Cyberstalking:the technology of hate

This article discusses the emergence of cyberstalking as a means of victimising individuals and minority groups. However, rather than focusing on the activities of far-right groups, we discuss how technology can encourage individuals to harass others. The central argument made is that technology both enables and invites participation in criminal or antisocial behaviour from individuals who would not normally take part in such activities. One way in which this can be explained is by suggesting that some of the social and technological characteristics of the Internet act together in order to lower inhibitions and establish new norms. For instance, the anonymity offered by the Internet enables people to participate in activities such as encouraging violence against others with little fear of retaliation. In addition, by allowing a cyberstalker to harm another person at a distance, the victim is effectively depersonalised. In this way it can be argued that some of those who sympathise with the goals of far-right organisations may be reluctant to act in the offline world but more willing to act in the online world.

The internet:a discussion of some new and emerging threats to young people

The Internet poses a number of threats to the safety of young people. Using numerous examples, this article discusses a wide range of such threats, including: cyberstalking; the 'grooming' of potential victims of sexual abuse; a new 'wish list' scene (where teenagers encourage contact with potential abusers); the creation and distribution of child pornography; and the emergence of services that create child pornography to order. It is suggested that the latter has provided individuals with the ability to inflict sexual abuse on young people from a distance, an act the authors have termed virtual sex tourism. The final section of the article suggests that paedophiles and pornographers have been quick to adopt new technology as a means of concealing their activities. The article concludes by warning of the danger of overestimating or underestimating the threats described.

Cyberstalking:a new challenge for criminal law

Cyberstalking has recently emerged as a new and growing problem and is an area that will probably receive a higher profile within criminal law as more cases reach court (see Griffiths, 1999; Griffiths, Rogers and Sparrow, 1998; Bojic and McFarlane, 2002a; 2002b). For the purposes of this article we define cyberstalking as the use of information and communications technology (in particular the Internet) in order to harass individuals. Such harassment may include actions such as the transmission of offensive e-mail messages, identity theft and damage to data or equipment. Whilst a more comprehensive definition has been presented elsewhere (Bocij and McFarlane, 2002), it is hoped that the definition here is sufficient for those unfamiliar with this field. The stereotypical stalker conjures up images of someone harassing a victim who is the object of their affection. However, not all stalking incidents are motivated by unrequited love. Stalking can also be motivated by hate, a need for revenge, a need for power and/or racism. Similarly, cyberstalking can involve acts that begin with the issuing of threats and end in physical assault. We also make distinctions between conventional stalking and cyberstalking. Whilst some may view cyberstalking as an extension of conventional stalking, we believe cyberstalking should be regarded as an entirely new form of deviant behaviour. It is not surprising that cyberstalking is sometimes thought of as a trivial problem. A number of writers and researchers have suggested that cyberstalking and associated activities are of little genuine concern. Koch (2000), for example, goes as far as accusing those interested in cyberstalking as promoting hysteria over a problem that may be minuscule or even imaginary. The impression gained is that cyberstalking represents a relatively small problem where victims seldom suffer any real harm. Whilst there are no genuinely reliable statistics that can be used to determine how common cyberstalking incidents are, a great deal of evidence is available to show that cyberstalking is a significant and growing problem (Griffiths et al, 1998). For instance, CyberAngels (a well-known Internet safety organization) receives some 500 complaints of cyberstalking each day, of which up to 100 represent legitimate cases (Dean, 2000). Another Internet safety organization (Working to Halt Online Abuse) reports receiving an average of 100 cases per week (WHOA, 2001). To highlight the types of cyberstalking behaviours that take place and some of the major issues facing criminal law, we briefly examine four high profile cases of cyberstalking (adapted from Bocij and MacFarlane, 2002b).

Cyberstalking:genuine problem or public hysteria?

Case studies which provide evidence of growing problem of cyberstalking and illustrate different ways in which victims suffer, and consideration of whether media has exaggerated problem of cyberstalking.

Topological Dichotomy and Unconditional Convergence

In this paper, we give a criterion for unconditional convergence with respect to some summability methods, dealing with the topological size of the set of choices of sign providing convergence. We obtain similar results for boundedness. In particular, quasi-sure unconditional convergence implies unconditional convergence.

The Point of Continuity Property: Descriptive Complexity and Ordinal Index

∗ Supported by D.G.I.C.Y.T. Project No. PB93-1142

Equisummability Theorems for Laguerre Series

Here we prove results about Riesz summability of classical Laguerre series, locally uniformly or on the Lebesgue set of the function f such that (∫(1 + x)^(mp) |f(x)|^p dx )^(1/p) < ∞, for some p and m satisfying 1 ≤ p ≤ ∞, −∞ < m < ∞.

Radon Measures on Banach Spaces with their Weak Topologies

The main concern of this paper is to present some improvements to results on the existence or non-existence of countably additive Borel measures that are not Radon measures on Banach spaces taken with their weak topologies, on the standard axioms (ZFC) of set-theory. However, to put the results in perspective we shall need to say something about consistency results concerning measurable cardinals.

Adequate Compacta which are Gul’ko or Talagrand

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 54H05, 03E15, 46B26

Stochastic Optimization in Robust Statistic

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 62J05, 62G35

Lp extremal polynomials. Results and perspectives

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 30C40, 30D50, 30E10, 30E15, 42C05.

On some Extremal Problems of Landau

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: Primary: 42A05. Secondary: 42A82, 11N05.