I am watching I am watching……. And here I come to hurt you: Cyber stalking: Part: 3

http://www.cybervictims.edu.tf/

Cyber stalking is such a mischievous idea to “tease” and harass victims. There are some mischief mongers who love to play with the human sentiments and the new joinees in the gang are some real hard nut cyber stalkers. In India the concept of cyber stalking is relatively new (blame on our IT Law which doesn’t say anything about cyber stalkers). But the word created a panic among ordinary net users, especially women. If you consider “hackers” as the “most brilliant” of the cyber criminals, stalkers are most wicked of them. Not necessarily these stalkers are hi-tech people; most of them have a vengeance against their “prey” and some just play with the net-users they randomly choose. Now, what could be the reason of vengeance? Anything…. Jealousy, romantic breakup, revengefulness, and even domestic violence. Jealousy, the green eyed monster, has got suitable arm through internet to hit the “target”. I am sure many of you readers have experienced such cyber effect of jealousy… well, I have. I did get to see how one is followed in the cyber space and the stalker reached not only the victim’s immediate family, but even extended family as well. He first introduced himself as someone who wants to know about the victim for business purpose and then abused the victim to whomever he reached .Finally he was able to create a “bad name” for the victim. Similarly, ending up romantic liaison could be heart breaking. But then, seeing the same man/woman who once promised his/ her life for the partner, turning into a virtual beast is more painful. But then people are only in love and “everything is fair in love and war” .. isn’t it? Imagine what happens when the present or ex husband/wife starts stalking the other spouse just to irritate him/her ……. Somewhere I read about a Chinese couple who *mistakenly* chatted with each other (both in different screen names) and started *following* each other virtually. In no time the followers became stalkers because they realized that they were real life husband and wife who loved to fool each other by involving with may virtual girlfriends and boyfriends respectively…. Phew…..I laughed, rolled on the floor in laughing. But this was not the similar “funny” experience when I heard one of my own friend is being stalked by her ex husband. They are divorced, legally separated, mentally fell apart from each other, but still then the “husband” decided not to leave the wife without teaching a lesson. Through his email id he reached all the common friends as well as her own friends and described her in all the possible disgracing languages one may know. He even entered her social networking circle, found out the groups where she was a member and started making friends with other members to defame her. My friend got alarmed when she received an SOS from her well wishers. But by then the harm was done for no fault of the victim. But she is not the only one… I heard from another friend of mine that a man (whom the victim didn’t know in real life but knew as a friend of her friend in a popular social networking website where she is a member) called her best friend to say he is waiting outside her (the victim’s) office after he “hit” her boyfriend in the middle of the road. He claimed to be a “better person” than the man she was having affair with. The girl was terrified, couldn’t concentrate on her job and didn’t have her lunch until the late evening when she finally got her boyfriend’s line to know whether he was all right and confirmed that she has not told any of her virtual friends about her romantic affair with her boyfriend. Sounds petrifying? Yes … this is the effect of cyber stalking.