotions the problem appears to me rather sexist, given that women are stereotyped as overly emotional. Furthermore, she DID stop responding, and she DID go to the police, but they didn't do shit. Please read the article more carefully, and please don't place the burden of justice on the victim.
at-fates-hands 11y ago
I knew two women who were being stalked online. Both took physical violence to end their stalking. The first woman I told a friend about. We worked together as landscapers for a local company. He was a low level drug dealer and had some sketchy friends. The more I talked about her and the ongoing saga, he finally told me for a few hundred bucks, he could get it to stop. A few weeks went by and I didn't think much about it, until she said her stalkers messages started going up a notch just like in the story. I never told her, but I found out the guy's name and after a quick DOXing, I found out where he lived and some other useful information like the bars he frequented. I paid my buddy $200 and turned the information I had on my friends stalker over to him. A week later, my friend said she stopped getting messages from the guy. I found out much later he sent two of his "associates" over to talk to the guy at work. They got him out in the parking lot and assaulted him pretty good. Broken nose, busted lip and several broken ribs. They warned him they would come back and pay him another visit if he didn't stop stalking my friend. It did work and less than a year later, she graduated and moved out of the city. The other situation was very similar. Another friend of mine was being stalked by a college ex-boyfriend. He was unrelenting, showing up at her work, following her to the bar, and other strange stuff. She finally told her father about after almost two years of him stalking her. Her dad was an ex-marine and had done several tours in Vietnam. He was a quiet guy, but you could tell you didn't want to cross him. She lived in the city where we were going to college, so most of the time, she lived at home. Her stalker made the mistake of following her home one day. She went in and her Dad asked why there was a car parked down the street. She went to look out the window and knew it was her crazy ex and told her Dad to call the police. Instead, he told her to call the police and hurry because something bad was about to happen. He took his handgun and went through the backyards in order to sneak up on his car. He yanked him out of the car (he later said, "You should have seen the terror in his eyes!") and slammed him on the ground and put the gun in his face and told him he knew who he was and if he ever came near his daughter he would make sure he would walk with a limp the rest of his life or worse. He make it clear not to mess with him or his family ever again. The cops showed up a few minutes later and arrested him for an outstanding warrant and thanked her Dad for calling them. Thankfully, that was the end of her ordeal. I would never advocate violence in these situations, but when you feel helpless, sometimes there are no other alternatives.
YouYouMeMe 11y ago
What I've read from the article, beside the obvious, is how unaware people are about how technology works. "With Apple and Google unable to help ...". She thinks Apple and Google should help with spoofed mails b/c an Apple mail client is used and the spoofed email was from a Gmail address. Also not understanding identity theft: "including Danny’s latest identity theft." Also not understanding the difference between civil legal action and crimes. In most western countries education about technology and how it works is insufficient. Same goes for law basics that help with life. Edit: I don't blame this in any way on her.
zbruhnke 11y ago
I think this person misses a key point here. She does not have a "Cyber Stalker" - She has a Stalker ... No matter the medium of the majority of these incidents if materially affects her life in several ways and more and more as our world blurs from the real world to a digital reality these things are really one in the same and should be treated as such. I say this not to say that she is wrong but to help raise all of our personal awarenesses and biases to this type of situation. The term "Cyber Stalker" tends to make it seem less threatening or serious when in reality it can be just as dangerous and possibly even more so to the person on the wrong end of this. I hope she gets this remedied in the near future, but I also hope she and maybe others reading this will realize how closely that line is walked and how we should start considering it the same crime as our data and our digital footprint becomes more an integral part of our lives.
randyrand 11y ago
>Two years passed before I finally decided to take legal action, in late 2014. Maybe it seems weird that I waited so long What seems weird is it does not sound like she ever tried to actually confront him. Block after block, but not really confronting him. It seems she didn't want to hurt his feelings. But waited until police action? That seems like a terrible approach. The most confrontational she got was "I caved and sent him a message asking him to please stop messaging me so much or I’d block him." How surprising that didn't work. You need to be more confrontational in a situation like this - either a heart to heart approach where you lay it on them, or something more aggressive. Blocking for the umpteenth time is not going to work. You could call this critique victim blaming, but the my intent to encourage people to handle the situation better, without someone repeating her mistakes.
randyrand 11y ago
> Men can be victims of cyberstalking, too, but the majority of victims are women, who tend to experience “particularly severe” harassment online, according to the survey. Just about everyone has been name-called or subject to some other sort of verbal abuse online, but women are the predominant targets of sexual harassment and the sustained abuse that constitutes cyberstalking, typically considered the most serious form of internet harassment. Love how she so quickly brushes men under the rug. "This is a woman problem! Not a mans porblem!" Why do we generalize issues? Why not focus on all cyber stalking, not just cyber stalking by men? Its serious issue that I sympathize with.

