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Beware! The cyber stalkers are here

The World Wide Web is populated by many old friends and harmless geeks, but it also contains slick but dangerous strangers

ON YOUR GUARD Are you safe on the internet?

I had a stalker — if that conjures up a vision of a creepy man in a ski cap peering through windows, here's some news for you. He wasn't even in the same city. Or even continent. And he had never seen me in his life.

Yet, for about six months, I got phone calls that began at midnight and continued till 3 a.m. on both my landline and cell phone. My inbox was flooded. And my MSN messenger beeped constantly.

Yet, there's nothing particularly shocking about the episode, simply because it's not an exceptionally unique story. Over the past few years, as people across the world begin to live their lives on the World Wide Web, online stalking has become part of life. Fortunately, most of the people you meet are geeky boys who "want to make friendships." But among them, there are some seriously dangerous people.

Vulnerable users

And unfortunately, Internet users seem to forget how vulnerable they are. When the net first became popular, the numerous horror stories about the creeps and criminals online were sufficient to ensure people were wary about the information they posted. However, today, when you use the computer for almost everything, whether it's booking buttered popcorn at the theatre or asking for advice on how to clip your Labrador's nails, it's only natural you get lulled into feeling secure. Getting information on others has never been so easy. There are about 200 popular social networking sites such as Orkut, Friendster, Hi5 and Facebook on which members post photographs, personal details and messages.

With an increasing number of people signing up on these sites, you can never be sure of who has gone through your details, album or messages. And there is a lot of browsing done. A reasonably active profile gets about 50 hits a day. That, in real life terms, is 50 people (many complete strangers) checking you out everyday.

Of course, sites like Orkut have their good points, which is why they have so many members. You can use them to find old college buddies and classmates and make new friends.

Unfortunately, you're also likely to stumble across very strange people: If you're a woman, you'll constantly get friend requests from men, sometimes accompanied by obscene pictures or emails. It can be annoying, and occasionally frightening. Mahua (name changed), for instance, became friendly with a stranger on Orkut because they seemed to have a lot in common. "But he gradually became obsessive, calling incessantly. There were times when I was scared but I gradually became more exasperated by the behaviour," she says.

Stating that a typical Orkut stalker is someone with "obscene amounts of time on his hands and who, because of low self esteem, takes advantage of anonymity on the net," Mahua says that most online stalkers "are voyeurs who spend a lot of time going through profiles to try and get an idea of someone's life." A lot of them have multiple identities or remain anonymous.

For stalkers who need some handholding, there are even online communities offering guidance and succour. Orkut, for instance, has an `Orkut Stalkers' club with 664 members, and even a `Creepy Stalkers Unite' community which announces "Like stalking people? Helplessly give in to your `random' obsessions?" Discussion includes tips on "how to stalk your victim using her cellphone."

Lack of control

Site moderators have little control since any user can start a community, and users multiply faster than gremlins at a swimming meet. Orkut, which began in 2004 had 30,089,043 members by October 18, 2006, according to Wikipedia. And about 20,000 people add themselves to Facebook everyday.

As a result, these sites end up uniting as many criminals as they do friends. In the recent past, there has been concern about the social problems they cause: enabling child pornography, hate mongering, racism and online crimes.

With dozens of new groups springing up everyday — ranging from `I love potato chips' to `Hack the Universe' — moderators find it difficult to weed out the bad guys. So anytime you log on, it's possible to get anything from a `credit card hacking tutorial' to tips on how to hack into someone's e-mail account. However, Sonu Shankar, a U.S.-based fearless user of social networking, says as long as you're careful, the good outweighs the bad.

"People spend a large amount of time on networking sites here in the U.S.," he says, adding that "a lot of positive networking takes place... to, say, find new members for your rock band, people who write code if you're having problems in software development, people who're into Italian food or people who'd help you out if your cell phone goes on the fritz."

And he doesn't worry how much information he makes available. "Some talk about not uploading pictures owing to the threat of people modifying them and publishing them elsewhere as pornographic images. In my perspective, people ought not to care so much about it in today's Internet age. If we were to live with such ridiculous fear, we might as well do nothing on the Internet and get back to standing in queues to pay utilities bills and buy stamps to write `Hey. I'm good. Do write back. Me.'"

SHONALI MUTHALALY

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