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Internet vigilantism (sometimes e-vigilantism or digilantism) is the phenomenon of vigilantic acts taken against the Internet (the communication network or its service providers) or carried out using applications (World Wide Web, e-mail) that depend on the Internet. The term encompasses vigilantism against scams, crimes, and non-Internet related behaviour.

Some have suggested that the Internet's lack of central control has prompted a tendency towards vigilante reactions against certain behaviours in the same way that they have prompted those behaviours to occur in the first place.

Methods

Methods of Internet vigilantism that have been used or proposed for use have included:

Scam baiting

Scam baiting is the practice of feigning interest in a scam in order to manipulate the scammer behind it. The purpose of scam baiting might be to waste the scammers' time, embarrass him or her, cause them to reveal information which can be passed on to legal authorities in the hope that they will be prosecuted, get them to spend money, or simply to amuse the baiter.

Scam baiting emerged in response to e-mail based frauds such as the common Nigerian 419 scam. Many websites publish transcripts of correspondences between baiters and scammers, and also publish their "trophies" online, which include videos and images scam baiters claim to have obtained from scammers.

Public shaming

The social networking tools of the World Wide Web have been used as a tool to easily and widely publicise instances of perceived anti-social behaviour.

David Furlow, chairman of the Media, Privacy and Defamation Committee of the American Bar Association, has identified the potential privacy concerns raised by websites facilitating the distribution of information that is not part of the public record (documents filed with a government agency), and has said that such websites "just a forum to people whose statements may not reflect truth."

Notable Examples

Dog Poop Girl

In 2005 in South Korea, bloggers targeted a woman who refused to clean up when her dog defecated on the floor of a Seoul subway car, labelling her "dog shit girl" (rough translation into English). Another commuter had taken a photograph of the woman and her dog, and posted it on a popular Korean website. Within days, she had been identified by internet vigilantes, and much of her personal information was exposed on the World Wide Web in an attempt to punish her for the offense. The story received mainstream attention when it was widely reported in South Korean media, and was discussed in Korean communities in the United States as well. The public humiliation led the woman to quit her university, according to reports.

The reaction by Korean netizens to the incident prompted several Korean newspapers to run editorials voicing concern over Internet vigilantism. One paper quoted Daniel Solove as saying that the woman was the victim of a "cyber-posse, tracking down norm violators and branding them with digital Scarlet Letters." Another called it an "Internet witch-hunt," and went on to say that "he Internet is turning the whole society into a kangaroo court."

Evan Guttman and the Stolen Sidekick

Other notable instances also include the case of Evan Guttman and his friend's stolen Sidekick II, and the case of Jesse McPherson and his stolen Xbox 360, Powerbook, and TV.

Chinese College Boys harassing teacher

A number of serious cases of internet vigilante behaviour occurred in China. In 2007 two college boys filmed themselves making trouble in class and harassing their 70 year old teacher. Their film was posted on Youtube as Beijing Boy' Netizens found the school, posted details of the culprits and hacked into their online accounts. The case was taken up in mainstream Chinese media.

Zhang Ya & Sichuan Earthquake

In 2008, a girl called Zhang Ya (张雅) from Liaoning province, Northeast China, posted a 4 minute video of herself complaining about the amount of attention the Sichuan earthquake victims were receiving on television. An intense response from Internet vigilantes resulted in the girl's personal details (even including her blood type) being made available online, dozens of abusive video responses on Chinese websites and blogs. The girl was taken into police custody for three days.

Stephen Fowler & Wife Swap

Stephen Fowler is an English expatriate and venture capitalist businessman, who gained notoriety after his performance on ABC's Wife Swap originally aired Friday January 30, 2009, wherein his wife exchanged positions in his family with a woman from Missouri for a two-week period. After verbally abusing the woman without provocation, and insulting a wide range of people including soldiers and the overweight, several websites were made in protest against his behaviour, such as www.StephenFowlerSucks.com. After the show, and after watching the video of his tantrums, his wife, a professional life coach, reported that she had encouraged him to attend professional behavior counseling. Businesses with only tangential connection to Fowler had to publicly disclaim any association with him due to the negative publicity. He voluntarily resigned his positions on the boards of two environmental-oriented charities to avoid tainting their reputations.

Distributed Denial of Service

A DDoS attack can be used to take down malicious websites, such as those being used for phishing or Drive-by downloads. Basically, thousands of people generate traffic to a website, flooding it such that it goes over quota or simply can't serve that many requests in a timely manner. For example, users of YTMND have frequently attempted to overload the site eBaum's World (and often succeeded) because the latter has a penchant for taking material from other websites (including YTMND) and passing it off as its own.

Reasons

People engage in internet vigilantisms trying to further many causes.

Counter-terrorism

Shannen Rossmiller is an American judge, serving in Montana, who has a controversial role as a vigilante online terrorist-hunter, posing as militant anti-American Muslim radicals online, hoping to attract the eye of those with similar mindsets.

Anti-pedophile activism

Perverted Justice is a well-known example of an anti-pedophile organization that aims to expose and convict adults who, using email or web sites, solicit minors in order to commit child sexual abuse. They often collaborate with law enforcement and television crews. Some freely hosted blogs claim to expose real or potential child sex offenders.

Another initiative, Predator Hunter, headed by Wendell Kreuth, aims to track down and expose the pornography-related activities of alleged 'sexual predators'. In 2002, Kreuth disclosed details of his activities in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio. Members of the subculture "Anonymous" have also been credited for seeking out pedophiles and collaborating with law enforcement.

