Being stalked online...

Sorry you have to go through this @Mad Hatter .If it was me I'd definitely drop any /all social media apart from GC that is even if it's only for a few months so you won't be tempted to have a look see,it'll only antagonise you.Be strong and enjoy your life without them,I know it will be difficult but if friends want to keep in touch they can text or ring you..Good luck

 

@Lolimac I think there has been a misunderstanding. I'm not tempted to look at anything. I looked at their pages for the first time in more than 2 years because they were snooping around my fiancés twitter profile and accidentally clicked "request to follow". She clicked to see and saw pictures of me, that she had taken. She told me and I double checked. That is all.

I shouldn't have to go into hiding because of them. That is them still having control of me. It won't bring me peace of mind knowing that I can't use something that I want to because of them.


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Sorry to hear what you're going through, it must be horrid.

What you need to do is stop engaging with them. Just completely ignore them. While you are asking them to stop, you are inadvertently giving them what they want, ie your attention. Don't post any photos on FB or Twitter. If they post any more of your photos, just quietly report them (take screenshots as evidence) for breach of copyright. If you must be on FB/Twitter, set up an alias and only allow close friends who you trust completely to follow you.

I hope it gets sorted

 

I agree that you shouldn't have to, but if they won't leave you alone then how else are you going to stop it?

 

Difficult, but coming at this from an animal-training perspective, any attention, whether positive or negative, is better than no attention. (I know, sounds strange, but we are all animals, with similar drives.)

I know it is very hard, but I would cut facebook for 6 months, cut all contact, all attempts to ask them to leave you alone (each time you ask, you are leaving a trail for them to follow back, and proof that they are getting to you).

Most of all, make sure that you LIVE your life! You being happy, is a better "thumbs up" to them than any response could ever be!!

(Not wanting to sound harsh at all, and I hope you are not offended by the "attention" comments - but I have to be honest about the background I am coming from)

 

First rule of not wanting to be found is don't advertise yourself. Using Facebook, Twitter etc is doing just that.

 

I'm sorry to hear your going through this MH. Having read through your thread I was wondering if you have spoken to the police about this and whether they could be 'blocked' for harassment.

 

Dear Mad Hatter,

I was stalked on the internet years ago, so understand a little of what you must be going through.

In addition to the advice above, I strongly encourage you to learn as much as you can about the search capabilities of Google, which could be how they are tracking you down. For example the advanced search capabilities:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search

Also, are you aware of the image search function on Google? They can right click and save a picture off most websites, then upload that picture (e.g. of you, or your home, your fiance, workplace, an old photo you took of your childhood hero etc. etc.) and get all matches, similar photos and re-sized photos wherever that photo is online.

https://images.google.com/

From those pictures you can go to the website they are from. For example you could use this to see which website I stole my avatar picture from!

This also has an advanced search version:
http://www.google.com/advanced_image_search

So this search (I entered it using advanced search but Google turns it into operators, which you can then learn to make the process easy:

garden sverige OR sweden "mad hatter"

Which brings up all images (and thus webpages) that include the phrase "Mad Hatter" and Sverige or Sweden and include the word 'garden'. I hope you're not included in those search results, but that's the sort of thing you can do, and then go through all the likely pages that link off those results, and you'd be amazed how easy it is to track people down if you know a little about them and their interests.

So it's quite easy for someone to use the various searches, with your name, interests, friend's name, a photo of you etc. and track down where you are.

(I am very grateful that Google once ran an online advanced search course. The final challenge was that you guy running it put up a holiday photo of himself in front of a stained glass window. That photo wasn't previously online. He said he liked the window and wanted to know more about the person who designed it and asked us to suggest where he could read a book about the window's creator in a library. Well that picture produced similar matches, which lead to pages about the church in Spain and name of the creator. Assuming he worked at Google HQ we could find the location of his nearest libraries then search their online catalogue, perhaps having first googled all the books about the creator. That is how these techniques can be used for good leisure purposes and they can also be used for work)

Also ask a trusted computer/internet techie person to give you advice on privacy.

And try these references:
https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=internet+privacy+remove+self+from+internet+search+results

I do suggest that where you are online using a pseudonym, that you don't use one that is linked to you in any way, and that you give out some deliberately wrong but similar information e.g. you really live in Norway and that as a child you never read Alice in Wonderland because you were keen on Narnia. I suggest you don't use the same pseudonym on different websites, as that makes it easier for a stalker to build up a correct identification of you and information about you. A simple change to MadH@tter would work.

All the best,

Cinnamon

 

@Mad Hatter your avatar is the same image that appears in 3 LinkedIn accounts, so anybody who could view those images (or has previously viewed/saved elsewhere) could locate your postings here on GC in a couple of minutes using a reverse image search. There are sites that will monitor the web and send notifications when selected images appear.

 

I had never thought about these things before I actually find it quite scary.

 

There should only be one LinkedIn account with that picture.

However, I'm going to have another search this afternoon and purge the Internet of my presence.


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@Mad Hatter You have a PM