Yesterday, I read a disturbing article about a “famous” Australian blogger who was stalked by a loony! The guy blogs about business issues and how people can make money from blogging. Apparently this blogger used to be visited by a commenter who would post nasty, threatening and disturbing comments on his blog. The author just ignored the guy and cleaned up after him because he reasoned that he was just another online pest and that he would eventually go away. Online pests have been a dark side of the internet since the web came into existence and they are perceived to be nothing more than an online nuisance. I guess that some people get a kick out of being a prankster. Well instead of giving up, this stalker got even more aggressive and threatening and eventually he started tracking down the author. He found the guy’s house and even tried to break in!! To say that such an incident is scary is an understatement. I mean, wow come on! How can somebody become so jealous, enraged and bitter that he actually bothers to locate and attack a guy?

A Google search returned that similar events have occurred to other famous authors who blog about political, sensitive, or business related issues. The problem is that these stalkers are not merely an online nuisance anymore thanks to so much personal and identifiable information, on people, being available. This info is easily retrievable and if one wants to, he/she can easily find out where someone lives, what their home telephone number is, the person’s family members… That’s the scary part. Thankfully I learnt about many ways how people can help to minimize the risk that such a horrible thing will happen to them. Before I read this article, I really thought that I was being safe and responsible online however many articles have really opened my eyes to the threats that exist online and how online menaces can become a dangerous problem for some. In fact it made me want to pack up and reduce my online activities as much as possible but then I got things into perspective and reasoned that there are millions of grateful, and pleasant people online and that the probability of such an extreme thing happening to me is slim. I hope that anybody reading this will also think more about their online activities, the things that they say online and the things that they can to do to safe both online and offline. Online safety is no laughing matter as that poor blogger found out and an ounce of prevention can go a long way.