When women pose as men in the virtual world

http://www.cybervictims.org

Couple of years back when Laurie Drew posed as a man to befool teenager Megan, who would subsequently commit suicide, women posing as men to date with women was a very underreported and unfocussed issue. When I picked up this very  issue of women posing as men to harass women earlier in my book “Cyber crime and the Victimization of Women: Laws, Rights, and Regulations”. Hershey, PA, USA: IGI Global. ISBN: 978-1-60960-830-9 , I noticed that one of the main causes behind such behaviour for women was a burning desire to take revenge on her victim.... jealousy.....thy green eyes.... The perpetrator woman generally feels extremely satisfied when she realises that she is driving the victim woman for nothing else but utter emotional disaster. Drew posed as a boy to give Megan a feeling how unworthy she is in the eyes of a boy.....a would be man, who would subsequently approve the worthiness of a woman. Most feminist scholars have argued since long against this very apparently (un)disputed truth. But this remains a fact for a majority of women and men alike. The reason behind such a nasty game by Drew was nothing but the anger, frustration and jealousy which arose due to her own daughter’s not so friendly and comfortable relationship with Megan. 

But note that I have used “one of the main cause” to describe my reasoning behind the issue. Apart from jealousy, there is something else which also drives women to play this nasty game. Imagine when a woman poses as a man just to have fun at the cost of the emotional distress of another woman! Don’t think that such behaviours are abnormal for women; but in reality, such trend is growing.  I do get to see couple of reported cases where women, mostly younger women play this fun game. Putting on the shoes of the opposite sex and playing with other women as charming prince in dating sites and also social networking sites is no more uncommon now. I refuse to believe that this could be the result of “penis envy” only, a Freudian psychoanalysis term.  Probably this might call for deep research on cyber psychology; but something in me tells that this could also be the result of acute loneliness in the wrongdoer as well as the victim. The ‘man’ woman unknowingly falls in the self created trap when the victim woman senses something wrong with the camouflaged identity. Not to forget the trail of private investigations, police complaints and even the risk of being banned by the website itself..... the perpetrator ‘man’ woman may become a victim herself as she may invite open threats regarding her sexuality, sexual orientation and following gradual out casting by the virtual society on which she would have depended heavily to change her monotonous life.

It is high time ‘man’-woman that you go ahead with some other positive productive leisure activity, for the painful crash of your imaginary ‘flight’ to the reality-ground  may become extremely hard to cope with.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2012), “When women pose as men in the virtual world”, 18^th March, 2012, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/”

A tale of few cities: Cyber harassments and reactions of the police authorities

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


No, I am not going to re-run the famous story, but I adopted the “legendary” title with a word replaced by mine, to tell my readers a rather pathetic story of cyber crime victims globally.
When a man or a woman is hit by an offender in the cyber space, the first common reaction is to “report” the incidence to one’s family or trusted friends. The post mortem of the offence begins when the effect of the harm seems to be very deep and hurtening………..and what are these situations? Mine , as well as my other friends’ (who are cyber crime experts) experiences say, that these situations include severe online bullying, stalking, impersonating and creation of fake porno-profiles, hacking ( well, by hacking I don’t mean to include official -website hacking, but hacking of personal email id), morphing , stealing and distributing personal informations ( again , not only economic , but *personal* as well) and off course , offline promotion of the online offences. Well, these are but a few examples of vast categories of offences that target ordinary individuals.
The next step of the aftermath of the offences generally results in encouraging the victim to contact the police to prevent further escalation of the victimization. In many cases, here begins the next episode of the victimization of the already victims. Even though many metro cities of developed as well as developing countries, do have police –offices equipped with efficient men and machines to deal with cyber offences, many easily approachable neighborhood police stations do not have such facilities. The question which many of you would ask is, why should an ordinary police station be approached when there are cyber police stations in the city? Hey, come on , if you stay in Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu and you get to see a “phishing incidence” which took a chunk of your bank balance ; or if you stay in Malda , West Bengal, and you find out a dirty Orkut /facebook profile of yours, you may straightaway enter the local police station to lodge the complaint . You ask “why”? And the answer could be :
a. you do not have a separate cyber police cell in your own city;
b. you may have lodged an online complaint , but you have not received a “quick response” from the main cyber crime cell of your state. In between, the harasser has gone one step ahead to publicize you in worst manners;
c. You do not know the difference between ordinary police stations and cyber crime cells.
Further, even if the cyber harassment has occurred in the main metro city which boasts of a cyber crime cell, the victim may run from pillar to post to lodge the complaint as the jurisdiction- issue will insist that you first contact the local police station for reporting the harassment.
Saddening for a country which has millions of internet users ..isnt it? But wait.. don’t blame “Indian system”. You may get to see these incidences in other parts of the world too.

