Translate

Monday, May 30, 2011

What To Say When Your Relative or Friend (or Even You) Are Unemployed:


Picture this: You walk into a get-together dinner and bump into your best friend. You haven’t seen her/him since last year. But you know s/he was laid off in August, because one of your friends told you.

So What do you say?
Or maybe you’re the unemployed one. Your cousin takes one look at you, says, “Hi! Warm weather for this time of the year” and then scurries off to help with the hors d’oeuvres.
What do you do? Avoid the topic for the next six hours?

Out with it, the experts advise. If you say nothing to acknowledge your unemployed friend’s situation, you’ll come off as heartless. The guest goes home wondering why no one cares enough to ask how they’re doing. It’s important for friends to say that they’re there, that they get it, it must be a very difficult time, and to offer support.

And if you’re seeking a job, realize your relatives might be feeling awkward. Also, they might have contacts that can help you. So open up. 

“People tend to quarantine off their family and friends from their job hunt,” says Anne Baber, co-author of Make Your Contacts Count. “It’s tied up in family dynamics of not talking about money. People need to get over that.”

Here, from Baber and John M McKee, a business life coach based in LA, are some good words to use at family gatherings when relatives (or you) are unemployed.

And if the Friend happens to be a family member, be concerned:

  • “Ask the same question in a couple of different ways to help people let down their guard. Start with ‘How are you?’ After you get a response on that, follow it up with, ‘How are you doing?’ When you get a response on that, say, ‘How’s it going?’ They sound like the same question, but if you look at them and use them in a sequence like that, you’ll get different answers. Some people might resent that, but generally I don’t find that. The first time, you’re just being polite, it’s pro forma. The second time you really are interested. The third time they’re going to tell you something.”-McKee
  • “I heard from Uncle Steve/ Aunt May that you haven’t been working. How are things going?”
  • “How can I help?” “Or be of assistance to you in this time of need?”
  • “Tell me about a time when you felt like you were really doing a super good job at your job, so I can imagine you in that kind of situation.” -Baber
  • “What is it that you enjoy doing?” Get-Together's are a great time to be self-reflective. Brainstorm all the ways that people could use their skills. Talk about an interesting dinner conversation!

For the job seeker:

  • Don’t skip dinner, even if you’re tempted to hibernate. Deal with the issue openly and honestly and take the support of the family. You might not get that anywhere else for the rest of the year.
  • “Every person your relatives know is a potential lead. The problem is that often relatives don’t really know what you do. They sort of have a job title attached to you. But they don’t really know what your skills are, what you’re really good at. So for the job seeker, the best thing to do is to come up with two stories that show you saving the day, serving the client, solving the problem. Come up with action stories that teach your relatives what you’re good at. Leave in your relatives’ minds a brilliant picture of you being successful.” -Baber
  • Take copies of your resume to the dinner, you never know, someone may be looking to hire or knows someone who is looking to hire. It's worth a shot.



-Birdy

Sunday, May 29, 2011

The Four Ways You Can Meet Wesley Snipes in Prison


It’s pretty rare to send A-list actors to the federal penitentiary, but that’s just where Wesley Snipes is headed next week, when he must report to prison to start serving a sentence for willful failure to file tax returns. Want to join him? You can, but it’s not easy. Run-of-the-mill tax cheating won’t get you a stint in the federal pen. You’ve got to go that extra mile. Here’s what to do.

You Can Shout: “Taxes are voluntary”
This little semantic battle began when some genius wrote in the 1040 instruction book that the U.S. tax system is based on “voluntary” compliance. It is. We also rely on “voluntary compliance” to get people to stop at traffic lights and show up at your mother’s for Thanksgiving dinner. No one has a gun to your head. You have free will. But if you get caught not paying taxes, zipping through stop lights or avoiding your family on major holidays, you know what’s going to happen and it’s not pretty. It’s even worse if you violate the rules loudly. Why? You might influence others. The IRS will fine you aggressively if you fail to file a return and pay your own taxes. But if you get caught shouting from the rooftops that taxes are voluntary, think: “Cuff him, Dano.” You’re going down.

Or You Can Claim that wages are not “income.”
This is a clever one: The argument is that wages are not taxable because there’s no gain. You’ve simply exchanged your time for their money. In the alternate universe where Tax Protestors live, these are called “time reimbursement transactions.” The 16th Amendment (which ushered in the U.S. tax system) only authorized taxes on “gain” or “profit,” they say. If that doesn’t work, they’ll claim that only foreign-source income is taxable. Or that “federal reserve notes” (we’d call that money) does not constitute taxable income because they’re not backed by gold anymore. Clever arguments, every one. If only the courts would agree. Alas. Income by another name (such as “time reimbursement”) is still income, according to Reese vs. U.S. and dozens of cases decided since then.

