There are few things that I am troubled by more than when a coward will hide behind the veil of anonymity to torment children and adults alike. When I was kid growing up maps still had “Here be dragons” written on them. But, bullying was front and center. I had one instance when three bigger kids, teenagers, had come down the road to our school and started picking on a friend of mine. I was 10 years old at the time and I took issue with this bullying and rose to my friend’s defense. Much to my chagrin, the three assailants switched their attention from my friend (who promptly ran away) to me. I went down swinging but, not before I bloodied at least one of them. I have no love for bullies. The kids who beat me up were all expelled and one was charged by the police. I felt vindicated for having stood my ground.
Flash forward to today. Bullying and stalking has moved into the cyber realms and it is far more insidious than it was in the past simply because there is anonymity for the cowards and the amplification factor of social media. A friend of mine now has a disturbing problem to tackle. He lives in the US and has enjoyed a long career in computer security and has a girlfriend who lives here in Canada. She has a successful career in her own right. The problem in this case is that there is some small minded puissant who has been waging a prolonged campaign to harass, deride and smear her personally. This coward hides behind a series of false fronts on social media.
I’m beyond annoyed that I have not been able to help remedy this situation. I put the couple in contact with the RCMP in the hopes that there could be some assistance as the local police force has heretofore been unable to put an end to this behaviour. There is now a large contingent of security practitioners who are working actively to track down this individual. The amount of pain and suffering that has been caused is palpable. This has been compounded by the frustration of cross border issues and an apparent inability to track down this insipid creature.
One of the things that has struck me is the need for better training for law enforcement on how to deal with cyber crime overall. In Canada there has been an effort to push through legislation called Bill C-13. While this is trumpeted as a law to combat cyberbullying / cyberstalking it unfortunately amounts to an attempt by the government to push through greater surveillance powers with little thought given to actually dealing with cyberbullying. If there was a genuine interest in dealing with the problem the government would spend their efforts to educate law enforcement rather than to attempt to push through draconian laws. The legal mechanisms necessary to deal with crimes like this are already on the books.
There is this interesting knee jerk reaction with governments to draft legislation regarding issues rather than provide the ability to execute on the issues.
I sincerely hope that we will see a some measure of improvement in dealing with cyberbullying and cyberstalking so that people are able to feel free to roam about the Internet. In parting I do have a simple message for that miscreant tormenting my friend’s girlfriend. There is a large group of people who have a very particular set of skills, skills they have acquired over very long careers. Skills that make them a nightmare for people like you. You have slipped up somewhere along the line. The clues are being pieced together.
You will be found.
(Image used under CC from waferboard)
