Prevent a cyberstalker
How can you prevent a cyberstalker?
1. Don’t give them anything to feed off of, don’t post personal pictures or information publicly. Switch email or accounts if possible. Notify most important friends and family or colleagues about the switch only directly in person.
2. When creating a new account, make sure it is not extremely easy to identify. For example, if your name is Tiffany Smith, don’t create an account with the name tiffanysmith@email.com or tiffany_s@whatever.com. Worst, don’t use common dates such as your birthday as the digits in your email or password: tiffanysmith83@email.com, password: may1983. If the person is cyberstalking you, they will definitely already know that your birthday is in 1983, and most likely they probably know the date and month too! Instead, opt for something like write2m3@email.com (that is pretty general and most likely is already taken by the millions of accounts out there, but you get the idea!)
Recently Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email was broken into because the cyberstalker was using the password retriever to obtain and reset her password. It is important in this case, to not use simple and general answers when answering your questions such as What city were you born in? (If its a real life stalker-turned-cyber-stalker, they will most likely already know that you were born in St. Louis, or Saint Louis, or NYC or New York City. Pick a different, unconventional question with an answer that only you, or someone in your family that you trust who would know the answer.
3. Treat your email or internet account like it is your social security number or your credit card number. Once someone gets a hold of it, they can use it how they like to subscribe to dozens of things like newsletters, spam, etc just like if someone had your credit card, they could subscribe to dozens of subscriptions! Additionally, they could even create a similar email address to yours like TlFFANYSM1TH@email.com. Notice that the “i” in Tiffany, is actually a lowercase “L”, and the “i” in Smith, is actually a number “1″. Another common overlook, Tifanysmith@email.com, where they exclude the other letter “f”, in Tiffany. Why is this significant? Because they can not only pretend to be YOU, but contact people close to you to get even MORE information about you. They can in turn, trick other people, including you. Thereby doing even more harm to your image and credibility.
4. If you have a personal website that you maintain, don’t post your email address, instead, create a simple contact form where the person can post and submit THEIR information in order to get in contact with you.
If you have a personal blog, require that they sign up for an account in order to post or read your blog. Otherwise, make sure their IP address is being tracked each time they post a comment or a private message to you. If they persist, you can always block their IP address through advance settings
To learn more about how to prevent a cyberstalker, please use this form to contact us.
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