Play Amateur Historian
The history books say that the 16th Amendment was ratified on Feb. 3, 1913. But was it? You suspect conspiracy. Ohio wasn’t a state yet, you say. Sure, in Bowman vs. United States, it says that the Amendment that ushered in the U.S. tax system was properly ratified — despite the fact that Ohio’s status as a state (won in 1803) wasn’t “confirmed” until 1953. Admittedly later cases noted that two states (in addition to Ohio) joined the original 40 making the tax system undeniable. But you, amateur historian, remain unconvinced. Go ahead. Make your own history. But if you act on this belief — or encourage others to — expect to see some big guys in bad suits at your door with a warrant for your arrest.

Make the “Men In Black” Argument
Some people need to pay taxes, you allow, but you are not a “person” subject to that silly tax law. Are you contending that you are only visiting this planet until your spaceship can be repaired? Not necessarily. If you were Ruth Studley, you argued that you were not a taxpayer because you were “an absolute, freeborn and natural individual.” You go, girl. Incidentally, the IRS has a long and not-so-amusing treatise on its web page called “The Truth About Frivolous Tax Arguments.” It posted this hoping that reasonable people wouldn’t get taken in — and lured into serious tax trouble — by listening to numb skulls peddling imaginative tax theories.


-Birdy







Friday, May 27, 2011

10 Facts About Teen Dating Violence - Teen Dating Abuse Statistics


Girls as Young as 11 Report Incidents of Violence and Abuse in Relationships

Unhealthy relationship behaviors often start early and lead to a lifetime of abuse. That's according to Choose Respect, a national initiative to help adolescents and young teens age 11-14 form healthy relationships to prevent dating abuse.

Every student, parent and teacher needs to be aware of the prevalence of teen dating violence in the US. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that one in eleven adolescents is a victim of physical dating violence.

The following ten facts are from Choose Respect's "Get the Facts: Dating Abuse Statistics" and "About Choose Respect: Dating Abuse Fact Sheet":

  1. Each year approximately one in four adolescents reports verbal, physical, emotional or sexual abuse. 
     
  2. Approximately one in five adolescents reports being a victim of emotional abuse. 
     
  3. Approximately one in five high school girls has been physically or sexually abused by a dating partner. 
     
  4. Dating violence among their peers is reported by 54% of high school students. 
     
  5. One in three teens report knowing a friend or peer who has been physically hurt by his or her partner through violent actions which included hitting, punching, kicking, slapping, and/or choking. 
     
  6. Eighty percent of teens believe verbal abuse is a serious issue for their age group
     
  7. Nearly 80% of girls who have been victims of physical abuse in their dating relationships continue to date the abuser. 
     
  8. Nearly 20% of teen girls who have been in a relationship said that their boyfriend had threatened violence or self-harm in the event of a break-up. 
     
  9. Nearly 70% of young women who have been raped knew their rapist; the perpetrator was or had been a boyfriend, friend, or casual acquaintance. 
     
  10. The majority of teen dating abuse occurs in the home of one of the partners.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

10 Steps To Securing Firewalls



"The Clapco D29 is the most impenetrable lock on the market today. It has only one design flaw… the door…must be closed!" –Seinfeld (1990)
After installing an expensive alarm system in his apartment and then getting robbed, Jerry Seinfeld learned a valuable lesson: no matter how good the security system, if it isn't used correctly, it is completely ineffective. That lesson holds just as true when it comes to everyday computer users and their firewalls.


Most computers now come with a firewall built in, but despite this, the number of computers that are infected with viruses, worms and other types of malware grows by the day. One of the biggest reasons why firewalls are not doing their job, is because many of us have never taken the time to tweak our firewall to make it effective. This 10 step list will help introduce individuals and small business owners alike to some very simple ways that they can tweak, supplement, and support their firewall in order to keep their computer and private information as secure as possible.

