Two cautionary tales from the media:
Thomas Montgomery was 47 and married, but in cyberspace he claimed to be an 18-year-old soldier on his way to Iraq. She (name withheld by authorities) was 40, using pictures of her own daughter to pose as a teen so that she could flirt with men online. Things got ugly when the woman, who lives in West Virginia, sent a package to Montgomery's house, including photos, lingerie, and a set of custom-made dog tags...and his wife intercepted it. Wife contacted the poor young girl (as she thought), telling her she'd been fooled and sending a family portrait as proof.
The West Virginian woman was curious to know more, so she used info from her chats with Montgomery to track down one of his coworkers, 22-year-old Brian Barrett, to see if she could find out what Montgomery's wife was saying about her. Soon, she was deep in correspondence with both Barrett and Montgomery, who failed to break contact even after being busted by the missus. She knew the truth about Montgomery's real identity, but he and Barrett continued to think she was a hot 18-year-old chick.
Montgomery, it is believed, got jealous--jealous enough to put on a ski mask and camouflage, take a .30 caliber rifle, and blow Barrett away at close range. (Carolyn Thompson, Associated Press, in today's
Indy Star)
Details magazine has another warning in the January/February issue: seems there's a new rash of internet vigilantes, who are putting up fake ads on places like Craigslist, posing as women offering kinky encounters: "it drives me krazy 2 get tit fucked, cuffed, ass spanked with welts and bruises" (note: the article only mentions het ads, but it's only a matter of time before someone trolls for gays the same way, if it isn't happening already).
These guys get dozens, even hundreds of replies--many containing real names, phone numbers, photos (including cock shots)--which the vigilantes then post publicly online to humiliate the men who've been foolish enough to give their personal info. Sometimes they go further: contacting the bosses of men who use company email accounts to respond to the sex ads, emailing the wives of married men.
Why? "Accountability," says Michael Crook, one of these
self-appointed marshals of the cyberfrontier (to borrow a lovely phrase from the author, Ian Daly). The article suggests other motives, including a good ol' fashioned desire to stir up trouble--which could, of course, blow up some day in a spectacular manner: Crook and others like him are receiving death threats, and as example #1 shows above, people really do get killed over internet madness.
What to do? People aren't going to stop using the net to hook up, either for online or real-life encounters. But for chrissakes, folks--be careful out there. Don't
ever give personal info to people you don't know. Before you hit send, think about how you'd feel if what you just wrote was out there for everyone to see.
Meeting strangers is always risky, but you can take a few steps to protect yourself, especially from fraudulent ads like the above. If you're trying to meet someone in person, keep the initial cybercontact to a minimum (preferably from an anonymous email account, and
never from your work email), and arrange to meet in public so you can check each other out. Should the other person insist on phone contact first, ask for their number, and call from a pay phone or an unlisted cell phone.
If all you want is cybersex or internet flirtation, make it all up. Set up a free email account at Hotmail, Yahoo, or the like, using an entirely fake profile (be whoever you want to be!), and use it
only for these encounters. Do not, ever, give traceable information about your real life--keep a notebook, if you need to, to keep track of your imaginary biography. A truly dedicated hacker might still be able to hunt you down through ISP wizardry, but any barrier you put up between you and the weirdos is going to filter some of them out.
Protect yourself! It gets weird out there.
(Next: How to Be Anonymous)