Feb. 24 — The Internet has changed the way people communicate, putting friends and resources just a click away. But the same technology that puts the world at the fingertips of millions also poses new threats to privacy and personal safety. On 20/20 Downtown, Lynn Sherr brings to light disturbing cases of cyberstalking, a phenomenon of online harassment that has the potential to affect Internet users and non-users alike.
“It never occurred to me that the Internet could be used as a weapon,” says Deborah Boehle, who claims her family had been harassed for two and a half years by a man sending out postings soliciting sex with her 9-year-old daughter.
The Boehles were awakened to the dangers of the Web by a phone call at 3 in the morning. Though the man on the line asked to speak with their daughter by name, Deborah assumed it was a wrong number and mere coincidence. But when phone calls from men asking for the young girl persisted, followed by a hang-up when asked who was calling or why, Deborah and her husband, Mike, were alarmed.
An Electronic Trail
A few weeks after the calls began, a neighbor complained to Mike about his daughter, who had written “hello” with sidewalk chalk on the neighbor’s driveway. Having had other run-ins with this neighbor, Mike thought this man could be behind the menacing phone calls. And, suspecting that the Web might be involved, Mike looked online for clues.
What he found were nasty messages claiming that his daughter was soliciting sex. Attached was the Boehle’s home phone number. The subject line in one of the postings — Hello on the driveway — led Mike to the neighbor, who apparently was sending out the messages in the girl’s name.
The Boehles turned to local police, who advised that the family simply get a new phone number and keep their daughter inside. But Mike and Deborah, who wish to conceal their daughter’s identity, moved to a new community and enlisted the help of a neighboring police department’s Computer Crime Unit. The neighbor’s home telephone records were subpoenaed and matched to the posts: On every single date and time an Internet posting about the Boehle daughter was made, the neighbor’s phone was connected to his Internet service provider.
Last July, the neighbor, Charles Gary Rogers, pled guilty to transmitting obscene material — a misdemeanor that cost him a $750 fine. But Deborah thinks this was a mild punishment. “Even though he never touched my daughter, which is what his lawyer kept saying, he literally led millions of pedophiles to her,” she says.
A Different Kind of Service Provider
The ability to reach the masses is, in part, what makes cyberstalking so insidious. Cynthia Armistead, a freelance computer software analyst, says she discovered this when she was contacted by hundreds of men who were responding to her supposed sex-wanted ads. Posted on the Internet, Armistead found, were pictures of nude women — with her photo and name attached.
“I started getting e-mail from men wanting to know exactly what kind of services I provided for the advertised rates,” she says. “I was totally stunned. I hadn’t imagined anything like this.”
Armistead thought she knew who had placed the ads — a man with whom she’d gotten into an online argument about Internet advertising. After reporting him to his Internet service provider, the cyberstalker found a way to continue his campaign while concealing his identity. By using an “anonymous remailer,” a middleman that strips identification from e-mails before being sent on, the cyberstalker’s messages could not be traced.
Then it got worse. Armistead’s 5-year-old daughter, Katie, became the target of crude messages like, You’re a little whore just like your mother. And because of the anonymizing middleman, the only return address on the e-mail was anonymousnobody@remailer.
When the intimidation turned to physical threats online, Armistead asked the police for help. But like the Boehle family, she was frustrated by their response.
“They said they could do nothing, they had no idea how to proceed,” says Armistead. “They were like, ‘Turn off your computer. Why are you on the Net if you’re getting this nasty stuff. Get off the Net.’”
Dissatisfied, particularly because she earns a living using the Web, Armistead took matters into her own hands. She moved apartments and got a post office box so no street address could be identified. Then, she got this message: I know where you live, you ugly fat slut. I followed you home...Now we’ll have some fun bitch.
Finally, the police took notice. Once the alleged cyberstalker left the world of cyberspace and claimed to have physically followed her home in DeKalb County, Ga., prosecutors thought they might have a case. Finding that no laws specifically addressed online harassment, the accused cyberstalker was charged with traditional stalking. The judge found the man not guilty.
“Using a computer, someone can break into your house without even walking in the front door,” says Deborah Boehle. “And they can send people into your life that can completely tear it apart.”
If You’re a Victim…
Don’t respond directly to offenders. “If you reply to them,” says Parry Aftab, executive director of Cyberangels, an Internet safety organization, “you give them the attention they want.”