When someone stalks you, it can be devastating. You might start to second guess yourself. Is that LinkedIn account really nessecary when a stalker knows where you work and who your boss is? Most people don’t think about that when they are filling out their profiles. The goal of websites such as LinkedIn in are to network and give professional and hard working people an outlet for displaying their credentials. What happens when that information becomes compromised and used against you? Here are 8 tips on preventing online stalkers from preying on you, without having to compromise your social networking ventures because of anonymous online stalkers.

1. Never display your full name or last name publicly. Most sites will have settings to disable your profile from being searchable online.
2. Make all your social network profiles private or exclusive so that others have to be a member to view your profile or friends list.
3. Pay attention to who you friend or connect with, it might just be a fake account set up. View the history of the person and note what type of friends or connections exist with that account.
4. Never use the Places feature in facebook. As tempting as that is, your cyber stalker will only turn into a real-life stalker when he or she starts to learn about your location and patterns!
5. To add on to the previous tip, if you have a 4square or some other kind of location-based account, then don’t use the same alias or username! Better yet, don’t add to the trend by creating an account either. We don’t recommend these types of web sites at all! This makes it easier for your stalker to associate with and find your accounts!
6. If you have to absolutely list your place of employment on your LinkedIn profile, find the corporate office location rather than listing your local office. If this is not an option, use the major/biggest city name close by rather than your town name
7. Change your birthday (on your accounts) immediately. This is a classic way for stalkers to reset your passwords and hack into your accounts –when they’ve gotten your personal information. If your friends are your friends, they will know when your birthday is. Bottom line is, you don’t have to list it for everyone else to see.
8. Delete old posts and entries that are no longer valid or necessary. When stalkers stalk, they are obsessed! And they will search far and wide to find information about you to use against you and strike a conversation with you anonymously or even with your friends and family! Delete those old Facebook statuses, forum and message board posts and twitter tweets!

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Here are some reasons why someone may be stalking you online. By acknowledging these reasons, you will be able to better understand that online stalking is just as real as physical stalking. Stalking is a serious crime, regardless if it is physical or virtual. These reasons can and do apply to both situations. In an online environment, it may be harder to justify or acknowledge, but as former victims of stalkers, we do not tolerate cyber stalking or physical stalking at all. By outlining these top ten reasons, we hope that you will know and understand that it is never your fault if someone decides to stalk you.

1. Your stalker envies you
2. Your stalker is obsessed and needs to fulfill his/her wishes or cravings
3. Your stalker may think that he or she is invincible because no one can “see” what they are doing
4. Your stalker is unemployed or not happy with his/her current job/career and needs a distraction
5. Your stalker wants to intimidate you and make you feel inferior
6. Your stalker is delusional
7. Your stalker wants to instill fear in you to justify his/her status
8. Your stalker wants to embarrass you
9. Your stalker has his/her own problems that can’t be dealt with by him/herself
10. Your stalker is curious

Ultimately your stalker’s curiosity leds to frustration and he/she has to act upon their obsession by physically stalking you or threatening you. Cyber stalking is a serious crime that needs to be taken seriously before it becomes unstoppable. Learn how to combat your own cyber stalker.

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Facebook has been the victim of five different security problems in the past week, says Trend Micro.

According to the security firm, four hoax applications have become available on the social network along with a new variation of the Koobface virus, which was first detected at the end of last year, and directs users to a fake YouTube page where they are encouraged to install malware. – PC World

Facebook applications were never meant to be installed. If you are not sure what the application does exactly and receive an invite from an unknown person, don’t install the application to your profile! Most applications are useless, and keep in mind that anyone can create an application. That includes criminals and stalkers who have a lot more time on their hands to do terrible things like this.

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Tweet about your own experiences with cyber stalking. Spread the news as it happens!

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In addition to being stalked online, cyber stalkers can physically stalk you as well as through other channels such as cell phones and text messaging. A new feature called TrapCall, will allow for all numbers to be seen before you decide to take the call or not. You can even block numbers! This will be a great feature to look into as you try to minimize all traces of the unwanted stalking. No more harassing emails – TrapCall.com

Read more about this at Wired.com

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Here is another great resource to help you deal with cyberstalkers:

At some time in our lives we have probably received unwanted emails or we have gotten into a brief argument with somebody online; depending on whom you are it may have happened more than once. But the problem occurs when this type of behavior continues. If you are getting unwanted email from the same person day in and day out or somebody is following you around to different chat rooms, chances are you are a victim of online stalking and harassment. Many people think that if they ignore the behavior than the person will go away; in some cases this is true, but what happens when that person doesn’t stop? What are you going to do now? – Surfnetkids.com

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One way to prevent cyberstalkers from breaking into your email or numerous social network accounts is to change your password atleast once every 3-6 months. If you are like me and can’t remember it once you’ve changed it, make sure you write down a word that will make you remember your password. Never write down your password exactly in the way that it really is. For example, if you use numbers in your password, use a verb or a noun that may represent that number to you: March – for the number 3.

Your password should also consist of both numbers and letters, as well as characters such as a $ or *

To read more about passwords, read this excellent post that goes more into detail on generating passwords to protect you from cyber crimes and fraud. Click here for another excellent resource to help you remember your passwords.

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Recently, I ran across a website called Wayback Machine. It’s sort of like a time machine, for the Internet! Some people might think it’s the coolest thing, but what if there is information out their that is posted about you, or information that you have posted in the past and have come to realize that, that probably wasn’t a good idea. Now that there are more cyberstalkers out there, our information becomes more vulnerable. Stuff that we thought was fun and would do no harm, are now becoming cold realities. We all make mistakes, but why should we have to dwell with them forever? With the Wayback Machine,  your information can be archived for years regardless if you took it down or requested someone to remove it.

If you have a website that you maintain, here is how you can prevent this organization and others like it from archiving and searching for your information on your website:

1. Create a .txt document and name it ‘robots’

robots.txt is a document that will tell ‘robots’ such as google or other search engines from searching your website automatically. It’s like turning the switch off so that there is no electricity coming through.

2. Now copy and paste this code into your robots.txt documentt

User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /

The first line is to idendify that you are referring to the Wayback machine, the second will tell it to disallow any robots snooping around!

3. Upload this document to your MAIN root of your website through FTP or whatever program you use to edit your web pages.That’s it!

If you are not sure how to do this, we can help. Please use this from to contact us for more help.

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