

Teacher 'powerless' to stop ex-girlfriend's cyberstalking - valtron
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/05/03/bc-cyber-stalking.html

======
jacquesm
We deal with psychos like this on a daily basis and it is the one reason I'd
be more than happy to quit my 15 year stint as operator of an online
community.

It is absolutely incredible, the kind of viciousness some people will direct
at those they claim to once have loved.

~~~
pyre
They've obviously got some issues that require professional help. This doesn't
seem that far off from stalkers who feel like they are part of a person's
life, and turn nasty when rejected (even though they never were a part of the
person's life).

~~~
jacquesm
That's exactly what they are, only this is the online variety. The hardest
problem of all for me in dealing with this is that you simply can't reason
with these people.

~~~
ansible
The only thing you can do is ignore them. Become a stone wall. If the stalker
can't seem to get any reaction out of you, he/she will eventually get bored
and start stalking someone else instead.

~~~
pyre
In the absence of a reaction/interaction mentally disturbed people will make
up their own in their head (i.e. he really wants to talk to me, but he's busy;
sure he's married, but she holds sway over him and it's obviously a loveless
marriage; etc). There is no logic to be applied here.

------
jimworm
Male teachers are probably the most vulnerable targets to such attacks. If
you're male and a teacher, it's probably best to use a different name in all
non-professional activities (said only partially in jest).

That said, he should've announced his name on a press release associated with
this news story and took advantage of the Google juice of the mainstream press
(EDIT: oh he did).

------
whyleyc
Surely this is the wrong approach - instead of trying to remove every post
about him online (ultimately impossible) he could employ a company to produce
content with enough SEO juice to outrank everything else when searching for
his name.

~~~
newman314
Good luck trying to out SEO cbc.ca.

What you suggest might be possible if the sites were low PR etc., but now that
it's a news story, the Streisand effect pretty much negates that approach.

~~~
wjnc
The point is that he IS pursuing that strategy and that cbc.ca is a positive
google for his name.

------
mikestew
One can't do much about comments on websites, but man, secure your machines.
I'm willing to bet that "hacking his email" consisted of firing up his Windows
machine, opening the account with no password, and starting Outlook. Same for
the nude photos.

Yeah, yeah, "trust" and all that. I don't think my own wife of nearly 20 years
has spent more than ten minutes total logged onto one of my accounts on any
machine in our home. I trust her, she just doesn't need to, she has her own
account. Random chick I've been dating who displays just a little bit of
psycho bitch from time to time? Yeah, that machine gets locked down with a
high-entropy password and she gets guest privileges.

~~~
cjg
Any physical access means game over to a competent attacker. You say hard disk
encryption? I say evil maid attack.

~~~
zorbo
evil maid attack wouldn't have worked in this situation, since she broke in
and stole the laptop. I also doubt she has the know-how to perform an evil
maid attack. Enabling a BIOS boot password would make it more difficult to
stealthily perform an evil maid attack. Finally, "no security is perfect" is
not an excuse for having no security.

~~~
cjg
I was talking about the general situation - the grandparent post talks about
his wife's access for example.

I also said a _competent_ attacker.

Also, I wasn't saying that disk encryption is worthless. If your laptop gets
stolen by someone who has not previously had access to your computer (or
confiscated at a border) then your data is secure.

I agree with your point about the BIOS password.

------
girvo
Contempt of court, given jail time, skips the country and keeps going. Christ,
what are you supposed to do? :/

~~~
DocG
change name and life

~~~
DoubleMalt
In times of widespread face recognition software this might prove futile ...
and raise even more suspicions.

~~~
DocG
Of course he should keep away from social accounts. Other than that, I doubt
she would find him.

Basically like new identity.

It would help to clean his name for future employees. Also, a really common
name would help probably.

~~~
prawn
Or even one held by someone already popular.

"Students, meet your new teacher LeBron James."

Googling "lebron james teacher" shows a few basketball instructional videos,
so that's a start. And there are Vancouver articles about LBJ too, so that
covers "lebron james vancouver"...

