news-record.com

A friend alerted me to your article this morning . . . with the comment that the Greensboro News & Record (and Doug Clark) were a "farce". There were other words, but they were unprintable.

He found it fascinating how cyberstalking wasn't nearly so disturbing when a Greensboro blogger was doing it to an an Asheboro doctor/blogger (who just happens to be blogging because the newspapers in this area cannot seem to print a story critical of the local medical cabals).

The cyber-bully was a resident of Greensboro, but according to police, had to be charged in Randolph County because that's where I live - never mind that I wasn't in Asheboro when I opened the e-mails.

And, of course, Dr. Mary Johnson getting any kind of fair treatment by the Randolph County DA's office - or a proper investigation out of the Sheriff's Department was a lost cause.

The local "news" stories on the case did not begin to tell the whole story. But, of course, that story had to be dispatched quickly and as quietly as possible so as not to give the doctor's reasons for being in the blogopshere in the first place too much attention.

http://drjshousecalls.blogspot.com/2010/05/when-fecund-stench-permeates-...

John Robinson cannot retire fast enough for me.

Thank you Doug for bringing this issue to light. I don't think people are totally aware of how intense and frequent these cyberbulling, cyber harassment issues actually occur. And the aspects of people involved in these activities being in varying states. I know of one such case that is still in progress, and the span and depth of this case is mind boggling. There are 7 people on the list as victims of these assaults and all 7 people have only one person in common they have been threatened by. And your right about cases like these would require not only a Jury of Computer Geeks, but also Law Enforcement to understand and knowledgeable to know the exact methods to go by to resolve the case. The aspects of websites who's owners and admins are protected from exposure by companies who offer this protection, the aspects of identification from Twitter or Facebook without pre warning to these individuals of subpoenas being issued to reveal the identity. The involvement with others who have the ability to phish into email accounts, Spoofing and harassing phone calls, and what phone companies to contact and send subpoenas for phone records, and this includes the software companies that put out the new abs for prank spoofing calls. To take a case such as this down to your Local Police Dept, you would need to take your computer, all of the data complied over a period of a year, and the Officer or Detective's patience as they set and go through this mountain of abuse trying to comprehend, what in the world is this all about and what started it.
How bad do these issues become, here is an example:
An Author wrote a book, he exposed issues which occurred during a missing child's case, he exposed people for their actions in this case. Results to date, Cyberbulling, Cyberstalking, spoofing, harassing emails and phone calls, threats to have his children taken from him, police reports against him, reports to child services, accusations of child abuse against his children, accusations against his 16 year old daughter, court action out of florida by people he had filed complaints against, accusing him in domestic violence court of stalking and harassing them by his articles and book, on the internet. Forcing him to remove the evidence he posted on the internet against these people. Calling him a pedifile, accusing him of vile sexual acts on twitter, posting vile photo comics of him on several involved websites.
They have forced this Author to defend himself in several states, and prove he is not the monster they are putting him out to be. This is a "Nightmare" for this man. They project him as being totally insane, they have virtually destroyed his credibility and provided him with an absolute Character assassination. Since there are a list of at least 40 varying fake Twitter accounts who have been very busy over the last year in doing this, several blogs, and a website and its subdomain. It's had good coverage. And continues at this very moment. When a Subpoena was requested by a Judge to be issued to Twitter to reveal the identity of several of these identity's, Gosh here came a motion from the one specific person who has all 7 people in her sights, to squish the subpoena. Yes, there is documentation on everything I have just said. Down to basic details.

Kinda makes you yearn for the good ole days when you'd get a call around 10pm on a Friday night from a thirteen year-old (such as myself back in 1993), asking if you were interested in enrolling in the Bonnie Prince Charlie Scottish Canned-Food of the month club. I mean, my "sales pitch" induced nothing more than an upset stomach - if that.

A big part of the problem with cyberstalking cases is police really don't know how to investigate them. It takes a lot of technical savvy on the part of a police detective, and most local agencies just don't have the expertise. Even Federal agencies like the FBI and the Secret Service didn't have the right kind of expertise to investigate ANY kind of cybercrime for many years after the Internet became open to the public at large.

We're only now starting to get law enforcement experts to accept that these things are actually crimes.

Doug, I would recommend you read, "The Hacker Crackdown" by Bruce Sterling (a well regarded author of cyberpunk novels). It's a bit out of date, but gives a fascinating picture of the troubles law enforcement has had with investigating cyber crime . . . problems that continue to this day.

You'll particularly enjoy the Secret Service's ineptitude when it came to their bogus investigation of Steve Jackson Games' GURPS Cyberpunk, a role playing game they thought was a manual for "cybercrime."

Law enforcement hasn't gotten any better at dealing with these kinds of crimes since then, unfortunately. A large part of the reason, IMHO, is apathy. Cops don't want to be chasing down quarreling teenagers or lovers in cyber-spats. They want to chase the "big crimes": murder, rape, robbery.

It wasn't until kids started killing themselves over this kind of harassment that the government even started to take it seriously.

If the defense lawyer can confuse the jury on the technology, the girl will get off scot free. She knows it, which is why she hasn't stopped what she's doing. It won't be until we have several generations of people who understand both the technology and the seriousness of the crime sitting on juries that this kind of behavior will be reined in.

"They (prosecutors) only want the chase the big crimes: murder, rape, robbery."

Yes, and because they NEVER wanted to investigate or prosecute the "lesser" crimes (somebody pretty much always has to DIE), our economy is in free-fall, Wall Street fell (wanna talk about "robbery"?), and the occupiers are occupying.

Of course, as a law enforcement officer (or a journalist) you have to be "interested" to start with. Funny how that works.

"We're only now starting to get law enforcement experts to accept that these things are actually crimes."

It would help if the judges running the quick and dirty bench trials accepted it too.

Is there anything we can do about this "Dr." Mary Johnson lady? She's clearly in violation of the "House Rules." I know plenty more people would love to add to this discussion, but her incessant diatribes and harassment no doubt steer people away.

Doug, I agree with you about Cyber harassment.
That being said, how do you feel about "Print Media Harassment"?

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2002/03/prweb35336.htm

Tell us Doug, What's the difference

Jack Perdue "made a mistake", so Ethan Fiensilver and the N&R had the right to destroy him.

Overall, we in Randolph County have always felt the N&R's excuses were weak.

I know. Let's ask Jack's widow.