1. INSTALL SP2 ONTO YOUR WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEM

Before you can start supporting or tweaking your firewall, it is important to make sure you actually have one installed. Surprisingly, a large number of individuals who believe they are already protected, have not even taken the most basic step of installing a free firewall.
If you are using Microsoft's Windows XP and just assumed that you were protected by a built-in firewall, you may be wrong. In fact, the standard version of Microsoft's Windows XP is notoriously vulnerable to worms and viruses precisely because it has no substantial built-in firewall. In response to the criticisms, Microsoft created an all-in-one patch (or down-loadable add-on) to Windows XP called SP2. By downloading and installing SP2 onto your computer, you will automatically be equipped with Windows Security Center, Windows Firewall, a Pop-up blocker for Internet Explorer, an Email virus scanner for Outlook Express, and a Wireless Network Security system.
Given the standard version of Windows XP's notorious weaknesses against worms and viruses, it is a necessary first step for all individual and small business users who use Windows XP to download the all-in-one patch. Make sure, however, to download the patch directly from Microsoft, as clever spammers often offer a version on their own sites which are full of hidden viruses.
For those individuals that haven't been using any sort of firewall whatsoever, having SP2 in place is a big step up. Unfortunately, however, the Windows Firewall will only block attacks that come from the outside, it just presumes that anything you send out is safe. But, if you have been connecting your computer to the internet without a firewall in the past, that assumption is probably wrong. Your computers may already be infected and you simply have no idea. To deal with this problem you will need to install a 'bidirectional' third-party firewall. For individuals, there are some good free ones available, including Zone Labs' ZoneAlarm. If Zone Alarm does not fit your needs, there are dozens of other options. Check out PC World's firewall review for a few more ideas.
Now that we have made sure that you actually have a firewall in place, it is time to start optimizing it.


2. ENABLE AUTO UPDATES FOR THE FIREWALL.

New viruses, worms and other forms of malware are created daily, so it is important that once a firewall is installed in your personal computer or across your company's computers, you develop a plan to regularly check for and install new patches for your firewall. While normally it is a terrible idea to let your computer download anything without your approval, when it comes to fighting viruses, there is a whole new set of rules. Because every small business is strapped for time, the only reliable means of ensuring that your business's firewalls remain up to date is to setup auto-updates. Once automatic updates are set up, your firewall will upload the newest patches each time you have them scheduled or each time you turn off your computer. These updates will enable to firewall to protect your computer against any new viruses, worms Trojan horses, or bugs that have been created since the program was last updated.
If you are using the default Windows XP firewall that you downloaded with the SP2 patch, then you should simply enable Windows Automatic Updates. This is a program for Windows that will actually check to see what patches you need, and then suggest that you download them. Once you are current, the program will frequently check for new updates and when they are created, it will wait for a time when your computer is idle, so as not to interrupt your work, and automatically download the new patch. The setup for Automatic Updates is a simple step-by-step process that will not take more than 15 minutes to complete, even fore the most technically disinclined.
If you decided to opt for greater protection and downloaded or purchased a 'bidirectional' firewall you can still setup automatic updates, and typically the process is very straightforward. If you selected the free version of Zone Alarm, the setup instructions are here, otherwise you will simply need to check the manufacturer’s website for instructions on how to setup auto updates for your firewall.


3. TWEAKING THE SETTINGS TO YOUR USAGE

Firewall settings are designed with the median user in mind. The problem is, none of us is that mythical 'median' user, so almost everyone will benefit from tweaking the settings on their firewall.
One of the most common tweaks is the timing of automatic updates. You enabled automatic updates to take place because they will keep your firewall updated all the time. But that can only happen if the 'automatic update' actually happens. For most firewalls the automatic update is timed to start each night at 3 a.m. If you typically have your computer off and disconnected from the internet at that time, however, your firewall will never update. So, make sure to schedule your updates for a time when the computer is going to be on and connected, but not in heavy use. If you cannot come up with a time that works for your home or business, just select an option that the computer notify you when an update is ready, and then you can decide pick a convenient time that day.
At work, most of us are focused on getting the job done in the quickest way possible. So if your employees are having trouble with a pop-up blocker (e.g. it is blocking pop-ups they need to sign in or fill out a form) often they will just disable the pop-up blocker rather than spending the time to whitelist that site. Very soon, you will find that all the computers in your company now have disabled pop-up blockers, and as a result your firewall has to filter a lot more bad content, and ultimately your computer is less secure. Rather than have that happen, make sure to tweak your firewall to allow exceptions, by listing all the trusted sites that your employees will need to frequently visit throughout their workday. So for instance, if your employees constantly need to sign in to the company email provider, which uses a pop-up, make sure that that site is listed in your 'trusted sites' list so that pop-ups can appear. Just adding the five or ten sites that your employees visit most frequently to the exceptions list, will stop them from disabling that pop-up blocker, and keep your whole network safer.
If you read a lot of newsletters, you may quickly find that after having installed SP2, those newsletters look a lot less pretty. That is because SP2 and other firewalls often block tiny images called 'web bugs' that are placed in newsletters in order to send to the creator information about how much a person is reading of the newsletter, etc. So if you want to view your newsletters in their original form and do not mind the privacy trade-off, you may want to allow the display of these image links in e-mail messages (usually entitled the 'HTML e-mail' option).
For a hacker to be effective, he or she needs a way to get information on and off your computer without you knowing. One of the most common ways they do this is by hiding their malware inside of a legitimate program, and then directing that legitimate program to establish a connection between your computer and the internet. UN-tweaked firewalls that are left to their default settings can often do little to prevent this, as the firewall does not know which programs need to send and receive messages from the internet and which do not. But, by tweaking the settings of your firewall, you can restrict those of your programs that do not need to send and receive information from the internet from doing so. One of the most common steps is to restrict your printer from having access to anything beyond the local network level. That way, a virus will not be able to embed itself into your printer software and send and receive information through that connection. For those programs that do require internet access, you should consider whether they need to both send and receive information, or whether they might simply send information. If that is the case, you can toggle your settings so that that program is restricted to sending outgoing information, but cannot receive incoming information. While this offers less protection than a total block, it is certainly better than the default firewall setting.

