Here’s another example, don’t use the email address given by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) because that can divulge your general whereabouts. Use an internet email service like Gmail instead. But remember if you forward your email to your ISP POP3 account and reply from there, your general location can still be traced by a technically savvy person. So to be absolutely safe reply to emails from directly within your webmail dashboard.

You can also consider using free throw-away email addresses provided by the good people at Spamgourmet and Spammotel. For your safety.

These tips are USEFUL for ALL bloggers and people on social media…

Just as in the real world…”It’s a jungle out there…”

and a lot of ‘kooky’ people lurk online too…(once bitten, twice shy)…

Thanks…

Darren, how much did “blogkiller” find out about you?

I do not even have a blog or website; I had a myspace page, which I barely checked and had put up at the request of my teen cousins, nieces, nephews, etc.

I never thought for one moment that the few random old pictures I put up would be swiped, altered, posted at websites or chat rooms (I have not been in a chat room since I heard of them for the first time in 1999 or so, out of curiosity to see what it was…I like talking to my family and friends, real people I know, can see and touch, much better).

I can see how social networking skews a stalker’s already rather warped perception of themselves, of who they stalk, and what reality is.

Most seem to have been rejected by someone they pursued romantically.

However, I am in the media & entertainment industry, and I find I come across seemingly kind, very intelligent, creative people, who are in actuality doing what they do best – acting.

These very fragile egos are definitely people to watch as well…

After talking with others little by little, apparently some very gifted, creative peole use that gift too fool and manipulate many an individual.

What I have learned is a common trait and pattern of many stalkers, is that they are also people who have an inflated and unreasonable view of their importance in the world, and actually think far too much of themselves…

These very smart & talented people fall to pieces if they are not the recipient of incessant attention and adulations.

Much worse, if you are on the business side of this bizarre industry like I am, and had a say in rejecting project pitches, etc. rage that was eventually released on me personally was SO hate-filled and twisted, I still cannot believe what seemed like such a vibrant, happy, kind person, and whom I know for a fact has a genius IQ, could morph into a very scary character I’ve only encountered in movies.

Your posts amaze me however, because no matter what the situation was that sparked their obsession to avenge what they perceive was some terrible wrong you or I did to them, they really do follow a pattern.

And the more they obsess, if they have a few friends they can keep around to be their chorus of approval, the obsession simply snowballs.

This person, who I too ignored, thinking he could not keep up the bizarre harrassment of me, and then my friends, really did make stalking me his life’s purpose, and doing anything he could to look as good as possible in other people’s eyes though..

A very typical trait most stalkers have, esp. if they are very intelligent,, is to attempt to gain access to any and everyone you are friends with, work with, pretty much anyone you know. If they are not very close with your friends or co-workers, they seem to be able to find ways to get the ear of many a person. Stories the person crafted and perfected in their head are told, in a very sneaky way.

He never outright called me names, etc., he instead made enough strange insinuations of all types to many people I know.

I think he knew he could at least get a few people to wonder something he said must be true, if at different times a few people eventually discussed what “they had heard”.

If the stalker can get a little bit of negative chatter to start up behind your back, he or she stands a better chance of not being outed immediately, when they unleash what will always be another psychotic stage act. But they get worse.

I too, after talking to doctors, filing a police report, and still keeping close with Federal investigators, was so stressed, became paranoid, and started forgetting to check certain personal belongings and couldn’t keep a vigil up of incessantly checking websites to make sure he hadn’t written any weird stuff, checking in with every person I know to get updates on his contact attempts, and also to make sure he had not started bothering them.

I too apologize this is pretty abstract, but he has really gone over the top; when i last spoke to him, i told him he had serious mental issues and needed to seek help immediately. the next day i had five or six people call me asking if i was ok, because my “nice co-worker” expressed his concern that i was in denial about having a serious medical condition, and “i had become very angry and defensive when he told me”, so he asked my friends and co-workers to “look out for me and be careful too.”

They are very cunning, manipulative people I have learned, and the stalker, since they spend so much time obsessing over this incorrect perception that they were wronged unjustly, or cannot believe that a man or woman they fancy does not have any interest in them.

Another characteristic I found was that my wonderful stalker, before he really started getting bad, seemed unable to deal with any criticsm, and hung around the same few people, who would listen to him ramble on and on about his gazillion projects, that were going to be the “next big thing.

or, as he put it also, “my art is necessary! i am a storyteller for the people, and people need to hear my words and works!”

when someone cannot deal with anyone who has different opinions than them, and throws these strange quiet temper tantrums almost because someone isn’t excited about the same things that they are, run like the wind…this is another delusion, and even though we know deep down they feel horrible about themselves, the stalker tends to build a fantasy world and believe that they are righteous, incredible people, and if someone does “wrong” them, that person is crazy in their own muddled mind.

i never thought i would see the day where i would be pondering things like this, but you do have to educate yourselves about stalkers, because they are able to turn innocent people’s lives upside down, and God-forbid, have the capability to physically harm or kill someone – and I pray that never happens to any of you or myself.

Stalkers really do have such noticeable patterns and ways of acting out; again, reading your posts, I get chills, because everything that you guys had done to you, how it was done (and it doesn’t matter if it is a male or female), I too was on the receiving end of the same.

My property was trashed also, and I was physically attacked eventually coming home after a long, late day of work.

When you look at all of our stories, which we know are much more traumatic than we care to write here, the fact that there of millions of others who suffer in silence, is so frustrating.