275 points by nols 11y ago

Seems like a great opportunity for a company that "bounty hunts" cyberstalkers - tracks them down then physically intimidates them for you.

ch 11y ago
Maybe they won't even charge for it, just maybe call on you someday - and that day may never come - but maybe, they'll call upon you to do a service for them. But until that day, you can just accept their justice as a gift.
ryan-allen 11y ago
I would expect that this happens more often than not, but via friends and family. If someone was stalking or harassing one of my sisters we'd find a way of handling it, legal or no. It's not preferable but if it's the only way to get results... Nobody deserves this kind of treatment.
- JabavuAdams 11y ago
  Yes, in specific cases this might be the right answer. However we have to say "No, rule of law, blah blah" because we don't want everyone doing it or we're back to a tribal society with vendettas and blood-feuds.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    A society that will not take intimidation and threats to someone's livelihood seriously has already regressed to the level of tribal societies with vendettas and blood-feuds.
    - JabavuAdams 11y ago
      It's hyperbole to compare the median person's experience in the US to that of the median person in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
JabavuAdams 11y ago
Interesting idea, but there's no way to do this legally, and it would be prone to horrible abuses. Also, if someone is dangerous enough to intimidate ... well, you don't want to intimidate them and risk having them escalate back. Following that logic, you only end up in one place.
- brandonmenc 11y ago
  It is a bad idea, but without legal recourse someone will eventually provide the service.
  - yarou 11y ago
    Someone already provides the service, and they happen to import high quality olive oil as well.
NeutronBoy 11y ago
Both Reddit and 4chan have demonstrated exceptionally well why this is a terrible idea.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  I shouldn't do this, but I will. In the specific case mentioned here, where state and Federal law enforcement won't take charge, why shouldn't she find a professional investigator to confirm who the perpetrator is, then use the same tactics he has used against her against him? After all, law enforcement refuse to take action right? So it appears that law enforcement wouldn't care if she ensured that he is kept out of the picture. (for the record, I'm playing devil's advocate)
  - dbcurtis 11y ago
    I'm not sure an investigator is the most productive course. If it was me, I'd start with a Cease and Desist letter from a lawyer. Cost: about 2 billable hours. If that fails, since there is, in fact, a law being broken, and now the creeper has ignored a C&D, get a court order. No need to involve police, they can continue writing speeding tickets and tending to other urgent matters. If the creeper ignores the court order, then see if you can get a bench warrant issued. Although, in this case, it sounds like the person is mentally ill -- what you can do about that varies greatly from state to state.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      Now that's actually a very clever solution! Never considered this. Thank you.
sheraz 11y ago
I know you are probably getting down-voted into oblivion, but I'm with you. There are already services like this, they just don't have an LLC or an App :-)

nowarninglabel 11y ago

"When I got a Facebook account in 2006 he found me again and, not wanting to be rude, I accepted his friend request." It's hard to understand why, having previously already blocked this person elsewhere, they would accept a friend request from them. I suppose now, 10 years later, one can hope that people exact greater control over their online social networks.

Mithaldu 11y ago
We all make mistakes, especially when a situation does not seem particularly bad/urgent yet.
swiley 11y ago
I really hate it when people act this way, now I feel the obligation to try and read their mind and figure out if what I'm doing is upsetting them or not.
- nostrebored 11y ago
  The responsibility to be socially aware is your own. The responsibility to not put people in awkward situations is your own. One of the many reasons not to flirt with people in service jobs.
  - striking 11y ago
    I find this concept questionable. There is a difference between someone who is legitimately stalking someone who very clearly does not want to be followed around (and they are aware of this!), and someone who is being really, really awkward (but totally unaware of the pain they are causing). What would you suggest the socially awkward person who doesn't understand that they're stalking do? You can't simply wish people were more socially self-aware, and to do so ignores a very large population of people who have trouble with social situations for reasons beyond their control.
    - nostrebored 11y ago

fiatmoney 11y ago

Most of these amount to libel, at worst. File suit. There are excellent reasons for police to be uninvolved in what amounts to people saying mean things, even if those mean things are directed at your employer or friends.