~~~
GhotiFish
I hit the jackpot there, I just happened to have such a name when I was born.

------
stedaniels
The manager of liarsandcheaters.com seems like a nasty piece of work.

~~~
tripzilch
Yeah, I heard about sites like those before, often one is welcome to _pay_ to
have their info removed, similar to those "check to see if a registered
criminal lives in this neighbourhood" sites.

I wanted to check if this was the case--they usually hint at it pretty
clearly, as it's their main source of income--but it appears the domein is
currently parked (or perhaps the news article listed it wrong and it's spelled
differently, I don't care to figure it out).

~~~
tripzilch
... found it, liarscheatersrus.com/contact-us conveniently links to "internet
reputation control.com" and "remove names.com", both sites that also
_conveniently_ name liarsandcheatersrus.com plus a short list of very similar
SEO-happy domains. Wouldn't surprise me if they're all operated by the same
people, or at least split the money people pay to have their names cleared.

------
vijayr
This is unbelievable - what the hell does she gain by this? She not only
ruined his life, but hers too. Now her pic is online, complete with what she
did. She is on the run from Malaysian authorities. All of this, for what? This
is beyond crazy.

~~~
Millennium
Your last sentence almost certainly contains the answer to your question. It
seems to me that this would be the next step: work on building a case to have
her committed. That's not an easy thing to do even in the best of cases, but
she seems to be cooperating (knowingly or otherwise).

~~~
GhotiFish
Maybe that was the correct answer the first time. That's a dangerous pattern
of behavior. Setting restraining orders and putting up barricades isn't the
answer much of the time.

My heart goes out to this guy, he did what anyone would do. "I just want this
to be over" and acted defensively. A life lesson, as I see it: Offense over
defense. Get her in a room with a moderator and a camera, reason with her/use
recording as grounds to get her committed.

~~~
vijayr
I wonder if people (like that webmaster of liarsandcheaters etc) would
sympathize more if the genders were reversed.

Also, it is sad that Google wouldn't remove these pages from their index, even
after a court order. They spend so much time policing the DMCA stuff etc, but
unwilling to spend a few minutes helping this guy out.

~~~
GhotiFish
That order _IS_ unenforceable. You can't remove every entry on the internet
for Terry Johnes, there's more than one, and you can't differentiate.

Kinda like the DMCA, actually. Look at what a can of worms THAT was, no wonder
google wants to keep the lid on tight.

------
aaron695
Can we all remember that being murdered by your spouse or ex is probably an
order of magnitude more likely than this, purely from the fact this is making
the news rounds where as generally you'll mostly not even hear of a murder by
an ex in another state.

That's not to say this isn't interesting from a SEO or how do we live in a
world where information cannot be removed once it's out there perspective. Or
even how information attacks are possible.

But if you're getting up in arms about this personally it's a good reason why
you shouldn't read the news because this is less likely than being murdered
and that I doubt you'd worry much about that.

~~~
pyre
Are you suggesting that injustices only matter depending on their statistical
likelihood to happen to me (or you) personally? For example, I shouldn't care
about a serial killer murdering strippers because I'm not, nor ever intend to
be a stripper?

~~~
zarify
Well you never know what you'll be into when you're old and senile...

(obviously referring to the stripping part, not the stripper murdering ;P)

------
CoryG89
People try to paint these types of things as being a problem unique and newly
introduced with the advent of the Internet. In truth, there have always been
ways to slander and defame someone just because you don't like them. You can
always post an anonymous editorial in the paper about someone, or make an
anonymous phone call to DHR or child services slandering someone. It's not
just 'cyberstalking'. There has never been much recourse for victims of
slander.

~~~
LeeHunter
But surely it is very different when you can post an endless river of vicious
comments in thousands of different places, have those comments searchable by
anyone, and then have the world's most trusted search engines compile those
comments in a way that suggests that they are the most relevant for a persons
name.

And I don't think that anyone could ever have posted an "anonymous editorial"
in a paper. Newspaper content is written by staff (or wire services) and
letters to the editor are curated.