4. KEEPING SETTINGS CONSISTENT ACROSS NETWORKS

In most companies and homes, individual users access the internet and use their computers in wildly different ways. Because of these different uses, many individuals and small companies decide to setup the individual firewalls within a network differently according to the usage habits of that individual. For example, if a person accesses a certain site more than the other users, he might authorize that site to show pop-ups by adding it to his ‘trusted site’ list. And even more commonly, an individual employee might decide to toggle their firewall settings to permit Instant Messenger to function without hindrance.
While these sorts of individualized tweaks can seem harmless, in fact they create different attack surfaces for each computer throughout the network, so that when a worm or other malicious program eventually succeeds in breaching the firewall, it is far more difficult to tell where the firewall vulnerability is located, and thus what change needs to be made to close up the weakness. This same reasoning also requires that the firewall administrator not permit different firewall settings for each connection, or profile, on the computer. Just as individualized firewall settings on different computers make it difficult to identify where the firewall weakness is, having different settings for different users within the same computer make the task of identification nearly impossible.


5. ADD MULTIPLE LAYERS TO YOUR PC AND SECURITY SYSTEM.



An easy way to think about a firewall, is that it is a program that creates a sort of shell around your computer that lets certain types of authorized information pass through it, while identifying and blocking out other types of code or information that it recognizes as bad. But for all their advancements, firewalls are and will always be defensive in nature. That means, that a firewall can only block malware that humans have coded it to recognize as bad, and that code can only be created for viruses that already exist and have already infected some computers.
Because of the inherent defensive nature of firewalls, they are always fighting an uphill battle against hackers who are creating new sorts of malware. Thus, to help put a firewall on equal footing, it must always be supplemented with an aggressive anti-virus program. Unlike a firewall which tries to form a shell around your computer, an anti-virus program scans information that has gotten through the firewall and quarantines then eliminates the malware that it finds. That way, even if a new virus is quick enough to sneak past your firewall, it will eventually be rooted out by your anti-virus software, once your software is updated to recognize the new virus.
In addition to an anti-virus program, you should also add a pop-up blocker and spam-blocking software to your company's computers. While these two firewall supplements will not directly fight against attacks by viruses, worms, and trojan horses, they will limit the number of these types of malware that your computer faces, and thus help make your firewall more effective overall.
If you use Internet Explorer as your Web browser, the SP2 patch you already downloaded includes a pop up blocker and spam blocker standard. But because many viruses are designed specifically for Internet Explorer, it is safer for you or your company to begin using an alternative internet browser such as Firefox. Firefox comes with a built-in pop-up blocker and spam blocker that are usually regarded as better than most off the shelf third party alternatives. So if you decide to go this route, you won't need add-on spyware or spam blocker protection.
But if you decide to use an internet browser besides Internet Explorer or Firefox, it may not come with a strong pop-up and spam blocker. This means that you will need to download spam and spyware blocking software because the standard version included with the SP2 patch is only compatible with Internet Explorer. Microsoft offers a free program entitled Windows Defender, which will alerts you if viruses, Trojan horses, or worms try to enter your computer and stop them. If you want protection beyond the off the shelf freebie version, you should consider a customized security solution.
By supplementing your firewall with the essential add-ons like a spam blocker, spyware blocker, and of course, an anti-virus program, you add valuable layers to your malware protection and better ensure that your computer remains malware free.