tempestn 11y ago
If it were a one-off incident I would agree with you. But a consistent pattern like this over years is stalking, and either is or should be a crime. In my opinion this clearly summarizes why: > For Franks, a big theme is that the “fundamental feeling of security that most people take for granted is taken away.” She has spoken to hundreds, maybe thousands, of victims in her research, who describe constant feelings “having to look over one’s shoulder” that keep them from engaging fully in their lives, online or off. I feel that's true even if you don't believe that the stalker will try to physically harm you. There is a huge emotional toll to dealing with that kind of thing, and it's not something that should just be tolerated. (That said, I recognize that police have limited resources, so putting more toward this would mean less for something else, or an increase in funding.)
- fiatmoney 11y ago
  So sue! That and restraining orders are designed for exactly this.
  - tempestn 11y ago
    So why have crimes at all? If someone steals from you, or assaults you, you can always sue. The thing is, that shouldn't be the victim's responsibility.
    - fiatmoney 11y ago
      You're acting like libel just became a problem in the last 5 years. There are good reasons why we don't really have criminal defamation prosecutions anymore. They always involve tons of disputed facts, and they require tons of resources to investigate. Choice of cases is always political. Let me tell you who is a good candidate for a "cyberstalking" charge. You maintain a database of police involved in questionable shootings. When one of them gets canned from their present department, you track the new PD they're foisted onto, and make sure to let the local BLM chapter know about the bad apple they're about to get, and a lurid description of what you think their crimes are. Why, that sounds worthy of some prosecutorial resources (election year, after all). Aren't you glad you made being mean on the internet a crime? Get a fucking restraining order. It's ridiculously easy; too easy, in fact, to the point where they're routinely used as leverage in other civil disputes. Violation of restraining orders is a crime. This is a solved problem.

Mithaldu 11y ago

End result: The thing resolved itself, likely because someone else sued her stalker. I have to wonder though: If her local police was ignorant of actual laws applying to her case, as she indicated, couldn't she just tell the officers under which exact laws she is making a complaint? Further, if the local police is generally ignorant and incompetent, what would her chances for success be in using a lawyer to try and identify appropiate channels and contacting them?

fiatmoney 11y ago
Based on that excerpt, that NY statute looks pretty clearly unconstitutional. It also appears to criminalize, eg, vanilla customer complaints, as long as someone asked them not to. I'm not surprised the police weren't interested. Edit: she leaves out the condition "for no legitimate purpose", which makes it plausibly constitutional, but nearly unprosecutable. https://www.nycourts.gov/judges/cji/2-PenalLaw/120/120-45%283%29.pdf https://www.nycourts.gov/judges/cji/2-PenalLaw/120/120-45%28...
sandworm101 11y ago
>>> if the local police is generally ignorant and incompetent, what would her chances for success be in using a lawyer to try and identify appropiate channels and contacting them? Not great, but certainly better than the nothing offered by police. This situation seems to have ended when another victim took the steps to launch a lawsuit. Lawyers can do many things. This defendant was identified. She knew who he was. Legal threats are not fun. They aren't like being arrested, but are still not pleasant. The stalker gets the threat, seeks his own lawyer, and quickly realizes how deep he is into this thing.
- Mithaldu 11y ago
  Ok, so she wasn't out of options. Just hadn't reached for the more expensive sticks yet.
  - sandworm101 11y ago
    They are not that expensive. She know the guy. No investigation is needed. A lawyer won't charge much to put a scary demand letter together, maybe a couple hundred at most but probably much less in such a situation. Going to a lawyer first, before the police, could also have softened much of that horrific experience. Going to the police WITH your lawyer also makes a real difference. It will at least get you past the reporting window and talking to an actual investigator. I did this sort of thing while a law student. Cops take lawyers much more seriously than victims. it's Wrong, it's harsh, but that is reality.

arbre 11y ago

There should be laws against this. A judge should be able to tell when a behavior is harassment, and forbid the harasser from contacting the person again with more severe charges if he does again.

