Cyberstalking
Cyberstalking is a form of harassment that occurs through digital communication, where perpetrators use the anonymity of the Internet to threaten or intimidate their victims. Unlike traditional stalking, cyberstalking often does not involve physical contact, making it challenging to quantify and address effectively. Perpetrators may be motivated by revenge or other personal grievances, and incidents frequently arise in workplace settings or involve predatory behavior against vulnerable individuals, such as children. As the prevalence of the Internet has risen, so too has the incidence of cyberstalking, prompting many jurisdictions, especially in the United States, to introduce specific laws aimed at combating it.
Law enforcement agencies face difficulties in investigating cyberstalking due to the often anonymous nature of the attacks and jurisdictional challenges. The legal framework surrounding cyberstalking can be complex, with various statutes offering different definitions and protections. Victims are encouraged to preserve all communications as evidence, as successful prosecution often hinges on demonstrating a clear electronic trail. Although many cases do not involve overt threats, the psychological impact on victims can be severe, necessitating a nuanced understanding of the crime and its implications for personal safety and mental health. Overall, cyberstalking is a serious issue that reflects broader concerns related to the risks associated with digital communication in contemporary society.
Cyberstalking
DEFINITION: Electronic communication in which perpetrators repeatedly contact victims with the intent of abusing, exploiting, annoying, threatening, slandering, terrifying, or embarrassing them.
SIGNIFICANCE: Cyberstalkers use the anonymity allowed by electronic communications technologies to disguise their true identities while they harass and threaten their victims. Depending on its severity, cyberstalking can be a misdemeanor or a crime punishable by jail time. Investigating cyberstalking is difficult for several reasons, not least of which is the lack of physical evidence in many cases. To find and prosecute cyberstalkers and authenticate the electronic evidence in these cases, law enforcement personnel must typically use computer forensics investigative methods.
Rather than engaging in physical confrontation, cyberstalkers take advantage of the impersonal, nonconfrontational, and anonymous nature of the internet, email, and other forms of digital communication to harass or threaten their victims. This makes it difficult for authorities to measure the full extent of the crime of cyberstalking. Perpetrators can use various Internet-based technologies from any location; they may live next door to their victims or on the other side of the world.
In cases where cyberstalkers know their victims, the most common is revenge. Cyberstalking frequently occurs in workplace settings, perpetrated by employees who are angry with management or fellow workers. Pedophiles also sometimes engage in cyberstalking, using social network websites, such as Facebook, to find potential victims. Law enforcement investigations of cyberstalking may be valuable to defend against child sexual exploitation and other physical crimes, as many cyberstalking attacks have the potential to escalate to violent criminal acts. Some law enforcement agencies are able to respond aggressively to cases of cyberstalking by following trails of digital and seizing computers of suspects, but others lack the expertise and resources to pursue such cases.
Legal Defenses Against Cyberstalking
The incidence of cyberstalking has increased in the twenty-first century as growing numbers of people around the world have gained access to the Internet. In response to this trend, nations have enacted increasingly strict legislation to deal with cyberstalking. The first antistalking legislation in the United States went into effect in 1990. Since 1999, federal and state jurisdictions have amended existing general antistalking and antiharassment statutes to include instances of cyberstalking or have enacted new statutes to protect victims of cyberstalking.
The federal antistalking law prohibits anonymous internet communications “with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass.” Laws to combat cyberstalking include federal 18 U.S.C. 875(c), which makes it a federal crime, “punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, to transmit any communication in interstate or foreign commerce containing a threat to injure the person or another.” Because most states have also enacted their own specific legislation, investigators as well as victims of cyberstalking in the United States may face complicated sets of laws offering varying definitions, protections, and penalties. Most states also had laws with attributes prohibiting cyberbullying or electronic harassment; that imposed criminal sanctions for cyberbullying or electronic harassment; had school sanctions for cyberbullying; and required schools to have anti-cyberbullying policies.
A growing number of law enforcement agencies have recognized the serious nature and extent of cyberstalking and have responded by providing training in computer forensic techniques and software. In large cities, such as New York and Los Angeles, police departments and district attorneys’ offices have developed specialized units to investigate cyberstalking cases. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has established squads throughout the country; these units investigate all kinds of computer crime, including cyberstalking.