To give a few examples …..
i. A male victim of cyber harassment goes to the local police station in the greater part of Calcutta; he insists that his complaint must be registered as it has been ‘tagged” as a “criminal offence” in the Information Technology law. The officer in charge at first turns a deaf ear to his pleadings , and then suddenly realizes the characteristics of the offence is a bit difference from the regular offences he is dealing every day. He asks the victim to come back a day later for further discussion.. Note, he didn’t register any case.
ii. A female victim of cyber harassment in the northern part of India, got so disturbed by the nonchalant attitude of the local police, that she decided to never to face the police again.
iii. In an interior part of Southern England, a middle aged woman reports to the police about ongoing severe bully by some of her ‘unwanted virtual visitors”. When the local police wants to check out those public bullying messages, they were perplexed to see no “evidence”, ( it is obvious that after the harassers came to know that the woman is going to the police, they had removed the thread for the time being) .The police asked the woman “ do you believe in ghosts?”
iv. An American internet user got a life time suggestion from the police of her area: ‘stay awake and don’t dream’….
Do these incidents look similar to one of your own real life experiences? Well, possibility can not be ruled out. These distressing incidences run in almost every country even if they boast of well drafted internet security laws. I find a very simple reason behind this upsetting trend: the local police stations still treat internet crimes and harassment as one among the regular harassment crimes; the officials need to be well trained to handle cyber harassments; and over all, both the parties (the one who is complaining and the one who is receiving the complaint) must give a patient hearing to each other. Last but not the least, the victim must remember that “prevention is always better than cure”. Hence do not forget the wise men’s warnings before you depart with your informations in the internet.
Have a safe journey in the cyber space.


A note from the writer: The views expressed in this blog are exclusively mine. Some of the incidents depicted here are real life experiences of my friends'(who preferred to be anonymous) , who gave their kind permission to publish the experiences for spreading general awareness. I do not mean to hurt any officials. But still then, if any officer of the Police department of any country is hurt by this blog, I deeply apologise. It is not intentional and I have practised my fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression.To end with, I sincerely thank Jai, my husband, and my friends in the cyber crime-management field,Jayne, President of WHOA (www.haltabuse.org),Neelabh, Sanjay,"Cyber Cop"...... to name a few of them, who spoke about their own perceptions with me in friendly conversations as well as in their blogs and write ups.
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PHISHING: PART-I

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

How many of you readers love spending your leisure time by catching fish in serene atmosphere ? I am sure , most of you cherish the dream of such beautiful holidaying in your ancestral homes /villages with lots of water around. Well, I do... And what do we do then? Just sit quietly on the bank of the river/ pond with the fishing rod, thinking all sorts of thoughts and suddenly the pull in the string…….. yeeeeeee you got the game of the day.

But then imagine when you are the FISH who just gulped the trap … yup………... this happens often in the cyber space. I dedicate this blog to those who have become victims of such crimes which is called “PHISHING”. What is “Phishing? When for the first time my English Professor mother came across this spelling, she was very surprised. She asked me straight away…….... is this the way you write English? Well, I am not born as an “English speaking individual”, but I have learnt it along with couple of other languages and I know “Phishing” is a word which will make every educated individual of my mother’s age, stare blankly at me and ask the same question. Yes, Phishing is a newly coined word which was born in the 1996 ( ref: Stroik& Huang(2008), Nature & Distribution of Phishing, published in Crimes of the Internet ( edited by Schmalleger & Pittaro, Prentice Hall publication) for the cyber generation . The word actually means “…criminals’ creation and use of emails and websites –designed to look like emails and websites of well known legitimate business , financial institutions…in order to deceive the internet users in order to disclose their bank and financial account information or their personal data such as usernames and passwords…”( the information was provided by US department of justice, (USDOJ 2004). But then, I am wrong in saying *only* “older generation”. Many of our generation also do not know how they are being “fish out of pond”. Well, I do not blame men and women who are oblivion of this fact. This is a hard truth that some brilliant tricksters have taken to internet to gain money in this easiest possible way by duping innocent people. The more shocking news is, many believe these sorts of mails as genuine and give in.