rory096 11y ago
There are – that's a restraining order.
- wheat74 11y ago
  I think that's the point he was making. I think his post was saying she should have pursued that sometime during those years of stalking.
  - enneff 11y ago
    If that was the point then it would have been better made explicit.
    - cplease 11y ago
      If someone is not a relative or intimate partner, there's no easy way to get a civil restraining order against someone in New York the way you can in domestic cases. There either has to be a criminal prosecution to get a criminal restraining order, or you have to retain a lawyer and file a full-blown lawsuit in a court of general jurisdiction. It should definitely be enough for police to act if you establish that you demanded that contact cease and and that it continued unabated. In this case it seems that the author may not have clearly established it, perhaps did not understand the best way to frame this, and police were unhelpful and didn't want to be involved unless there were threats or a domestic incident involved (where mandatory arrests come into play).

sandworm101 11y ago

Am I the only one who thinks this sounds a little too perfect? A totally sympathetic female victim, the evil older male, the dismissive male police force ... it reads like a movie. I'm probably too jaded by such stories on the internet, but if she was in my office I would probably have a few questions. Of course if she was in my office then it would be far more than a story I read on the internet.

shalmanese 11y ago

There's a moment in the pilot of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt where the women are rescued from the bunker and put on a daytime talk show and Matt Lauer asks one of the women how she ended up in the bunker: "I had waited on Reverend Richard at a York Steak House I worked at, and one night he invited me out to his car to see some baby rabbits, and I didn’t want to be rude, so… here we are." And Matt Lauer responds: "I’m always amazed by what women will do because they’re afraid of being rude…" It's often hard for men to understand the societal pressure placed on women to be accommodating and not be rude and how this can be manipulated to constrain female agency in the world.

cgriswald 11y ago
I've found they also have an amazing ability to make excuses for the behaviors of others. I had an ex who got into a lot of sketchy situations because she refused to believe people were exactly who they were telling her they were. Guys would do inappropriate things that clearly bothered her, but she would claim they were "joking" or believe she misunderstood, etc. etc. So she wouldn't set any boundaries, and of course they would see that as a signal to escalate until she couldn't handle it anymore and would have to call in the cavalry. (That got old fast.)
- dsfyu404ed 11y ago
  That ability to rationalize bad excuses you just described is an interstate highway with four lanes in each direction.
- meowface 11y ago
  While many people are like this, it seems a bit unfair to stereotype all women as gullible.
  - fpgaminer 11y ago
    The behavior being described is not what I'd call gullible, but I agree with you that it is unfair to stereotype women with the characteristic.

st3v3r 11y ago

Honestly, this guy needs to be thrown away in a cell and forgotten about. He clearly is not willing to stop on his own, and, quite frankly, I can't see him stopping for anything other than being locked away.

jkern 11y ago
That's a pretty disturbing concept of justice
- st3v3r 11y ago
  Why? This guy has, time and again, harassed this person after being asked to stop. He has shown that he does not care to follow the rules of civilized society.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - ank_the_elder 11y ago
    So there's no hope for his rehabilitation? I hardly think so. You also seem to believe that prisons exist merely to punish rather than deter and/or rehabilitate - which, incidentally, reveals the most cursory of understandings of the penal system.
    - st3v3r 11y ago
      No, I am very much in favor of rehabilitation over punishment. However, there are people who don't respond to that. I believe this guy is one of them. 12 years, and he didn't stop? That's not someone who's interested in rehabilitation.
  - rifung 11y ago
    > He has shown that he does not care to follow the rules of civilized society. I think it's much more likely he's mentally ill and doesn't understand them.

meowface 11y ago

While this must have no doubt been a horrid experience, I can see why the cops would not have considered it worthy of launching a criminal investigation. This is a perfect case for civil law: causing emotional distress, harassment, defamation, etc. You should attempt to sue him and get a no-contact order if you can.