~~~
CoryG89
You can submit an editorial to any newspaper in the world anonymously, whether
they choose to publish any of the material contained therein would be up to
the newspaper and whether they though there was any validity (or more likely,
public interest) in the editorial.

------
gadders
BrandYourself.com should do some pro-bono work and get themselves some good PR
:-)

~~~
tripzilch
slight problem--how would they reap the PR? it'd have to be an anonymous
testimonial from the guy, nor is it a great success story you'd tell many
people about and recommend them ...

------
vorg
> "Little did I know, this was just the beginning of this campaign of
> harassment and cyberstalking," said Clayworth

Although the ex-girlfriend was responsible for the initial breakin, email
spoofing, and posting of pictures, does the teacher know for sure she's really
responsible for the continuing campaign of harassment and cyberstalking.
Perhaps someone else is taking advantage of the opportunity for anonymity by
supplementing her efforts.

Some people who harass do it anonymously, keeping themselves well hidden. This
often also entails watching and monitoring the target closely. When they do
say something publicly, it will have two possible meanings so it's all
deniable. Often, they'll use their positions of influence to implicitly
encourage others to do the hands-on dirty work of slagging publicly.

~~~
DanBC
Yes, we can easily create a slew of alternative explanations.

But the simplest explanation - something that's happened many many times to
many people - is that a single person is harassing this guy.

The problem with creating alternative explanations is that some people will
start saying things like "Maybe he did something to cause this? Maybe he could
have done something different?" And that's a problem, because stalking and
erotomania are genuinely scary. It's hard to believe when you're the person
that it's happening to, and it's hard to believe for people outside it, but
that's why we should be careful not to pin blame onto the victim.

~~~
vorg
> It's hard to believe when you're the person that it's happening to, and it's
> hard to believe for people outside it, but that's why we should be careful
> not to pin blame onto the victim.

That's true, I'm not disputing that. But it's also hard for many people to
believe that certain types of people exist who'll hide themselves, watch
others, and run a smear campaign without ever showing themselves.

------
frozenport
Is there a way to legally change your identity, similar to the witness
protection program?

~~~
EliRivers
You can simply go by another name in many countries, without having to tell
any formal authority. In the UK, if you want a piece of paper to go with it
(perhaps for applying for a new passport or the like), you can get a statutory
declaration or a deed poll; I know someone who needed one to get his bank
account details changed and he literally dropped in unannounced over a
lunchtime at a local lawyer's office to bang one out.

Of course, if the perpetrator discovers this, they can just start again using
the new name.

~~~
Zikes
But what about credentials? Any degrees or certifications would have to be re-
issued, and past employers that might be called for reference would only know
him by his current name.

~~~
EliRivers
Didn't seem to bother him. He just has the degree/certificate in his old name,
and his paperwork showing the name change.

It's still quite common in the UK for women to change their name when they get
married and they don't seem to have any problems of this nature.

~~~
Zikes
Well, I think the key reason for the name change in this situation is to
completely remove the old name from consideration. Having any papers
referencing the old name brings up exactly the same issue, whereby a potential
employer would say "oh, their name used to be Clayworth? I wonder what I can
find about that on Google..."

------
bobsy
I would hope that this and other news outlets picking up the story would carry
enough juice to help push the offending content from the first page.

Its a terrible story. Can he not submit take down notices to individual
websites?

~~~
chc
He could throw around nastygrams, but those don't have the force of law behind
them. To get the law on his side, he'd need to actually go through the legal
system in the home country of the site in question.

------
anxx
This is my worst nightmare. I had a fairly recent being-trashed encounter and
it was the worst month of my life. But thank god it was offline. Made me quite
a bit more paranoid about photos, online accounts (closed all), etc. I can't
imagine what this must feel like. There really needs to be better legislation
for victims.