6. USE STRONG PASSWORDS

An effective firewall will shield out almost every attack by a hacker to gain access to your computer. No matter how effective a firewall, however, it can be rendered useless if a hacker is able to gain access to your sensitive data through direct means. For example, anyone can access your wireless network if they have the correct WEP encryption key. Similarly, a hacker need not breach your firewall to gain your banking information, if he or she can instead just guess your password. For these reasons, an essential part of supporting the effectiveness of your firewall is to use strong passwords.
Using a strong password requires four things:
1. Length: One of the simplest methods that hackers use to obtain sensitive information is to simply start guessing. The longer a password the more letter and number combinations a hacker will have to try before he or she can guess a password. Even with a computer program designed specifically for trying every letter and number combination, most hackers are quickly frustrated by longer passwords.
2. Structure: Hackers often use a password stealing method in which a computer program repeatedly tries various combinations of words out of a dictionary to guess a password. Consequently, your password should never be a single word found in a dictionary, nor should it be a combination of two or three words. Instead, your password should always involve either fake words or word and number combinations.
3. Distinctness: Around the house, no one uses just one key to open the garage, backdoor, front door, the car, and their safe. Just as in the physical world, you should never use the same password for all of your access codes. If a single password holds the key to all your bank accounts, social security number, personal emails, and work intranet, then a single correct guess by a hacker will leave you and your company irreparably harmed.
  1. Frequency: Nobody is perfect, and you should build that assumption in when you consider how often you need to change your password. Eventually your password information will leak out to someone. But as long as you change your password frequently enough, you can minimize the chance that when the information leaks out, it will still be relevant. The frequency with which you change your password will depend upon how important the information it protects is, but under no circumstances should you go more than six months without changing a password.

7. A 128-BIT WEP ENCRYPTION ON YOUR WIRELESS NETWORK

No one would consider leaving a box of keys to the office laying right out side the office doors. Yet many individuals and small companies do just that when they fail to encrypt or password protect their office's wireless network. With an unencrypted network, anybody can access your network and thus access your company's computers. Even beginner hackers can then use this access to steal company information like credit card numbers and passwords, or barrage your computer with viruses and worms since they have essentially circumvented your network firewall.
While big companies need to undertake major steps to protect their wireless networks, for homes and smaller companies, WEP encryption is an easy and good solution. The most common WEP encryption is a 128-bit encryption, however, encryptions can range anywhere from 40-bit to 152-bit. Practically speaking, the higher the number encryption, the longer the password required to access your wireless network, and thus the harder to hack into. But if you are worried about performance and speed, there is very little difference in security between a 64-bit and a 128-bit encryption, and a 64-bit encryption will require slightly less time to log in to.
Setting up a wifi encryption is very easy to do, and the technology to encrypt comes standard on almost every commercially available wireless router. If you have not purchased a wireless router, you should consider D-Link and Linksys, two cheap but reliable systems. If you already have a wifi system that is not yet encrypted, just check the website of the manufacturer for your particular models instructions. Once the WEP is in place, the network is sealed and only users with the correct WEP can use the network.


8. STANDBY IS YOUR PC'S BEST FRIEND
A hacker can only get to your computer remotely if it is accessible to him or her. That is to say, a hacker cannot remotely place a Trojan horse onto a computer that is not connected to the Internet. Consequently, one of the easiest ways to reduce your vulnerability to hackers and thus supplement your firewall's efforts to keep your computer malware free, is to shut down or change over to standby mode whenever you are not actively using your computer.
Remember that no matter how strong you make a firewall or how frequently you update it, a firewall can never provide perfect protection against malware. But by shutting the computer down each night and setting the computer to standby mode when not in use, you can cut your potential exposure to malware like viruses and Trojan horses by more than half.

9. TEST #1: LOOKING FOR LEAKS

Having tweaked and strengthened your firewall by installing certain software and taking certain preventative steps, you should now feel reasonably secure that your computer's firewall and overall safety are reasonably strong. But the only way you will actually know if your firewall is working well is if you do not get infected with malware. Since that trial by fire method of testing can be so dangerous, however, a safe alternative is to undergo firewall leak testing. These firewall leak tests will actually try to bypass your personal firewall and in so doing actually test the firewall's software filtering, and outbound filtering capabilities. Because each firewall link test uses slightly different techniques to try to circumvent your firewall (just like different malware will use different techniques), it is helpful to run a variety of different leak tests in order to ensure that your firewall makes the grade. There are a number of free online versions of firewall leak tests, including Gkweb's Firewall Leak Tester and Gibson Research Corporation's LeakTest.