SwellJoe 11y ago
My problem with that perspective is that the law is clear on the subject: It is a criminal matter, according to the cyberstalking statutes across the country. If police don't like the law, they probably shouldn't have chosen a career of enforcing the law. (Certainly there are unjust laws, and I would hope officers would choose to exhibit some sort of leniency or looking the other way in minor cases of those sorts...but, in this case the response seems to be one of simply not believing the victim is worthy of their time and attention, despite the fact that the legislature of their state instructed them to consider protecting those victims a part of their job.) Pursuing a civil case requires money and time that many people don't have to spare. There are very few pro-bono cyberstalking attorneys out there, and unless and until it becomes common for their to be large payouts for victims (and their attorneys) there's unlikely to be an industry built up around it (as in the case of workman's comp, personal injury, medical malpractice, and class actions over corporate malfeasance). And, I don't know that we want to look to those industries for the preferred practices for preventing harm to young women and girls who are overwhelmingly the victims in these cases. I'm not saying the criminal justice system, or police, are the right way to handle it, either, though probably not for the same reason as some folks here have expressed. I think police have a history of further inflicting harm on rape victims, for example, and I don't now if I want that kind of harm to also be inflicted on girls and women who are victims of cyberstalking. It sounds like the experience of the author in interacting with police was similarly demeaning and dismissive to what some rape victims report about their experience going to the police, so I guess that's just where we're at in these kinds of crimes. In short, I don't know what the right answer is, and I don't like police or the criminal justice system, but I'd rather they err on the side of protecting victims, when they are deciding what cases to pursue and how to allocate resources. They had a victim in their office, and they opted to snicker at her, and tell her to get lost.

cplease 11y ago

Okay, so this creep's behavior pretty clearly rises to the level of harassment at a minimum. But legally the FIRST thing to do with a stalker or harasser is to TELL them unequivocally that you want NO further contact. Preferably document in writing; in New York, you can record conversations that you are party to. At this point further unwanted contact becomes more clearly a criminal matter. Too often, those on the receiving end ignore or laugh off bad behavior. This is natural enough, but unless someone is clearly threatening, if they haven't been told unequivocally to stop all further contact, then they can always argue, sincerely or not, that they didn't know their contact was unwelcome. Or that in any event they were free to continue their advances. The closest the author explicitly posts is "I caved and sent him a message asking him to please stop messaging me so much or I’d block him." That is unlikely enough to suffice as "clearly informed to cease that conduct." All it would take is a message saying "never contact me again." Period, full stop. Better yet, add "or I will report you to police." At that point, further contact is actionable, criminal harassment. That being said, much of this cyberstalker's behavior is independently harassing, e.g. forged emails to friends etc. But putting someone on notice is a first step to protecting yourself. It is premature to go to police to say, "X is bothering me, I'm not afraid of him and I haven't told him firmly to go away, but I really want him to go away." If someone isn't in any way actually putting you in fear, and all that is involved is unwanted communications/nonphysical contact, then it's on you to first tell him to go away before involving police. Then if he won't, you have an unambiguous complaint. Edit: The author does also describe some poor policing. Good community-oriented policing centers around mediation. Ideally the police in this situation would not simply say "it's not a crime" and make the complainant feel helpless and ignored, but would try to solve help solve the problem. Specifically by taking a report and offering to communicate to the person that all further contact is unwelcome and may lead to a criminal complaint, and documenting this. This type of approach is likely to help bring an end to the behavior, or in the alternative lay a foundation for a future, actionable criminal complaint. In the best case, behavior improves, complainant can move on with her life, police don't have to deal with future complaints, everybody wins. Sadly many departments just don't want to get involved or have the resources to deal with community mediation, even if it pays for itself over time.

jsmthrowaway 11y ago

chris_wot 11y ago

I know this is entirely inadequate, but what about suing for defamation? The police, I fear, want to start getting a bit more proactive. When someone is able to get away with sabotaging someone else's life with complete impunity from authorities, a lot of people take actions in their own hands.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

btilly 11y ago

Yeah, it sucks, but no surprise. Stalking is an old, old problem. And the police won't do anything until it turns violent. You can stalk normal people, movie stars, business people - pretty much anyone other than a psychiatrist. (It turns out that psychiatrists have a really easy time getting their stalkers committed to insane asylums.) I know a woman who owns nothing in her own name, changes her phone number frequently, and whose own family often does not know how to reach her. All to make it harder for her stalker to keep tracking her down. When she acquired the stalker she was high profile so the FBI actually did send someone to give her advice. The advice was basically that she was screwed, how to best hide, and to get trained guard dogs. I wish I was joking.