------
awjr
I'm not sure why he hasn't changed his name.

~~~
DanBC
"When did you qualify? Where did you qualify? Can you give us your details for
the criminal records vetting?"

Teachers are qualified (in his original name); registered (in his original
name); referenced (in his original name); and vetted (in his original name).

~~~
pyre
True, but going by a different name _may_ be enough to get past the "What if a
parent Google's his name" hurdle that may be one of the reasons for not hiring
him.

~~~
illuminate
Liability-concerned administrators would not be comforted by someone changing
their name to avoid molestation claims.

------
saintx
Going on a media counteroffensive is probably better than trying to change his
name and experiencing backlash in the form of the Streisand effect. People
would think that he had something to hide, which he doesn't. Going to the
press shows humility, which in this case is the antidote to shame.

~~~
wwwwwwwwwwww
people will think he has something to hide no matter what. making decisions
according to what people think ends up lol - you end up making decisions based
on the worst things because those people often have the loudest and strongest
opinion. based on what, i don't know, probably because liberal society
worships youth and the brash cockiness associated with it.

if people are thinking the worst things about you, should you always be having
to defend yourself? what about your own life, what if there are people in it
that you're trying to protect who've been very hurt and just need safety and
privacy? going to the press shows that in his experience, drawing attention to
something has been mostly positive. this is not everyone's experience. the
press is responsible for the streisand effect in the first place. i don't see
how bowing down before this pressure is humble, although it is probably smart
to be media-savvy, not everyone can afford the mental expense. people are
different - as if theres only one way to react to a thing like this, as if the
style of the reaction says anything about anything.

true humility would require that this person not care about his career any
more, accept that probably he's getting a rightful punishment for his moral
degradation by dating what seems like a much younger woman in a country where
he has a great deal of power, who is not pulling these attacks out of thin
air, in a context where, as one commentor says, a 'westerner and crazy
chinese' is common - and move on. it's well known among asians that whites
look old to them, and that asians look young to white people. white people
have the luxury of not having to care what asian people think, and so this is
not common knowledge to them and might explain some ignorance on this thread.

~~~
wwwwwwwwwwww
my grandfather was a good republican, a mayor of a small town in florida in
fact. he raised me to not talk about politics and religion because it's not
polite. he said just to do a good job and that would be enough. obviously his
times are over if this is the discussion we are having to have and i think
that says a lot about this new radical experiment in social relations that the
internet has brought about.

------
DocG
He should learn to secure his online doings and then create new everything.
Also, should keep away from social accounts.

Name change would really help and if kept quiet, zeros harasser's work. It's
not about whats right, it's just the easiest way.

------
olivier1664
I'm a little surprised the article give names and photos of the ex-girlfriend.

~~~
eropple
I'm not. She was found to have committed a crime, it's public record. And
she's not a minor.

------
stackedmidgets
More likely his haircut, or some other negative quality.

Name changes are cheap, at least in America. Change your name, get a new
haircut, and voila, you can begin building your new identity. This isn't even
an issue with technology, per se.

The guy's not powerless, he just has too much faith in courts. Why else would
you be fool enough to sue your psycho ex-girlfriend? Has anyone ever said
"boy, I'm glad I got into a legal entanglement with that person who hates me,
because it sure resolved the grudge!"

No. Going to the courts is a fantastic method for elongating a momentary
hatred to a lifelong vendetta.

Also, this is a culture clash. If you banged an American girl as an itinerant
teacher in 1850, her brothers and her father might have just tracked you down
to shoot you. Forget about cyberstalkin' -- they would've just stalk-stalked
you and killed you like a possum.

Malaysia's sexual mores in 201* != America's 201* mores.

~~~
nandemo
> Malaysia's sexual mores in 201* != America's 201* mores.

Can you elaborate? What does that have to with the article? Are you implying
that in Malaysia is normal or acceptable for a woman to cyberstalk a guy like
this?

