online harassment are easy to practice than real life stalking. In cyberspace, a stalker can harass their victim without ever having to leave the comfort of their own home, or have any witnesses to the crime.Online users are vulnerable to stalking in the following three areas. Live chat rooms or IRC, this is the most common place for cyberstaking. Message boards and Newsgroups, and Email box; a user has the ability to write anything and even attach files to the email. Another common area regarding cyberstalking is at the edu sites, which are educational institutes, such as colleges and universities. One user might know another user personally and interacts on the internet anonymously starting the cybertalk. One student can enter the internet as easily as another student, therefor not letting his or her true identity be known. If you are being harassed online by a cyberstalker, the chances are you are not the first person they have stalked. Cyberstakers, like other predators, are opportunists. They know what they are looking for and know how to get it. Stalking is a power crime, the stalker has the power to make you suffer and enjoys that power. (Laughren, 1998, p.4) A stalkers self-esteem rises when they attack your self-esteem. The more pain and suffering they can cause, the better they feel about themselves. The best protection against becoming a target of stalking is not to reveal anything personal that you might have in common. Often, stalkers are mentally unstable, paranoid, delusional, and extremely jealous, and have extremely low self-esteem. Stalking is a form of obsession. The difference between a normal cyber harasser and a cyberstalker, is the harasser moves on to others and forgets you and a stalker will come back to stalk you another day. (Jenson, 1996, p.5) The Internet enables the stalker, his powers, in most cases, merely knowledge of the technology is all thats required to stalk another person online. N...
