by Janis Cortese
Last Friday, November 1st, 1996, I received an . . . intriguing piece of e-mail from someone. I've included it here:
Date: Fri, 04 Jan 1980 16:28:38 -0800
From: ******* (******@erols.com)
Reply-To: ******@erols.com
Subject: Check Your E-Mail
Hello Janis Cortese,
This is your friend *******, I have been doing data retrival for a long time...I am putting out a web page pretty soon... Here is some of the stuff you'll be able to do on it... 1)find out peoples addresses 2)do a reverse look up on a phone number 3)do Social Security Checks on peoples SSN's 3)get phone numbers 4)get maps so you can go to that person's address. So Janis what do you think? Here's some of the Information I got when I looked for you...
Name: Cortese, Janis
State: California
Marital Status: Single
City: XXXXXXX
ZipCcode: XXXXXXX
Phone Number: XXXXXXX
I wanted you to reply so I diddent mask my E-mail address!
Your Friend,
*******
------- End of Forwarded Message-----------
Does this make your skin crawl? It did mine.
The one thing it didn't do was scare me into keeping silent. And I will freely state that the reason that I was able to remain calm and able to develop a plan of response for this was because I knew I would be able to defend myself, if it ever came to that.
The one thing that ****** neglected to realize was that the Web, while making his intended victim vulnerable, makes him vulnerable as well. A simple search by a sysadmin that I know was able to turn up the name of the account from which this e-mail originated. Another simple search turned up a URL (location of a webpage) devoted to hackers who write computer viruses: those aimless, asocial losers who think it's funny to make your hard drive eat itself, and of which ****** was a member
I've faxed this information, along with the text of the above message, to the FBI office near me. I'm sure they will be delighted to get that URL, even if the implied threat to me doesn't get their attention.
Another good resource for net-related threats is the EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/) and the people who compose it. I forwarded the message that I received to them and got back some good advice about what to do. They informed me that while closing ******'s account would likely not deter him if he is truly fixated, posting his message in a public place (I chose soc.feminism) and asking for advice would probably result in a torrent of negative reaction that would not be what he was after. Creeps like this live on fear, not on being attacked themselves. If they had the guts to weather public attack, they wouldn't be so craven about threatening people in the first place.
And contacting the FBI and the EFF will stand me in good stead should I need to prove legally that this creep has made stalking-like threats.
So yes, the web makes you more vulnerable with its ability to retrieve personal information. But never forget that it makes them vulnerable, too, and that you can use that to your advantage.
Should you ever get this sort of thing:
Do a web search for his user name (I find that the AltaVista search engine at http://www.altavista.digital.com/ is a great one) and save the information. Bookmark it and print it out.
Let the offending amoeba know that it would not be healthy for anyone to use his information for nefarious purposes. Word it carefully, since you don't want him to claim that you were threatening him.
Save copies, both print and electronic, of the mail and fax them to the FBI, along with any information you turn up. Contact the EFF and forward them the mail. Save and print any relevent correspondence.
Forward the mail to the postmaster at the creep's site. I did this, contacting abuse@erols.com, and didn't hear a word back from them. Not surprising. One overwrought "girl" isn't, it seems, enough to get their attention.
I'm not trying to say that I wasn't worried when I read this: I was, although a quick search for erols.com revealed that the site was located on the east coast, and so any threat to me was minimized since I've presumably got a continent between me and this guy.
But yes, I was worried. I wasn't scared.
Why? Because I am a gunowner, plain and simple. Because I can defend myself. Because I feel confident that, should this hacker or anyone else come knocking on my front door, I can quite effectively keep him from posing a serious threat to me.
I admit to a lingering worry for my cats, and of course, should I be driving to or from work, matters change somewhat due to my citizenship in California, the state that seems to think that it's better for "society" if you get raped and murdered than if you can defend yourself. Politicians here seem to prefer this. Sometimes I think that it's because a rape victim gives them a chance to beat their chests and wring their hands and wail in order to convince the world what wonderful, concerned people they are. An intended victim who defends herself doesn't give them that opportunity. How dare we rob them of their chance to speechify about What A Violent Society We Live In!
