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BASIC PRECAUTIONS:
Protect Your Privacy

One of the best ways to protect yourself from all forms of cyberstalking is to remember that the Internet is a very public global forum. Anything you post to a BBS, newsgroup, message board, guest book, or in a chat room is being broadcast to people whose motives may be sinister. You should even think of your e-mail as more like a postcard than a letter.

• Screen name and password: Start with thinking safety when choosing your screen name (or one for your child). Don't use your real name or even your nickname -- and pick something gender, age, and geography neutral. Log on as SexiSadi, and you will soon wish you hadn't. Change your password often as part of basic security precautions.
• Personal profiles: Particularly if you are female or young, you should think twice before posting personal information as part of a user profile. Commercial services offer opportunities for members to list personal data, along with interests and hobbies, so that other members can search for like-minded friends. Yet the benefits may be clearly outweighed by the dangers that cyberstalkers will use that profile to target you.
• Sig files: Another potential problem area are sigs (signatures) that you set up to appear automatically at the end of your messages. Read that file as if you were a cyberstalker -- is there something that you should change? Maybe it would be best to write a specific signature each time?
• Check your headers: An e-mail program such as Netscape Communicator 4.0 does not routinely display all of the routing information that tells me where the e-mail I received comes from. (You can, however, click on View-Headers and then click All to see this information.) A service such as American Online, on the other hand, does provides routing information on its e-mails. To find out what your e-mail messages tell others about you, send yourself an e-mail (after making sure that you set your program to view all of the routing information). Some e-mail software includes what's called an "x-header" that tells others your real account name and ISP (Internet Service Provider), even if you have chosen the option of changing the screen name you used in that specific e-mail.
• Anonymity: If you are truly concerned, you could consider using an anonymous remailer for your e-mail or an anonymous web browser such as the Anonymizer which shields your identity from others.
• Cookies: These are controversial bits of code that website can actually insert into your browser. Usually, these are benign -- a cookie is what allows the New York Times website to recognize members and usher them into the site without asking for their password. Yet there is the opportunity for unscrupulous individuals to use them to track your visits. Most browsers allow you the option of refusing all cookies, and Anonymizer can help here as well.
• Watch what you say: Do not be quick to share personal information anywhere online, including in e-mail.. Think twice before revealing your name, address, telephone, where you live or work, and names of parents, spouse, children, and even friends.

  You may be surprised to learn that a post made to a message board made months ago will still show up in a search engine today. So you can face unwelcome advances or threats months later without any idea where they came from.

  It also pays to use care in choosing chat options -- consider sticking with moderated groups. And one way to avoid being harassed by instant messages is simply to turn off that option.

• Use care in all contacts: You're a single woman in a new job in Detroit, and you meet a kindred soul in an online chat room. Sally has lived here for six months, and after you run into each other in a chat room, she asks you for your phone number. What could be wrong with that?

  Remember that Sally could instead be Sam, and he may use your telephone number to learn where you live.

  Even when you are sure that the person asking for your telephone number is trustworthy, ask for theirs instead and give them a call. (And before you dial, check that number through a service such as AnyWho, a free online reverse telephone directory.)

  Even more risky, of course, is a personal meeting. You should always talk by telephone at least once and preferably many times before agreeing to meet any online friend in person. Also make sure to make your initial few meetings public -- and let the person know that you are telling others when and where you will meet. (There is now a commercial service called Smartdate.com that will allow you to file a "preflight plan." It is named for Kristin Smart who went on a date and disappeared, and no one know with whom she had the date.)

  CYBERSTALKING: Don't Gamble Your Safety Online PREVENT FLAMES: Use Netiquette PRECAUTIONS: Protect Your Privacy If You Are Being Stalked

• Encryption: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers free PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) software that allows you to send e-mail without fear that prying eyes can read what you say. You send your encrypted messages and your personal PGP key to the person you authorize to read the e-mail, and they use that key to de-code what you said. It requires extra effort, but it can be better to be safe than sorry.

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