Stalkers are Giving Hackers a Bad Name
An open letter to Anonymous and a cry for help from the Cyberstalked.
Dear Anonymous,
We are the Cyberstalked. We need your help. We are the collateral damage of a perverted interpretation of privacy rights, big data, the government, monolithic megacorporations owning everything about us and our lives, dangerous human predators AND a broken criminal justice system. Our lives have been destroyed. We are terrorized at will, shunned and left without recourse or hope. Sometimes we are even driven to suicide. There's only so long someone can stand against those in power along with intense global defamation, extortion, ruined careers, relationships, finances, reputation, lost children and broken minds. The body follows suit soon thereafter and we break.
We are mostly women and children. We are targeted because we are kind, generous, empathetic, gentle and trusting individuals. We embody the traits the human race needs the most right now. But the trauma we are enduring is sucking the life right out of us. No one understands what's going on and they blame us--and they blame you, the hackers of the world. The two groups that are actually not responsible. If those of us with empathy are lost to the disordered souls without it, the human race is doomed. We are calling upon you to help us in our fight.
Until now, we have not had a voice. We have not stood a chance.
Most humans on a good day are generally unprepared for a narcissistic stalker in a position of power with psychopathology, a paranoid disorder and access to military grade technology; this is definitely not our fault. There's no way to see it coming. It's not a lesson we need to learn or something we can fix by making stronger passwords. All these guys need to destroy our lives is to connect to our wifi.
Then, they quickly start to control our lives, based on their insane agenda. The stupid megacompanies and agencies designed--no mandated--to help us simply won't. They won't even give us our own data; they will only give it to the police, who won't request it because it doesn't mean anything to them. We don't want the police having our account information! We want the right to our own information! We are not even allowed to do our own investigations on our own accounts so that we can figure out how we're being hacked, and thereby stalked.
We are denied justice, retribution, revenge, compensation and even compassion. The ease with which a disordered individual can destroy someone's life using Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is alarming. The fuckwits in charge 1) know and 2) don't care. The amount of psychological trauma an iPredator can inflict on an unwitting victim in a short amount of time is extreme. Never before in human evolution has our consciousness needed to wage this type of battle. It is unprecedented and becomes the perfect storm for the demise of us all.
When someone reports cyberstalking, they get the standard advice any literate internet citizen already knows: change your passwords and don't take candy from strangers. Regular "people" can't just "get" cyber security training. It is only offered to corporations and at great expense. The level of OpSec needed in today's world is frankly impossible for most of us to comprehend and everyone is so specialized that they're missing the big picture. Stalkers don't want to hack into our bank accounts to steal our money. That would be fraud. They're not breaking into the bank--they're breaking into us. When my cyber stalker messes around with my bank account and charges my stolen credit cards, it's a reminder that I can only pay the rent because he allows me to, that he knows where I live and that he could end my life at any moment. When he signs me up for burial insurance and home security systems it's not just spam. It's a death threat and a reminder that he could break into my home at any time. He does it to terrorize me. The only advice I have received is to "not let it bother me," and "don't use the internet."
Security companies sell us expensive subscriptions to software that doesn't even scan for stalkerware, spyware or any kind of ware but they don't tell us. The police treat our devices like it's 1989; they're only interested in hardware, not software. They tell us that we're crazy, that none of this is possible and wow, aren't we special for someone to be spending so much time, energy and money on us? We should, perhaps, be grateful.
It's not our phones that are being compromised, it's our accounts and our lives. It's because we trusted our boyfriend or husband or other intimate partner. It's because all you need these days to destroy someone's life is their phone number and malicious intent.
In general, everyone points the fingers at hackers, but it's not hackers. It's stalkers that are doing sick things like this. Stalkers are a very different type of animal and they're giving hackers a bad name.
iPredators, which include cyberstalkers, do everything they can to invade not only our privacy but our lives, our homes, our conversations and even our thoughts because they are mentally ill and fixated on controlling us. They steal, manipulate and control our data, information and access to our accounts. We are isolated and cut off from support; some of us can't even call 911. We are being censored, bullied, intimidated and driven offline--and it's personal. Four of out five cyberstalking victims know the assailant in real life.
In a way, cyberstalkers are the opposite of hackers. If you're an ethical hacktivist, I would like to think that cyberstalkers would seem...dirty. Some of these iPredators deliberately try to drive us to suicide. Some victims succumb because they just can't take it anymore and they can't make it stop. We need hackers to come to our aid. We are defenseless. Controlling the movements, finances and interactions of another human being is against the law everywhere unless you birthed that human yourself. And even then, there is a statute of limitations.
