Places to Get Help for Cyber Crimes, Such as Cyber Stalking, Identity Theft, Hacking, Child Pornography, and Internet Harassment
Note: I created this page quite some time ago and did not update it. It has become, surprisingly, one of the most commonly visited pages on this website. Many people seem to arrive here from search engines. I am going to try to update it with more information of use.
Update - Some General Tips:
If you are being harassed through email, configure your email program to show you the entire email header, so that you can see the IP address of the sender. Take the IP address of the sender, and go to the website below where you can use that to find that person's Internet Service Provider (ISP). You may want to contact that person's ISP. Usually they will have a TOS (terms of service) email address where you can forward them the messages your harasser is sending.
Don't ever open any email with an attachment on it from anybody who you do not trust. And some people would say, don't open any from people you do trust either. They are a common way that viruses are spread. Someone who is harassing you might try to send you an email that could be more dangerous than it looks. This can also be done without an attachment, but that is a lot more difficult for them to do.
Get a firewall. A place to download some for free is linked below. If you have never used a firewall before, they can be a little bit confusing. I will add some links to help with that in the future.
Learned from experience: generally responding to harassers makes the harassment continue, not lessen. You may wish to not respond to any message board posts, emails or other forms of harassment by communicating with the person harassing you, as it can be more effective to deal with the harassment using other methods.
Report them. You do not deserve to be harassed on the internet, just like women do not deserve sexual harassment on sidewalks. There is no reason to put up with this garbage. People can be reported to their email providers, to newsgroup or email list providers, to message board hosts, to their ISPs, to your email provider and to your ISP (as well as theirs) and if you do some more detective work you might find that you can locate where they actually are and report them to whoever owns the computer at that location (for instance, their college computer lab or their employer). I did report someone that way myself, as it was, in his case, necessary. It can be difficult, however, since many people who harass others online know more than the people they are harassing about how to spoof email addresses and ISPs so that they are much harder to track down. That is what the organizations listed below were listed here for, to help you.
Just because the law does not help you with dealing with a cyber stalker, does not mean you should simply put up with it. These cretins get away with their misogynistic cyber terrorizing of women very often because they are just excused as being "trolls". If someone is harassing you to the point that it bothers you, there is every reason to actually do something about it.
If you are concerned about your privacy and/or your personal safety, and all else fails, unfortunately you may have to start over with a new internet service provider yourself, if yours does not help you deal with the harassment adequately, and find one that takes its customers' privacy more seriously.
If you are using a message board, forum, usenet group, chat room, or email list, you can always use an alias. When you sign up for an internet email account, you can also always use an alias even though they will ask for your full name and address (you can use a fake address). Some women also choose to mark their identity as male, rather than female, to avoid harassment online. It is unfortunate that we have to go to these kinds of measures, but it is sometimes necessary.
A dial up modem is actually best as far as protecting your privacy goes. I learned this from someone at one of the organizations listed below.
If you see child pornography anywhere online, please do report that to one of the organizations listed below which handles reports of child pornography, and also consider reporting it to a law enforcement agency of some kind.
Women Halting Online Abuse an organization that helps women deal with cyber stalking and harassment. I highly recommend contacting them if you need assistance.
Cyber Angels an organization that helps people deal with cyber harassment, stalking, and child endangerment online with volunteer investigators
New: Identity Theft. Org is a site where you can find out exactly what to do right away if you have been a victim of identity theft, and learn more about how to protect yourself from identity theft. This site provides good advice.
The International Web Police (I never really have understood what these people do, but you can report internet crimes to them, and they will, generally respond and do some sort of investigation. They are called "police" but of course they are not an actual law enforcement agency, so how much power they have to actually help people, I don't know. But none of the other groups listed here have much power in that area either.)
Cyber Stalking Information from the National Center for Victims of Crime - United States (in some states cyber stalking is against the law, in others there is no such law written)
ARIN: Track down an ISP (internet service provider) here using IP addresses. The IP address can be found in the header of an email, if you are able to view the full email header.
Epcat International investigates abuse and child pornography. EPCAT is an excellent organization that does work to protect children and combat the exploitation of children worldwide.
ID Zap is a service that can help you protect your privacy online. You can use it, to some extent, for free. It is an anonymous browser, so that you can look at websites without leaving as many "tracks" behind as you might otherwise. There are ways to configure your computer to do this yourself, without needing an anonymous browser, but some people might find this service to be convenient and easy to use. There are other anonymous browsers, but I do not know of any that are free, anymore.
EPIC the Electronic Privacy Information Clearinghouse is an excellent resource that will tell you just about anything you need to know regarding protecting your privacy on the internet. If you have concerns about your privacy at all, or have been harassed, I highly recommend you visit this site.
Non-Technical PGP Information. Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is a method of encrypting email, and protecting your privacy. It does require some knowledge of how to use it, but once you learn how, you can download PGP software online for free and then use it with your email provider.
Hushmail is a free (though they also offer paid upgraded versions) service that provides internet email which can be encrypted. The catch to this is, in order to us Hushmail's encryption service, you must be sending email to another person using Hushmail.
Downloads.Com at Cnet is a good place to find free software which sometimes has users' ratings and reviews with it. There are several free firewalls you can find online, or some that are free for a temporary period of time. If you are concerned about anyone hacking into your computer or are already being harassed online, putting up a firewall is a very good idea to do right away. Some people use more than one firewall, for extra safety, though this is typically not recommended.
Another program you might want to download, which is also free is AdAware, and that can remove cookies and so-called "spyware" from your harddrive, that you pick up when you are browsing online. You can download AdAware at Downloads.com or Lavasoft. There are other programs similar to Adaware which you might like too.
