With all the computer geeks employed by the NSA, the deputy director of the FBI wasn’t surprised that this case was quickly boiling down to attention. While most of these people could be brilliant at manipulating data or analyzing intel, many of them lacked the rudimentary social skills necessary to properly function in the real world. They’d rather hack sites, write code, or play video games in their off time than go out in the world and interact with other human beings. They served a vital role for the nation, especially with how rapidly technology was changing, but then something like this happened.
A lot of these people were ticking time bombs. It was only a matter of when, not if, they would explode, and then the results were anybody’s guess. It happened in one of two ways. Either the violence would manifest itself in a physical form such as a workplace shooting, or it would be more intellectual. The classic I’ll show them how much smarter I am betrayal was exactly what they were witnessing right now. It was one of the worst ways an employee who handled sensitive information could lash out, and it could prove just as deadly as if he had managed to smuggle in an automatic weapon and a backpack full of pipe bombs to take out as many of his superiors and coworkers as possible before turning the gun on himself.
This was an excerpt from something I was reading a few days ago, and I thought it was apt enough to certain circumstances and individuals that may usually amuse us while simultaneously shaking our heads, really wondering how pathetic people can get.
We're pretty aware of it, and while it hasn't really been addressed, here are some interesting tidbits from Wiks about what is known as "cyber bullying":
- Behaviors may include encouraging others to harass the victim and trying to affect a victim's online participation.
- Many cyberstalkers try to damage the reputation of their victim and turn other people against them.
- Cyberstalking (cyberstalking is a form of cyberbullying) may include false accusations, monitoring, making threats, identity theft, damage to data or equipment, the solicitation of minors for sex, or gathering information in order to harass.
- Cyberbullies may disclose victims' personal data (e.g. real name, home address, or workplace/schools) at websites or forums or may use impersonation, creating fake accounts, comments or sites posing as their target for the purpose of publishing material in their name that defames, discredits or ridicules them.
- A repeated pattern of such actions and harassment against a target by an adult constitutes cyberstalking.
- Among factors that motivate stalkers are:
- envy
- pathological obsession (professional or sexual)
- unemployment or failure with own job or life
- intention to intimidate and cause others to feel inferior
- the stalker is delusional and believes he/she "knows" the target
- the staker wants to instill fear in a person to justify his/her status
- belief they can get away with it (anonymity).
- National Workplace Bullying Advice Line theorizes that bullies harass victims in order to make up for inadequacies in their own lives.
- There are consequences of law in offline stalking and online stalking, and cyber-stalkers can be put in jail.