10. TEST #2: CHECKING THE PORTS

A port is not just a word for the socket that you plug your mouse or keyboard into. Rather, a port also refers to a special number in a data packet that helps route data to and from a particular program running on your computer. Ports can either be open, closed, or filtered. When a port is open, a hacker will be able to use that opening to gain easy access to your computer. Consequently, it should always be a goal to keep as few ports open for as short of time as possible.
Therefore, when you install a new program and find that your firewall is conflicting with it, make sure to tweak your firewall correctly by selecting a 'program exception' rather than a 'port exception' to get the program working. A 'program exception' will open the port only as that particular program needs it opened to function, that way a port will not remain open unnecessarily. A 'port exception' by contrast, will leave the entire port in open status.
Because of the stated security benefits of having ports open only as your programs need then opened, it is important to know exactly which programs use which ports, so that you can make sure that no ports are accidentally left permanently open. Thankfully, there are a number of free port scanners available online that will tell you the status of your computer's ports. A few of the more well-reputed are:
1. Microsoft's Port Reporter Tool.
2. Sygate's Online Scan. An extended security check that also includes a stealth scan and a Trojan scan.
3. Planet Security's Firewall-Check. A fast test that checks currently highly endangered ports.
4. AuditMyPC's complete port scanning. An in-depth test which will scan all 65,535 of your computer’s ports.


CONCLUSION

While no single resource can adequately cover everything you need to know about maintaining your firewall effectively, the ten points introduced in this article should serve as a basic primer of the deficiencies of many firewalls as well as cover a few of the ways to upgrade, tweak and supplement your personal or small businesses’ firewall in order to improve your computer's overall security.
-Birdy



Thursday, May 19, 2011

What is an order of protection and how do I get one?


Question: What is an order of protection and how do I get one? Answer: An order of protection (also called a restraining order) is an official legal document, signed by a judge, that is filed against a current or former family member or household member or other similar relationship. The order forces that individual to keep at a distance and is intended to prevent his or her abusive behavior toward you. Enforceable in court, it can be drafted to meet your specific needs as they apply to your situation.

How It Works
An order of protection can require the abuser to stay away from you and limit other forms of access; it can prevent the abuser from contacting you by phone, cell phone text messages, email, mail, fax, or third parties. It can force the abuser to move out of your home, give you exclusive use of your car, and award you temporary custody of your children along with child support, spousal support, and the continuation of insurance coverage.
If the order of protection is violated by the abuser - if he or she visits you at home, in the workplace, or anywhere else or makes phone calls, sends emails, or attempts to contact you, the abuser can be arrested and placed in jail.

How To Obtain One
To get an order of protection, you have several options. You can contact the state's or district attorney or inform the police that you wish to apply for an order of protection. You can also go to the county in which you or your abuser resides, and ask the court clerk for "Order of Protection" forms which must be filled out.

After the paperwork is filed, a hearing date will be set (typically within 14 days) and you will be required to appear in court on that day. The hearing may take place either in family court or criminal court. The judge will ask you to prove that you have experienced abuse or been threatened with violence. Witnesses, police reports, hospital and physician reports, and evidence of physical abuse or assault are often necessary to convince the judge to issue an order of protection. Physical evidence of abuse such as injuries caused by abuse or photos that show past injuries, property damage or objects used in the assault will help make your case.

How It Protects You
The order of protection provides you an opportunity to define your safety needs. If children are involved, you can request custody and restrictions on visitation or 'no contact' orders. Whenever the abuser violates the terms of the order of protection, you should call the police.
Once you obtain one, it is imperative that you make multiple copies of the document. It is important that you carry a copy of your order protection at all times, particularly if you have children and there are custody and visitation limitations.



How cyber stalkers Obtain Your Personal Information Laws Lag Behind Technology Making Prosecution Difficult


Today anyone can conduct an internet search typing in such key words as:
  • license plate records
  • people locate
  • employment locate
  • bank account locate
  • employment locate
  • phone record trace
  • social security number trace
  • property records information
Searching with these words will bring up hundreds of internet-based data furnishing companies that supply consumer records online. Some even provide these types of records for free. Experiment a little and you'll quickly discover that you don't need to hire a private investigator to obtain personal information; with a little ingenuity and the help of the internet, you can find it yourself.

Internet-based information brokerages and data furnishing companies are surfacing all over the country. The information age has created a new revenue source for those who provide consumer records. Data furnishing is a billion dollar industry that includes the three national credit bureaus, companies like Lexis Nexis, Accurint, Choicepoint and the thousands of others that pop up daily. All provide consumer private records with the click of a mouse.

Currently, a convicted felon in California is operating one of the nation's largest information brokering businesses. Yet the hands of local law enforcement are tied because information brokers are neither licensed nor regulated nearly as well as they should be. Simply stated, anyone at any time can hire one of these data furnishing agents or an information broker and obtain data that the majority of us believe is private.