I've been trying to get this information online for five years to help other people because I believe in the free flow of information, just like you. Five years. I'm a journalist. Any type of censorship rubs me the wrong way and there is no part of my being that can ever accept being silenced.
We are vulnerable because we grew up analog. We are vulnerable because we are inexperienced. We are vulnerable because we are empathetic, generous, trusting individuals. We are vulnerable because we let corporations buy us and have been lulled into complacency by lies, agreements, warranties and guarantees. I found out an internet service provider (Telus) now also owns my medical records. They will give copies of them to Asia for "training purposes" but they won't allow me to have a list of my interactions with the company so I can see if my phone number was ported out. We, like the rest of the world, are vulnerable because we are completely unprepared for the absolute obliteration of our mental health when we have to rely on internet and communication technology for every aspect of our life and our access to it is deliberately and suddenly cut off. I have a really big problem with everyone else being allowed to have my information except for me. And I have an even bigger problem watching others who may not be as strong as I am trying to fight this fight on their own.
We are good people. We deserve to be taught how to defend ourselves. I have barely survived two cyber assassination attempts in the last year. We need weapons in this fight. We are completely unarmed.
We're begging you to help us repair some of the damage the cyberstalkers and other dangerous iPredators are doing to a vulnerable population and teach self-defense classes. Cybersecurity resources available to your general midwestern housewife consist of changing your passwords. We just can't find anyone who can stay on top of the technology readily available to online predators. IT and cyber specialists have no idea how to stay safe from a stalker online. They only know how to keep us safe from you.
Oh, the irony. Hackers are the only ones that can save this world.
We really need your help. The criminal's right to privacy and their word trumps ours every time and the imbalance can be fatal. I cannot hear of another suicide due to criminal harassment, which includes cyberstalking, cyber bullying, defamation, extortion, blackmail and hate crimes. It is totally preventable. We believe in the free flow of information and we also believe in our right to life, liberty and justice. We believe in humanity and we really want to believe that we're all going to make it.
Sincerely,
The Cyberstalked
Vancouver Island, Canada
#hacktivism #ethicalhacking #anonymous #cybersecurity #hackersforgood #cyberethics #survivorvoices #protectthevulnerable #justiceforvictims #hackthesystem #NoMoreCyberAbuse
Hey! I'm an ethical hacker! How do I help?
We're glad you asked. There are a lot of ways you can help.
1. Help Take Down the For-Profit Defamation Industry
No one learns about the for-profit defamation industry until they've been defamed online. Many of us who commit suicide are victims of defamation first, like Rehtaeh Parsons. The for-profit defamation industry is an abomination and lawyers are simply part of the chain. This corrupt industry is a giant ouroboros--continually devouring itself and being reborn from itself--and it's destroying entire family's livelihoods before taking out the victims.
2. Become a Watch Dog/Security Guard
We need hackers to keep an eye out for us. "Identity theft protection" and "dark web monitoring" is a freakin' joke. My identity got stolen AND my info was all over the dark web with full protection from Norton Security. They just deleted my account, password vault and all, and won't answer my calls. I'm still paying for the account, just for fun. I think an agency of ethical hackers who also fancy themselves private investigators, or who already may be, would be fabulous. I would hire you in a second. I simply need to know if I'm being sold as a sex slave on the dark web. I could honestly care less if my email address is compromised—imma just assume it is because WTF is an MFA—and obviously the identity service and their guarantee amounts to absolutely nothing in the end.
I bet you guys would make amazing watchdogs. And I bet you'd probably look sideways if I asked you to reverse stalk my stalker for me. Not sayin' I am, but it sure is nice to have someone on your team who knows how to get a little dirty. The iPredators certainly aren't pulling any punches.
3. Reverse Stalk a Stalker
Depending on your ethics, maybe you'd like to reverse stalk a stalker. For research purposes, of course. Find out more about online predator typology here. We need people who understand the nature of stalking, the implications when technology is involved and who can anticipate trends in technology and stalkerware to teach us what to do, step by step, for dummies style. If you already do this, please let us know and we will include you in our resources. Otherwise, we'd love to host your work if you're looking for a platform or if you'd rather stay...anonymous.
4. Teach Us Self-Defense and Let the Information Flow
Enough said. Thank you for reading. We hope you'll consider joining the fight. Send me a private message or drop some fire in the comments if you’d like to come on board.