It is so necessary to have some way to better trace folks on the internet; I am the first one to worry about a loss of freedom of speech, but I worry much more about the loss of people’s happiness, and worry much more about the loss of people’s lives, having to live in fear, confusion, and stay in this almost cat-like state of readiness to fend off what sick thing the very clever stalker will try next.

And I really worry about what is too often the end result of a stalking, the loss of someone’s life physically as well.

I love(d) the Internet – those of us who use it for the reasons it was meant for, learning, reading, sharing cultures, shopping, writing, listening to music, all the simple conveniences it provides for us, tend to be the ones who are most vulnerable.

I realized I have to be less open with people, and it’s unfortunate, because you don’t want to start mistrusting everyone.

Most people are good people, but the Internet does give the stalker an immense amount of new ways to find out so much of your personal information, twist your words, try to do things that they think will hopeffully embarass you (since they are also incredibly obsessed with what others think about them, they assume that we will bristle, when most of us could care less about foolish posts someone decides to put up somewhere – everyone seems to have a couple of freaks post garbage on their myspace page for instance.

Knowing these common traits though, if one can see someone they know is acting like this, at least by educating others as to our experiences and what we know, the next stalking victim may be able to lockdown his or her personal info, and take measures that innocently leave them open to the evil things that the stalker will do.

Wow, wrote more than I thought, but if more of us continue to be vigilent in putting our posts up, hopefully this will get others thinking, and realize this is (and is often accompanied by) the fastet growing crime, right alongside Identity Theft.

Be careful with where you leave your personal belonging too; since having someone steal our personal banking and identification information, then going on to steal information via our PC’s, and basically have a free for all, is the farthest thing from our minds, there are millions of people out there who think about it every second of their lives.

Have your PC’s scanned often – be careful for programs are free, and can take snapshots of your computer screen, take “clipmarks” from your computer screen, and the worst, a program that is simply sent via an open port or e-mail, that allows the stalker/hacker access to your pc remotely; they can change your e-mails, your documents, and can send and receive e-mail from your IP address.

the program found on my PC was called “Illusix”, and I know Mozilla Firefox has “Clipmarks” and “Snapshot Taker” (don’t have the exact name in front of me) as Free Add-Ons for browsers!!!

These dangerous people can do ANYTHING to you if they can get sometype of program like that on your PC; unlike Spware that loggs your keys, I was told by Federal IT experts that it is written into the code, so can just run.

I am sorry, but the potential harm these programs can do in the wrong hands really outweighs the need to have them available to anyone in the world…

Keep up on ways to safe on your PC; basically, we just have to think of the worst, and try to take measures to remove as much as possible that a potential stalker WILL take, and use in any way they can to exact their “revenge” againt you.

And they don’t seem to get tired as I thought they would

Maybe if we speak to our local representative etc., we can even help start construct some type of course that is readily availble (but make sure we do all we can to let people know it exists) where we can bring in IT Security Experts to teach folks (and teens especially) what to do to stay safe.

At least we know we are not in this alone, and we are not crazy (I am quite sure you guys all thought you were going crazy at some point, I know after the mental torture and head-games, I wondered if I was functioning with all of MY own cylinders!)

Thanks for taking the time out to share your stories; I haven’t even been able to write about it, but by reading your posts, I was finally able to write this myself(very uneloquen & rambling I realize, I’m so sorry! I’m exhausted but I wanted to at least take this time out).

Stay safe and God bless – Victoria

I am glad to know that I am not alone. For obvious reasons (that my cyber stalker googles my name and will find this post) I have not included my name. Sorry about that. I have a lady that is in a similar business to me, and copies almost everything that I do. She has had her websites shut down several times due to copyright theft of artists whom I had contacted knowing that their work had been stolen. Yet she still copies every style or graphic that I design, and steals artwork from others to claim as her own pieces.

At first she was sending e-mails and messages (unreplied to by me), almost every day. Very malicious and horrid e-mails, even going as far as to attack my children with her words who are under the age of 4 years. I filed a police report and it momentarily stopped but continues now. Everytime she finds a place where my website is listed and there is option to comment, she does. I have a website tracker now, and I have been keeping track of her IP address. Since the beginning of Jan 1/08 (it is now the 18 of Jan) she has frequented my website more then 130 times. It tells me that she googles my name almost every single day. What can a person do about this? It is not outwardly threatening, but I feel almost in danger, like this online obsession of hers could carry over into reality at any time, putting my children and I in danger. And just to clarify, this person is of personal knowledge to me, but I do not know her on a personal level, and there are no reasons I can possibly think of that I have done to make her act this way.

She has a habit of writing blogs that are sexual in nature and then when she is sure that her post are on Google she will delete the blog and open another one.

This one is Susan Newton> http://suzispeaks.blogspot.com/

She likes to go around and say nasty things to people and then go back and claim, “My name is being hijacked, it’s all tarquin doing” and then writes it on her site as if she has, “Caught him, here is his IP” and then makes up imaginary emails. If you read her blog, trust me, she deletes most of the hate against me after she is sure it’s on Google.

They both try to outdo each other to see who creates the most hate.
I have contacted the Police and the FBI and they say, “It’s two old ladies, no big deal.” They are not hip to internet stalking yet.

This has been going on for over a year now. They both call my landlord and say stuff like, “we are coing to kill him.” and my landlord goes to the local police and they say, “Call us when you see a gun.”

So what do you suggest I do? It has been a year. I have tried everything to stop them. They don’t stop. they are two lonely old women who have nothing better to do

Stay safe, fellow bloggers. Here’s a case study & advice from a person that knows….