jsmthrowaway 11y ago
> And the police won't do anything until it turns violent. Try violating a restraining order taken out against you and see if you maintain that opinion. The behavior you describe as well as that of the article qualifies for seeking a restraining order, which this entire discussion seems to have forgotten is in existence. Once you have a EPO/TRO/PRO, then the police care when it is violated. A lot. It's easy for them to enforce and requires no investigation, which is the thorn that hits a lot of people when they try to get cases like this going with the police. As an example, my father went to jail more than once for violating my mother's PRO. It's also on the person's record, which is why it is good to involve a lawyer if someone files one against you. I'm one more contact from my own stalker away from filing for one, but he seems to have forgotten about me for now. I'm mystified that the FBI advised your friend and the topic of a restraining order did not come up at all. I spoke with the FBI about my stalker after he threatened to kill me across state lines and it was the first thing they told me to do. Undoubtedly, there is more to your anecdote. In California, as long as you choose the right kind (i.e., not domestic for civil), restraining orders are fairly trivial to get. In some cases you can get a legally-binding TRO from a judge, in a day, for free. They also show up on computers in a police officer's cruiser in California (thanks to the digitization of all of it in CLETS), so if you are literally standing in front of a person on whom you have a EPO/TRO/PRO and get a cop's attention, the crime is open and shut and they will arrest, speaking from experience. Bonus in California and maybe elsewhere: if you successfully take out a restraining order on someone, they have to surrender all their firearms or sell them (yes, really). Seriously. Restraining orders, people. The courts are at your disposal, and they're not just for domestic violence. Edit: Except in New York, apparently, where the author of the article lives. Go New York. New York readers: vote to fix that incredibly moronic situation at once, then travel to a sane state on this like California and go back home with one of ours, which should be enforceable there. Seriously, in the Internet age, the complete absence of a non-dating civil protective order mechanism is an absolute and disgusting shame, and means your only recourse from the courts exists if you make out with your stalker. What a grandly perverse incentive you have there from your judicial system. I'm actually worked up about this from learning it in this thread, and sympathize far more with the article author now than I did before I knew that. California resources: - http://www.courts.ca.gov/1260.htm http://www.courts.ca.gov/1260.htm - http://www.courts.ca.gov/selfhelp-domesticviolence.htm http://www.courts.ca.gov/selfhelp-domesticviolence.htm (dating/relationship/etc) - http://www.courts.ca.gov/1044.htm http://www.courts.ca.gov/1044.htm (not dating, impossible in New York, apparently)

dsfyu404ed 11y ago

So this woman is unlucky enough to both be the target of a persistent stalker and persistent stalker who manages to stay withing the letter of the law while being incredibly annoying. Big deal, people get struck with lightening and bitten by sharks from time to time too. She just happens to be able to write about her bad luck in a particular corner of the internet that gets more than nil for traffic. Sure it probably freaks her out a lot (and rightfully so) but did she really expect any authority to be able to take action on that basis. Think of the kinds of shit that would hit the fan if "distasteful behavior that freaks others out" was enough to get someone arrested (and all the life ruining things that go with it).

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

DanielDent 11y ago

Is it weird that when I saw the article title, I thought it was going to be about the NSA?

rl3 11y ago

>I was never physically afraid of Danny and never will be. I would be. Danny clearly has more than a few screws loose.

fabulist 11y ago
It seems like they've had a lot of time to learn which ones, though.
- rl3 11y ago
  True, although anyone that's both that obsessive and that malicious deserves to be considered a potential physical threat—barring some sort of major physical disability. Even then, it's remotely possible they could still cause physical harm by proxy.

fabulist 11y ago

One thing I learned in this article is that it's someone's job to call the victims of stalkers, apologize on their behalf, and ask to be notified if the behavior continues. It makes me wonder what process is initiated if they inform the lawyer that "Danny" has resumed harassing them. Will the lawyer call "Danny" and tell his client to shut up? Will he be billed for that time? Is the idea that, given a sufficiently expensive lawyer, he won't be able to afford his stalking habit? It is interesting that they appear to have published this under their real name. No doubt "Danny" has read it with interest.

joyeuse6701 11y ago

I feel for this person. I recently had a stalker over the summer, a family friend whom I met at my sister's wedding. He had some sort of break down, declared me to be his lover, received my email via unwitting family members. Luckily someone had raised the alarm. Said stalked flew out of state fully expecting to find me and be with me. It did not happen, but I certainly was preparing for an altercation and was traumatized by every unexpected knock or ring at the door.