Nature of Cyberstalking
Cyberstalking is similar to traditional forms of stalking in several ways. Many stalkers, both online and off, are motivated by a desire to control their victims, and both kinds of stalkers engage in behaviors aimed at gaining control. Online forums such as chat rooms, blogs, and social network sites make it easy for cyberstalkers to trick third parties into harassing or threatening the cyberstalkers’ intended victims. To carry out such ruses, cyberstalkers post inflammatory or salacious messages in online forums while impersonating their victims, causing viewers of the messages to send unwelcome or threatening messages to the victims. Cyberstalkers with knowledge of their victims’ screen names may use software that advises them when their victims are online; the stalkers then send their victims lewd or threatening instant messages.
Cyberstalking is different from other types of stalking in that it may not involve any physical contact at all, but the psychological profiles of cyberstalking perpetrators tend to match traditional stalking perpetrators. As with other types of stalking, the majority of perpetrators are men and the majority of victims are women, although cases of women cyberstalking men and same-sex cyberstalking have been reported. Some methods utilized include hacking home camera systems, doxxing (publishing another individual’s personal phone number, address, or other information), sextortion (using a photo to exploit a person for money), and using fake social media profiles to intimidate victims.
Tracking Down Cyberstalkers
In cyberstalking cases, computers and the Internet are the weapons. Experienced cyberstalkers often use anonymous remailers, which can make it impossible for investigators to determine the true sources of e-mail and instant messages, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), or other electronic communication. Anonymity gives cyberstalkers an advantage over investigators. Anonymous services on the iInternet allow individuals to create free web-based e-mail accounts, and most Internet service providers (ISPs) provide their services without authenticating or confirming users’ identities. The investigation of cyberstalking thus requires the use of sophisticated computer and e-mail forensics methods to trace cyberstalkers’ activities through their phone records. Investigators usually need subpoenas to obtain such records, whether from telephone companies or ISPs.
After investigators have identified suspects in cyberstalking cases, or the addresses of suspects’ computers, they generally obtain search warrants that allow them to seize the computers, any electronic storage equipment, and digital devices. Because of the fragile nature of such equipment, these are usually transported to computer forensics labs, where experts make copies of the electronic evidence to investigate further.
Law enforcement officers are sometimes frustrated by jurisdictional limitations in cyberstalking cases, as when they find that stalkers are located in other cities or states, making further investigation difficult or impossible. Officers who travel to other legal jurisdictions to continue their investigations may have trouble obtaining assistance from other agencies. It is likely that such limitations on law enforcement will diminish in the future, as cybercrimes, including cyberstalking, become increasingly widespread.
Statutes that require a showing of a “credible threat” may hinder prosecution in some cyberstalking cases. Cyberstalkers often do not threaten their victims overtly or in person, although they engage in conduct that would cause reasonable persons to fear violence. In the context of cyberstalking, the legal requirement of the existence of a credible threat is especially problematic because cyberstalkers may in fact be located far away from their victims (although their victims do not know that), and so the threats they pose might not be considered credible.
One case of international cyberstalking that came to the media's attention involved a US citizen, Leandra Ramm, who had been receiving online threats and experiencing harassment from a man in Singapore for several years beginning in the early 2000s. Despite collecting as much digital evidence as possible and contacting the local police and the FBI, she was initially told that nothing could be done. However, once a cybercrime and digital forensics expert became involved, she was able to bring the perpetrator to court and successfully convict him and force a confession in late 2013.
Preserving Evidence
Connecting suspects to the crime of cyberstalking is a challenge without some evidence in addition to the electronic evidence, such as a former romantic or work-related link between the stalker and victim. With or without such other evidence, the key to successful prosecution in cyberstalking cases is the preservation of the full electronic trail of evidence. Tracking down cyberstalkers and convicting them depends a great deal on the cooperation of the victims. Victims of cyberstalking should save all communications from their harassers as evidence; these should not be altered or edited in any way. Victims should also keep logs of the times and dates of their Internet activity and when they received communications from the stalkers.
The requirements for the preservation of electronic evidence for legal purposes differ from the requirements for other types of evidence. The admissibility of electronic evidence in court depends on the existence of a reliable record of chain of custody for that evidence. Investigators must be able to demonstrate that they have not added to or otherwise altered the data or communications presented as evidence. They can help to satisfy this requirement by write protecting and virus checking all the media used. Investigators must be able to demonstrate to the court that what is purported to be a complete forensics copy of a suspect’s hard drive or storage medium is indeed such a copy.
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