~~~
jinfiesto
He's implying that the teacher's relationship may have not been ok by
Malaysian standards. She might be considered "damaged goods" now (note: I know
literally nothing about Malaysian culture.) Here in the States, that might
have been dealt with through street justice. That nobody really cares about
that sort of thing in the US anymore doesn't mean that it's not a
consideration abroad. Her romantic prospects in her home country might be
potentially destroyed. That's all speculation; and I'm not, of course,
justifying her actions.

~~~
yaix
Judging by her looks and her name, she is Chinese (there is a large Chinese
minority in Malaysia). Also, for Westeners in Malaysia its far more likely to
get involved with a Chinese than with a Malay girl, because they Malays are
Muslims and are usually looking for Muslim boyfriends.

"Westener with crazy Chinese girlfriend" is something very common, judging by
what I witnessed in many years living in China.

~~~
jinfiesto
I had a friend that returned from Japan after breaking up with a Chinese girl
that he met there. The aftermath was interesting to say the least. Must be
something cultural.

------
xkcdfanboy
Cyberskanking is a new breed of social terrorism. And now, Bob with the
weather...

------
PavlovsCat
It doesn't say her age anywhere. He's 35, she looks like she could be rather
young. It also says "after they split up" which strikes me as saying nothing;
who broke up with whom, how and why? Oh, and "dated for several months", does
that mean "had sex with, while she was under the impression it was serious
when he knew all along it wasn't for him"?

Mind you, even IF any of those speculations hold any truth, that still
wouldn't excuse her way of dealing with that (though it would excuse kicking
him in the nuts with gusto though, in my books). But still, that this story is
one-sided can't be helped, that it has missing pieces I consider vital makes
me suspicious enough to not really care either way.

~~~
Avenger42
Googling her name turns up a story in thestar.com.my stating that she's 28 and
an MBA student.

------
INTPenis
I don't understand why we emphasize this article when many women deal with
stalking daily. Why is this particular teachers story different? Just last
week I had to tell a female co-worker that unfortunately I don't know how to
stop someone from following her on Spotify.

It's a daily occurance, to so many women. And it's very uncomfortable.

~~~
yaix
Great username for somebody making such a comment.

Also, "being followed on Spotily" != "having your private and professional
life destroyed"

Just saying.

------
S_A_P
Why do people keep naked pictures of themselves? That is a bad idea, and doubt
that there is anything good that can come from it. Just sayin.

Now- looking at this girls postings, it appears that most were to
memegenerator, and other forums that I wouldnt exactly give much credibility
to. I guess I just dont see how this could cost someone a job. Arrest records,
news stories, etc maybe but a meme generator picture???

~~~
mistercow
>and doubt that there is anything good that can come from it.

For a couple where neither person is crazy, plenty of good comes from it in
the form of sexual intimacy.

The fact is that if you're in a long term relationship with someone, trust
them, and get close to them, you're going to share details of your life with
them that could be used against you. Nobody is so clean that they are immune
to this - the only limiting factors are the intelligence of the scorned lover,
and the degree of their psychosis.

------
kleiba
Here's a thought experiment: What if some guy actually _were_ a child
molester, a pedophile, or something from the list of things mentioned in the
article. Then one day, his girlfriend finds out about it. And she starts an
internet campaign like that -- not because she wants to warn others, but just
for personal reasons like the girl from the article.

Would that change how you feel about an internet "smear" campaign like that,
the difference obviously being that it's not defamation but facts?

EDIT: Since I'm getting downvoted already, I'd like to add that I don't want
to imply that the above is my opinion (nor that it isn't). I'm just genuinely
interested in the truthfulness of the statements posted by the girl is a
factor relevant to people's judgment of what she's doing. It is completely
hypothetical (but that's often the nature of thought experiments).

~~~
tripzilch
You're getting downvoted not just because before your edit it did actually
seem very much like that is in fact your opinion, but _also_ because it's a
very stupid question.