popeshoe 11y ago

Not a woman, but Garry of Garrysmod fame has a very interesting set of blog posts about dealing with and eventually befriending his internet stalker in an attempt to curb the guy's worst behavior. http://garry.tv/2015/11/10/stalkers-and-abuse-part-1/ http://garry.tv/2015/11/10/stalkers-and-abuse-part-1/

golergka 11y ago

OK, first of all: I don't question that this guy turned out to be an asshole and a stalker and that author is a victim. But I can't help but raise a question of definitions here. He was a stalker for 4 years, not for 12. His behaviour during first years of their relationships wasn't something that I would even remotely call "stalker behaviour". Up until this point: > I caved and sent him a message asking him to please stop messaging me so much or I’d block him. “Ok. good luck on your quest,” he wrote back three minutes later. “Huh,” I thought. “That was easy.” Then he sent three more angry messages in quick succession and I blocked him on Facebook. there's literally nothing in the description of his behavior that calls for the term "stalker". (Later — of course).

kriro 11y ago

What's with the image overlay. Can't read the text. Is that some sort of art? It looks cool but makes the site unusable. Entire layout seems broken (latest FF, OSX) Edit: seems to be broken on the entire site not just for this article

benten10 11y ago

...so how many women are actually commenting on this post? Raise your hands please? Hahaha, this is a classssic hackernews discussion. "There is absolutely no discrimination. Women are held to the same standards as men. They just complain. Saying that women have it unfair is ITSELF sexist" type arguments are the best (for entertainment value). @dang and other hackernews people: Regardless of if you agree with them or not, you do realize that this will reflect on Ycombinator's perception/PR right? No amount of office hours for women is going to counter this RIDICULOUS volume of INSANELY UNAWARE sexism going around in these forums. I mean, for YCombinator's sake I hope you guys agree with most of the comments here, otherwise this is just deadweight on whatever your 'diversity' aims may be. Calling them lazy, complaining fools is how you put the bullseye on your backs for the time when the pitchforks come out. Just saying. This is ridiculous. It doesn't have to be this way. Really.

marcusgarvey 11y ago
thanks for saying this. it's shocking to see the cesspool that the comments become whenever gender and race issues are raised on this site. are people really this clueless?

LordKano 11y ago

So... Why didn't she just give him a firm, but polite "I'm not interested"? I'm not saying that stalking and/or harassment are acceptable. I'm just saying that she probably could have avoided 14 years of misery if she had just politely told the guy that there was no potential for anything more. Women need to learn to reject people in whom they're not interested. They think they're being "nice" or at the very least, being "not mean" but they are being incredibly cruel by letting the other person think there's hope when there isn't. Don't expect him to take the hint. Tell him directly.

andreasvc 11y ago
You're blaming the victim. Do you really believe she didn't tell him no clearly? > Women need to learn to reject people in whom they're not interested No, that's not the problem, women get plenty of experience with that. People should not stalk or harass, period.
- goda90 11y ago
  People should not stalk or harass. Authorities and all other members of society should take stalking and harassing seriously. BUT potential victims should take reasonable measures to protect themselves too(not saying that a "firm rejection" is enough or even safe though). I hope Internet safety instruction becomes more of a thing in our education system.
  - andreasvc 11y ago
    I know and the post did mention such a firm rejection. I'm just stating that the problem is rather that there are people who don't take no for an answer.
  - LordKano 11y ago
    Exactly. What she did would be interpreted by someone with limited social skills as sending mixed signals. She went out for a meal with him when he showed up unannounced and gave her a gift. She'd block or ignore him sometimes and engage him other times. No, he shouldn't have harassed her but she should have been clear from the beginning that the attention was unwanted.

YouYouMeMe 11y ago

Amazing. "I caved and sent him a message asking him to please stop messaging me so much or I’d block him." ... "so much or I'd block him." <--- the stalker?

hollander 11y ago
Yep, it's reinforcement all over. Everything she does that does not shut him off completely, without notice, without any reaction, that is rewarding to him. I don't blame this girl for this, because she did the best she could, but from the outside it is rather clear how this works. The problem is probably mostly emotionally, on her side. For some reason she could not end it completely and hand it over to the police.
- ctdavies 11y ago
  Sorry, but it does sounds to me like you are blaming the victim when you write "The problem is probably mostly emotionally, on her side." It's her stalker who has the emotional problem. Calling her emotions the problem appears to me rather sexist, given that women are stereotyped as overly emotional. Furthermore, she DID stop responding, and she DID go to the police, but they didn't do shit. Please read the article more carefully, and please don't place the burden of justice on the victim.