In California, legislation has been introduced that will mandate licensing of all information brokers that sell a Californian's private records and information to a third party. Such licensing is not presently in place, enabling many of these so-called information brokers' practices to remain unnoticed by law enforcement and our nation's law makers.

Over the years members of the justice department, local and state law enforcement including the FBI and political figures have all express concern over this subject and are exasperated over the lack of laws governing cyber stalking. But they all have had the same response: They aren't aware of anything that protects people's records. Most of the time they shake their heads and say it's crazy how easy it is to get access to personal information on the internet.

A Dangerous Trick - Caller ID Spoofing
Many people erroneously believe they are safe from cyberstalking because they are rarely online. But technology has extended beyond the reach of the computer and where technology goes, cyber stalkers can follow.

Caller ID spoofing is simple to do.
Google the topic and you'll instantly locate sites where you can purchase the technology yourself. By buying pre-paid time, you can then call someone else, changing the number and the name you're calling from on their call display. The person picks up the phone thinking they're talking to National Bank, and instead it's a stalker after personal information. Using these tricks, cyber stalkers can locate victims by fooling friends and relatives into revealing the victim's whereabouts. Or they can obtain critical personal information to access a victim's private records.

In one case, a woman received two texts from what purported to be her bank, asking for personal information. She responded without thinking about it, only to find out later that someone broke into her bank account and paid all of her bills several times. Nothing that could be proven as "stolen". As far as the bank was concerned she was the one who chose to pay bills several times. But it left her completely broke until her next payday -- over two weeks away. Even worse, now an identified person had her social security number and other key pieces of information that allowed him to do it again. And there was nothing she could do to have him arrested.

Legislation banning caller ID spoofing has been created and passed in the House and referred to the Senate, but as of this writing it has gone no further. Until laws are on the books banning the sale of caller ID spoofing technology, it is simple to purchase this technology anonymously online.

The Murphy Case: One Example of Cyberstalking in the Courts 
 
Seattle is one of the few places that has created a cyberstalking law, thanks to the diligence of US Attorney Kathleen Warma and the FBI. Joelle Ligon -- one of the savviest survivors -- persisted in her fight though her cyberstalker sent harassing emails, put up fake ads in her name saying she wanted sex, questioned her legitimacy at her workplace, and endless other torments. He turned out to be an ex that she had broken up with 14 years earlier.

Warma, after being turned down twice for a warrant, researched a little-used 1997 amendment to the Federal Telecommunications Act that outlaws online harassment. She built a case of 26 felony counts against Robert James Murphy.

They caught a break when Ligon emailed Murphy to ask if it was him threatening her, and he responded, "No it wasn't." Stupidly Murphy sent that message from the exact same computer he'd used when posting and emailing threats. Once they had his computer, they had him cold.

It took the FBI office literally thousands of man hours to investigate. Warma has said that to be successful there had to be a very determined investigative team, prosecutor and victim to secure a conviction simply because the nation's laws are antiquated and there is not a set protocol to date for prosecuting cyberstalking cases involving the use of technology.

While many cyber stalkers never see a day in court, Ligon successfully lobbied for a cyberstalking law in Seattle and saw her tormentor fined, assigned to community service and given five years probation. It's a bittersweet ending that her tormentor didn't see jail time, even with the help of a US Attorney and the FBI. But Ligon at least had the satisfaction of obtaining closure in her cyberstalking case and an acknowledgment of wrongdoing.

Most cases don't get this far.


Sunday, May 1, 2011

When Stalking Goes Online Now You Don't Have to Own a Computer to Be a Victim



Most of us know what stalking is; what we don’t know is how pervasive it is. And with the advent of advanced technology and communications stalking just went cyber:

  • In 2003 a US woman sought protection after claiming that someone had provided her personal information (including her description and location) to men via an online dating service. The victim discovered the identity theft when she was contacted by a man who said they had arranged a casual encounter through the Lavalife.com dating service. Shortly thereafter she was contacted by a second man following chat with 'her' about arranging a separate encounter. She commented "You don't even have to own a computer to be the victim of an Internet crime any more."

  • A 44 year old publishing executive named Claire Miller was harassed by strangers who were responding to verging-on-pornographic promises someone had made in her name online. These postings included her home address and telephone number. 

  • A Glendale businessman stalked his ex-girlfriend using the GPS tracking device on a cell phone. He purchased a Nextel phone device that has a motion switch on it that turns itself on when it moves. As long as the device was on, it transmitted a signal every minute to the GPS satellite, which in turn sent the location information to a computer. The ex planted the phone underneath her car, paid for a service to send him the information and would log on to a website to monitor her location. The victim would suddenly ‘bump’ into him at the coffee shop, LAX, even the cemetery. She knew something was up — it wasn’t hard to realize as he was also phoning her 200 times a day — but police couldn’t help her. It was only when she called police after seeing him under her car that she got action (he was trying to change the cell phone battery). 