You're asking about a ridiculous hypothetical situation where a person would
be guilty of _all_ the things she smears him with (check the articles), a
situation where you ask the opinion of random onlookers to imagine they are
somehow magically 100% certain of his guilt as a fact, yet this person is
somehow not convicted.

I call troll.

Maybe not even on purpose. If you have to qualify your question with "I am
just _genuinely interested_ ...", I don't think I ever used that phrase
outside of circumstances where I was purposefully trolling.

~~~
kleiba
Thanks for your answer.

I see how my post could be perceived as trolling while in fact that was not my
intention at all. I certainly did not write about being genuinely interested
while I'm actually _not_.

You're making a good point about how the situation I described is
hypothetical. However, I did not write that you as an onlooker would be 100%
convinced that all of the things she claims were true. The article actually
only names some accusations she makes, and I referred to these in my original
question. Therefore, the things she posts may in parts be correct in my
thought experiment, and the onlooker knows about that, while other parts of
her posts may still be incorrect ("smear").

Note that even with the actual article, i.e., without any knowledge about what
actually happened other than what is written in the article, we are _all_
"random onlookers". And we're all forming opinions one way or the other when
we read something like this.

I am interested to know how these opinions would perhaps be influenced if we
had additional knowledge that isn't explicitly mentioned in the article. The
thought experiment I sketched certainly is on an extreme end of the spectrum.

If anything in my post was purposeful, then that it was hypothetical. Since
your reply I'm thinking now that perhaps it was indeed "ridiculous" to think
something like this up. But again, it wasn't my intention at all to troll.

I appreciate that you took the time to answer.

~~~
illuminate
Why concern yourself with these hypotheticals? I enjoy tech prognostication,
but there are so many ways for people to be terrible to each other in reality
that dwelling seems unnecessary.

~~~
kleiba
Well, different people find different things interesting. For instance, I
might ask: "why concern yourself with Twilight", yet there are many devout
fans of the shows.

~~~
illuminate
Devils' advocacy for the sake of devils' advocacy seems a bit onanistic, or
worse when it comes to seeing sinister plans in the eyes of victims. I find it
interesting to ~do~ it in my own head, plenty of "what if?"s, but targeting
victims of various crimes with "what if they deserved their abuse?" sans-
evidence doesn't come off as very healthy. It goes in a darker direction than
most brainstorming, IMO.

------
antonapa
I find it quite disturbing that this is seen as such a terrible situation. You
do know that there are several porn sites dedicated to ruining the lives of
ex-girlfriends? When the victim is male, suddenly this justifies news articles
and a heated discussion.

I feel terrible for the guy, but this is gender-biased hypocrisy. The comments
on the article considering "if it was the other way around he'd be in jail"
are so out of touch with reality that it hurts my brain.

~~~
redthrowaway
How you can possibly view this as "gender-biased hypocrisy" astounds me.
There's a person being stalked, slandered, and having their career ruined by a
vindictive and determined person of questionable mental and emotional
stability. It would be _the exact same story_ if the victim was female.

>You do know that there are several porn sites dedicated to ruining the lives
of ex-girlfriends?

Like what, gfrevenge? There's a massive difference in scale and severity
between posting nude photos and videos of an ex online without their
permission, and accusing them of child molestation and attempting to ensure
they can never find work in their field again. It's the difference between
throwing a rock through someone's window, or doing the same with a molotov
cocktail.

~~~
Skoofoo
I agreed with your first paragraph, but the second one surprised me. Your
comparison does not apply to everyone. Many people would much prefer to be hit
with baseless accusations and rumors rather than have footage of their most
intimate moments be immortalized for public access.

~~~
wwwwwwwwwwww
agreed. men get carried away with our bullshit and forget that images are
attached to people. women dont forget that and its much shittier for them. as
a man i know we suck.

~~~
illuminate
Broad based claims really help nobody, man or woman.