Are you pulling your friend in the vicious net?Cyber stalking, Part:2

http://www.cybervictims.edu.tf/
contd from my earlier post....

The last point that I mentioned in the previous post was about CCing the mails. Believe it or not, this attracts cyber stalking as well. I was completely oblivion of this fact (excuse my innocence) until and unless one senior friend of mine pointed out that sending bulk mails is actually a way of pulling your friend in the vicious net . You may have several people in your “list” to inform the good news or even a bad news. You don’t have time to mail every id individually. But then you must remember that the recipient may misuse the email ids he receives in the bulk mail. Well it need not be him, but it could be someone else who may have hacked his email id. Such bulk mail gives a large number of “games” for the hacker and in no time you may find your own email id is hacked as well.

But could CCing be so dangerous? Probably yes. I have one friend who had two ids in her list and whom he used to mail regularly. Well, he knew that these two people had a romantic inclination towards each other in real life but he didn’t know that the relationship has turned sour. The female recipient had put the mail in the spam list and never looked into the content. The male recipient found out his long lost ex sweet heart and immediately took up the thread to continue virtual war. He mailed almost all the recipients of the said mail to know her where about. Some knew the relationship some didn’t know. Virtually he traveled half the globe, reached hundreds of friends and made the girl understand he still remembers her “rude” rejection. Now who is to be blamed for rolling the ball? My poor friend had to close his “doors” in the internet for few months until the war died down again with the help of another common friend. But this is not an uncommon story. This happens to many email users who unknowingly invite trouble for their friends. I suppose the only way to avoid such embarrassment is to stop CCing any personal mail to your “bulk of friends”. Instead, BCCing is better where you may not only save time but you can also spare your friends from falling prey to stalker.

ARE YOU A VICTIM?

Let me start this blog for the CCVC with a complicated question…………...

Are you a victim?

In India majority of the internet users know that they are “victims” when they find their email / profile has been “hacked”, or credit card users find their bank account is leaking without their knowledge. Some however feel that they are victimised when they see that a known / unknown id is repeatedly sending mails to his/ her email id and that of her close acquaintances also. Thanks to the numerous online articles about the nature of the *popular* cyber crimes ………………..these victims suddenly understand that it is nothing but “stalking”. In fact I have felt that hacking is the most dangerous type of cyber offence that can happen to ordinary individual. Once a hacker cracks in, he gets numerous ways to “create” more offences. The hacked email id can be harbor of identity fraud, pornographic sites and even an elementary school for “baby hackers” as well. With the passing of each day a new type of internet offence is being discovered.

But online victimization does not end here.

I feel online victimization can best be compared with melted wax, which when poured in different “shapes” , becomes “wax dolls” of various VIP personalities which attract visitors from all over the world; or even “wax candles” which burn out with time giving new stock of wax to prepare another candle …….. may be of different shape. Say for example, stalking.

You enter a social networking website, make friends and then take part in various discussions. Suddenly you find you are having a long list of follows who start giving their opinions, some even going against you and expressing their own points of views. Some visit your profile to see who you are, some extend their friendships and some just peep in and go off. Then suddenly you get to see some of these new found friends coming over to your “virtual home “to have a tete –e tat with you. And suddenly all hell break loose when you and he / she differ with each other. Finally it turns out to be a verbal war and it even goes public. You feel restless and keep on looking at your mail box whether he / she has replied you again, whether he / she has posted anything against you in the forum board.

Do you think you are an ordinary net surfer now? No, you have become a VICTIM of flaming words and bully. Perhaps you did the same thing to your “friend” too and thus you instantly become an offender too. Some of your “visitors” now start to follow your virtual whereabouts regularly and suddenly you receive an urgent call from your real life friend/ relative that some one has sent “very disturbing stuff” from “your contact”. Slowly this net reaches your office where half of the people come to know what is your "second self ". Don’t be surprised if you get to hear that you play “not mentionable games” in the virtual world. You wonder who did it. And how did he/ she get to know your friends/ relatives? ahoy…. You have become a Victim of stalking now.

Hence the “how you become a victim” probably only your virtual destiny knows (well jokes apart). But before being termed as a “victim” think twice what could have been led you to become one.