Besides, a woman sniffling and terrified coincides with their mental image of us as Eternal Victims who Need A Man To Protect Us. (Mainstream feminists often think the same thing, but they just erase the Man and say that no one can protect us and we're all screwed.) A woman capable of defending herself, though? Hey, wait a second! That's not in the script!
Whatever. The key issue is that most stalkers are seriously discouraged when they find that their intended victim is a gunowner. I informed ****** of this in the most innocuous way possible, by telling him that if he was going to put that information up on his page, he might want to include a few of my hobbies. I then told him what my hobbies included. I also told him that I would be contacting legal authorities for advice.
I didn't hear back from him.
And it's not because he's shy about replying. A coworker of mine wrote to him very politely and told him that he was out of line. His response was, to say the least, unprintable. But my innocent listing of my hobbies, which include target shooting and the tactics behind handguns for self defense, was able to deter him from replying to me. I wonder why.
I don't like having to wave my RKBA status in someone's face to keep them from scaring me. Make no mistake, I'd rather never need a handgun to defend myself. But I don't have that option. I'd rather never need chemotherapy to save my life, either; it's an ugly option to exercise. But cancer is uglier. This is similar.
One thing to keep in mind is that I was mailed by this guy for no good reason. I am a vocal poster to soc.feminism and a few other newsgroups; perhaps he saw me there and figured that it would be fun to yank my chain. He was wrong.
Keep in mind that, should you decide to speak out and exercise your first amendment rights to free speech (or should someone simply decide they don't like you; let's face it, these people don't think logically) the next piece of e-mail like this could be addressed to you. I hadn't ever heard of this jerk before he mailed me.
Do you have any enemies who might like to find out where you live and how to get to your apartment? Are you aware that even if your phone number is unlisted, the search engines written by these hackers can find them? Mine was, and it didn't stop him. Ever had to get a court order to restrain someone? Ever wondered if your ex-boyfriend or ex-husband might not be a little off in the head?
Hell, have you ever expressed an unpopular opinion on a newsgroup? On your own homepage? Ever felt like you had best keep your mouth shut or else you "don't want to get in trouble?" Ever felt less than safe while out at night? Why the hell should we feel this way in cyberspace?
I got this mail, and there was no reason for it. Will you get the next piece of mail? Are you sure that you're in favor of making handguns harder to get?
Please be aware that I am not one of those people who thinks that the net is nothing but a seething cauldron of stalkers and child pornographers. I've been a member of the net community for years now, and I've never felt unsafe as a result of it.
Oh, sure, there have been a few creeps who have taken issue with the fact that I am not shy about expressing myself, but you run into those types in real life, too. I'm not about to sit still for the theft of my First Amendment rights to free speech, and I think that the Communications Decency Act is the most disgusting piece of misbegotten legislation ever to cross the Oval Office desk. I and a number of close friends were so appalled that not only did we complain, we proceeded to put up an entire web site devoted to women's issues such as sexuality, pregnancy, and abortion, just the sorts of topics that the CDA would have frozen out; the site is at http://www.io.com/~wwwomen/ if you're curious. So I'm no censor.
I'm also no victim.
We can't stop these creeps, and I'm not going to say that the free exchange of ideas or information is a bad thing. I do think that it's terrible the way that this information can be misused to threaten and abuse; now that I've been certifiably threatened with Stalking[tm], I know that this is no damned fun in a more personal way than I did before. But I'm not about to ask the government to regulate the exchange of information in response. We've seen what they do: leave the worst offenders alone and proceed to eviscerate people who educate about homosexuality, sex education, women's right, birth control, anything that they think is an abomination.
And for most politicians, threats against lone women aren't an abomination, anyway. They're just life.
So the solution isn't to ask the government for help. Not only are they over-extended as it is, but they have this alarming tendency not to give a good goddamn.
It's up to us. I hate to say it. You can believe me when I say that I'd rather not have to think about this. But not thinking about it won't make it go away.
Janis Cortese
Copyright 1996 by Janis Cortese
mailto:cortese@netcom.com
http://www.io.com/~cortese/