Anti-racism activism

Many online use tactics similar to anti-pedophile activists to combat racism, harrassing and destroying racist groups on MySpace and other social web services.

Identity theft activism

Organizations similar to vigilante action against pedophiles also target ID theft. Posing as ID thieves, they gather stolen personal information such as "dumps" (the raw encoded information contained on a payment or identification card's magnetic stripe, microchip or transponder), bank account numbers and login information, social security numbers, etc. They then pass this information on to the associated banks, to credit monitoring companies, or to law enforcement.

Other groups specialize in the removal of phishing websites, fake banks, and fraudulent online storefronts, a practice known as "site-killing". Artists Against 419 is a web site specializing in the removal of fake bank websites. Such groups often use tactics like DDoS attacks on the offending website, with the aim of drawing attention to the site by its hosting service or rapid consumption of the site's monthly bandwidth allowance. The Artists Against 419 always argued their tools were not a denial-of-service attack. At any rate they abandoned such tactics some time ago.

Profit

Some companies engage in internet vigilantism for profit. One such example is MediaDefender, a company which used methods such as entrapment, P2P poisoning, and DDoS attacks.

Political activism

Groups may engage in internet vigilantism to spread a political message, or to exert nationalism. One example is the Heart China phenomenon which occurred within the People's Republic of China and various overseas Chinese diaspora communities. Chinese netizens were outraged by events such as protests during the 2008 Olympic Torch Relay and claims of biased reporting from western media, and so blogs, forums and websites throughout the Chinese-speaking world were filled with nationalistic sentiment. One website, Anti-CNN, claimed that media such as CNN and BBC reported selectively regarding the 2008 Tibetan unrest and provided a one-sided argument. The Anti-CNN website provided screenshots of news reports with alleged evidence of media bias. Additionally, statistics show that more than one million MSN Messenger users added "(L)China" to the beginning of their display name prior to the torch relay incident in Paris, in protest to the Tibetan independence movement. Chinese hackers also claim to have hacked the websites of CNN and Carrefour (a French shopping chain, allegedly supporting Tibetan independence), while websites and forums gave tutorials on how to launch a DDoS attack specifically on the CNN website.

Legislative framework

In 2002 in the United States, Representative Howard Berman proposed the Peer to Peer Piracy Prevention Act, which would have protected copyright holders from liability for taking measures to prevent the distribution, reproduction or display of their copyrighted works on peer to peer computer networks. Berman stated that the legislation would have given copyright holders "both carrots and sticks" and said that "copyright owners should be free to use reasonable, limited self-help measures to thwart P2P piracy if they can do so without causing harm." Smith College assistant professor James D. Miller acknowledged the threats to the privacy of legitimate Internet users that such actions would pose, but drew comparisons with other successful crime-fighting measures that can invade privacy, such as metal detectors at airports.

See also

• Pixelante
• YouTube cat abuse incident
• YTMND's conflicts with eBaum's World

References

1. ^ Template:PDFlink
2. The wide world of cyber snitching
3. "Puppy poo girl". Japundit.com. 2005-06-30. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
4. "Subway Fracas Escalates Into Test Of the Internet's Power to Shame". Washingtonpost.com. 2005-07-07. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
5. Updated July.8,2005 17:59 KST (2005-07-08). "Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea". English.chosun.com. Retrieved 2009-03-03.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
6. "AsiaMedia :: Internet Witch-hunts". Asiamedia.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
7. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/21/nyregion/21sidekick.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/L/Lost%20and%20Found%20Property
8. "The internet mob builds a worldwide web of punishment - Times Online". Technology.timesonline.co.uk. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
9. Norris, Michele (2008-04-02). "Robbery Victim Uses Internet to Track X-Box Thief". NPR. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
10. "Cyber vigilantes foil gadget thief - web - Technology". theage.com.au. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
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12. Thomas, Owen (2009-02-07). "Jerks: 'Wife Swap' Star Apologizes for Having Worst Husband in World". Valleywag.gawker.com. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
13. "The Insider: TV viewers stuff wrong inbox over 'Wife Swap'". Seattlepi.nwsource.com. 2009-02-08. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
14. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/27/bbc_al_qaeda_internet/
15. Chasing online predators, April 152002, retrieved May 212007
16. Constable George Schuurman, Public Information, for Detective Constable Janelle Blackadar, Sex Crimes Unit (2007-12-06). "Man facing six charges in Child Exploitation investigation, Photograph released, Chris Forcand, 53" (PDF). News Release. Toronto Police Service. Retrieved 2008-02-25.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
17. Jonathan Jenkins (2007-12-07). "Man trolled the web for girls: cops". CANOE. Toronto Sun. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
18. "Example of forum post in English: "Let me tell you why we're angry with Korean" Anti-CNN Forums". Anti-cnn.com. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
19. "Anti-CNN website". Anti-cnn.com. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
20. Tan, Kenneth (2008-04-16). "(L) China: Nationalist netizens on MSN Messenger". Shanghaiist. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
21. SBS Dateline, 6 Aug 2008 video link
22. "The Truth About The Peer To Peer Piracy Prevention Act". Writ.news.findlaw.com. 2002-10-01. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
23. "Let Hollywood Hack". Techcentralstation.com. Retrieved 2009-03-03.

External links

• 'From flash mob to lynch mob', CNN, June 5, 2007

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