at-fates-hands 11y ago

I knew two women who were being stalked online. Both took physical violence to end their stalking. The first woman I told a friend about. We worked together as landscapers for a local company. He was a low level drug dealer and had some sketchy friends. The more I talked about her and the ongoing saga, he finally told me for a few hundred bucks, he could get it to stop. A few weeks went by and I didn't think much about it, until she said her stalkers messages started going up a notch just like in the story. I never told her, but I found out the guy's name and after a quick DOXing, I found out where he lived and some other useful information like the bars he frequented. I paid my buddy $200 and turned the information I had on my friends stalker over to him. A week later, my friend said she stopped getting messages from the guy. I found out much later he sent two of his "associates" over to talk to the guy at work. They got him out in the parking lot and assaulted him pretty good. Broken nose, busted lip and several broken ribs. They warned him they would come back and pay him another visit if he didn't stop stalking my friend. It did work and less than a year later, she graduated and moved out of the city. The other situation was very similar. Another friend of mine was being stalked by a college ex-boyfriend. He was unrelenting, showing up at her work, following her to the bar, and other strange stuff. She finally told her father about after almost two years of him stalking her. Her dad was an ex-marine and had done several tours in Vietnam. He was a quiet guy, but you could tell you didn't want to cross him. She lived in the city where we were going to college, so most of the time, she lived at home. Her stalker made the mistake of following her home one day. She went in and her Dad asked why there was a car parked down the street. She went to look out the window and knew it was her crazy ex and told her Dad to call the police. Instead, he told her to call the police and hurry because something bad was about to happen. He took his handgun and went through the backyards in order to sneak up on his car. He yanked him out of the car (he later said, "You should have seen the terror in his eyes!") and slammed him on the ground and put the gun in his face and told him he knew who he was and if he ever came near his daughter he would make sure he would walk with a limp the rest of his life or worse. He make it clear not to mess with him or his family ever again. The cops showed up a few minutes later and arrested him for an outstanding warrant and thanked her Dad for calling them. Thankfully, that was the end of her ordeal. I would never advocate violence in these situations, but when you feel helpless, sometimes there are no other alternatives.

YouYouMeMe 11y ago

What I've read from the article, beside the obvious, is how unaware people are about how technology works. "With Apple and Google unable to help ...". She thinks Apple and Google should help with spoofed mails b/c an Apple mail client is used and the spoofed email was from a Gmail address. Also not understanding identity theft: "including Danny’s latest identity theft." Also not understanding the difference between civil legal action and crimes. In most western countries education about technology and how it works is insufficient. Same goes for law basics that help with life. Edit: I don't blame this in any way on her.

zbruhnke 11y ago

I think this person misses a key point here. She does not have a "Cyber Stalker" - She has a Stalker ... No matter the medium of the majority of these incidents if materially affects her life in several ways and more and more as our world blurs from the real world to a digital reality these things are really one in the same and should be treated as such. I say this not to say that she is wrong but to help raise all of our personal awarenesses and biases to this type of situation. The term "Cyber Stalker" tends to make it seem less threatening or serious when in reality it can be just as dangerous and possibly even more so to the person on the wrong end of this. I hope she gets this remedied in the near future, but I also hope she and maybe others reading this will realize how closely that line is walked and how we should start considering it the same crime as our data and our digital footprint becomes more an integral part of our lives.

randyrand 11y ago

>Two years passed before I finally decided to take legal action, in late 2014. Maybe it seems weird that I waited so long What seems weird is it does not sound like she ever tried to actually confront him. Block after block, but not really confronting him. It seems she didn't want to hurt his feelings. But waited until police action? That seems like a terrible approach. The most confrontational she got was "I caved and sent him a message asking him to please stop messaging me so much or I’d block him." How surprising that didn't work. You need to be more confrontational in a situation like this - either a heart to heart approach where you lay it on them, or something more aggressive. Blocking for the umpteenth time is not going to work. You could call this critique victim blaming, but the my intent to encourage people to handle the situation better, without someone repeating her mistakes.

randyrand 11y ago

> Men can be victims of cyberstalking, too, but the majority of victims are women, who tend to experience “particularly severe” harassment online, according to the survey. Just about everyone has been name-called or subject to some other sort of verbal abuse online, but women are the predominant targets of sexual harassment and the sustained abuse that constitutes cyberstalking, typically considered the most serious form of internet harassment. Love how she so quickly brushes men under the rug. "This is a woman problem! Not a mans porblem!" Why do we generalize issues? Why not focus on all cyber stalking, not just cyber stalking by men? Its serious issue that I sympathize with.