  • Amy Lynn Boyer was found by her stalker using online technology. Liam Youens was able to get Boyer’s place of employment and SSN by paying an online investigations agency a mere $154.00. They easily obtained her relevant information from a credit agency report and gave it to Youens. None of the people giving out Boyer’s personal information took responsibility to find out why Youens needed it. This is why: Youens went to Amy Boyer’s workplace, shot and killed her.
These are just some of the few documented cases of cyberstalking, when someone uses technology to maliciously target a specific victim with the intention harass, threat and intimidate.

It’s just like “traditional” stalking, but it's totally anonymous, thanks to the sophisticated technology we rely on everyday.
Powered By Blogger

Labels

Abduction (2) Abuse (3) Advertisement (1) Agency By City (1) Agency Service Provided Beyond Survival Sexual Assault (1) Aggressive Driving (1) Alcohol (1) ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE (2) Anti-Fraud (2) Aspartame (1) Assault (1) Auto Theft Prevention (9) Better Life (1) Books (1) Bribery (1) Bullying (1) Burglary (30) Car Theft (8) Carjackng (2) Child Molestation (5) Child Sexual Abuse (1) Child Abuse (2) Child Kidnapping (3) Child Porn (1) Child Rape (3) Child Safety (18) Child Sexual Abuse (9) Child Violence (1) Classification of Crime (1) Club Drugs (1) College (1) Computer (4) Computer Criime (4) Computer Crime (8) Confessions (2) CONFESSIONS (7) Cons (2) Credit Card Scams (2) Crime (11) Crime Index (3) Crime Prevention Tips (14) Crime Tips (31) Criminal Activity (1) Criminal Behavior (3) Crimm (1) Cyber-Stalking (2) Dating Violence (1) Deviant Behavior (6) Domestic Violence (7) E-Scams And Warnings (1) Elder Abuse (9) Elder Scams (1) Empathy (1) Extortion (1) Eyeballing a Shopping Center (1) Facebook (9) Fakes (1) Family Security (1) Fat People (1) FBI (1) Federal Law (1) Financial (2) Fire (1) Fraud (9) FREE (4) Fun and Games (1) Global Crime on World Wide Net (1) Golden Rules (1) Government (1) Guilt (2) Hackers (1) Harassment (1) Help (2) Help Needed (1) Home Invasion (2) How to Prevent Rape (1) ID Theft (96) Info. (1) Intent (1) Internet Crime (6) Internet Fraud (1) Internet Fraud and Scams (7) Internet Predators (1) Internet Security (30) Jobs (1) Kidnapping (1) Larceny (2) Laughs (3) Law (1) Medician and Law (1) Megans Law (1) Mental Health (1) Mental Health Sexual (1) Misc. (11) Missing Cash (5) Missing Money (1) Moner Matters (1) Money Matters (1) Money Saving Tips (11) Motive (1) Murder (1) Note from Birdy (1) Older Adults (1) Opinion (1) Opinions about this article are Welcome. (1) Personal Note (2) Personal Security and Safety (12) Porn (1) Prevention (2) Price of Crime (1) Private Life (1) Protect Our Kids (1) Protect Yourself (1) Protection Order (1) Psychopath (1) Psychopathy (1) Psychosis (1) PTSD (2) Punishment (1) Quoted Text (1) Rape (66) Ravishment (4) Read Me (1) Recovery (1) Regret (1) Religious Rape (1) Remorse (1) Road Rage (1) Robbery (5) Safety (2) SCAM (19) Scams (62) Schemes (1) Secrets (2) Security Threats (1) Serial Killer (2) Serial Killer/Rapist (4) Serial Killers (2) Sexual Assault (16) Sexual Assault - Spanish Version (3) Sexual Assault against Females (5) Sexual Education (1) Sexual Harassment (1) Sexual Trauma. (4) Shame (1) Sociopath (2) Sociopathy (1) Spam (6) Spyware (1) SSN's (4) Stalking (1) State Law (1) Stress (1) Survival (2) Sympathy (1) Tax Evasion (1) Theft (13) this Eve (1) Tips (13) Tips on Prevention (14) Travel (5) Tricks (1) Twitter (1) Unemployment (1) Victim (1) Victim Rights (9) Victimization (1) Violence against Women (1) Violence. (3) vs. (1) Vulnerable Victims (1) What Not To Buy (2)