Fergie's Tech Blog

A Sinister Web Entraps Victims of Cyberstalkers

Tom Zeller Jr. writes in The New York Times:

Claire E. Miller, a 44-year-old publishing executive in Manhattan, recently stripped her nameplate from the tenant directory at the entrance to her Kips Bay apartment building, where she has lived for more than 11 years. She has also asked the landlord to disconnect the buzzer and is in the process of changing her phone number.

Drastic measures, all, for an otherwise cheerful and outgoing person. But Ms. Miller has been unnerved by a sudden and, since last September, steady onslaught of unsolicited and lusty phone calls, e-mail messages and even late-night visits from strange men — typically seeking delivery on dark promises made to them online by someone, somewhere, using her name.

"I wouldn't even try to guess at the motivation behind this," Ms. Miller said.

She is being harassed — cyberstalked, by modern definition. The term has by now found its way into dozens of state legislatures, police reports and talk-show lineups, joining other unsavory byproducts of the Internet age.

posted by Fergie @ 4/17/2006 08:41:00 AM