Psychopaths Using the Internet to Attack Victims

Unfortunately, there are many options available to the psychopath who is focused on the assassination of your character via the Internet. This is commonly referred to as cyberbullying (or a variety of other cyber-related criminal activity), internet fraud, social media harassment, online exploitation or toxic computer stalking by these electronic predators.

New-e-tools-for-predators-psychopaths-and-pedaphiles-Cybercrime-excellerates-exponentiallyBefore the creation of the World Wide Web, it was much more of a challenge to produce propaganda against innocent victims, now it is as easy as filling out a form online, and pressing a submit button… and the results can be devastating to their victims.

Certainly, most people view information on the Internet with a cautious sense of curiosity. As we all know, you can’t believe everything you find in Google. Right? But, the psychopath armed with the intent to do irreparable damage to your reputation can cause so much of a clatter amongst the Internet-savvy to effectively trash you, or even rally an online mob against you.

We’ve seen it all, everything from posting a bunch of lies, half-truths, libel and slanderous reports in a way to make it look, “official,” via personal web sites, blogs, comment postings, and third-party web sites that may appear to be credible, to fraudulently impersonating victims on social media sites, like facebook and twitter and accosting your social media contacts with slanderous reports and/or threats.

Let’s face it, you can create anything you want on the Internet. It is an incredible resource when this power is used for good, but massively more powerful when used as a weapon against an individual; mostly due to the fact that the average web-surfing American loves drama. If they think they can use Google to uncover hidden dirty laundry on you, they will have feel like they’ve hit the mother-lode. And that – no matter how you try to defend yourself – can tarnish your image or reputation forever, because there will always be that seed of doubt amongst the conspiracy theorists.

For instance, let’s simulate a psychopath’s attack on you. In this scenario, let’s say that you maybe testified for the State against a psychopath and that your testimony led to his conviction and imprisonment. This causes the psychopath to focus all his energies on you as the reason that he is now behind bars – not that he committed crimes that landed him there – but you become his fixated target.

He (or she) is hell-bent to take you down, once and for all. You will pay the price for his/her transgressions.

In an attempt to destroy your credibility a psychopath may project his (or her) character attributes onto you in an effort to make him/her out to be the real victim, and possibly that the offender was framed by you, who exchanged your testimony for favors from the Court (or some other conspiracy).

The psychopath will take any known facts about you and turn them into wild stories that would excited the senses of any conspiracy theorist. For example,

 Fact  Psychopath   Spin
 You graduated from   Harvard  you never attended and   your credentials are fake
 You married at an   early age  unwed pregnancy and   illicit drug use forced you to marry
 You bought a new car  because the old car   had DNA evidence of your murder victim
 You own your home  you swindled some   retiree out of their home
 You vacationed in   Vegas  you were laundering   money for the mob
 You were divorced  your spouse left you   for infidelity
 Your children are   adults  they are finally free   from your (possibly sexual) abuse
 Your dog died  you killed your dog   only after torturing it
 Your friends love you  only because they   don’t’ know the truth about you

 

And so it goes, ad infinitum… Psychopaths are supremely gifted in spinning fantastic stories about their victims in an effort to destroy any sense of credibility that they may have.

Imagine applying for a job, and potential employers find these libelous reports on the Internet. What about getting phone calls from your friends, who tell you that they have received facebook messages, or even phone calls, from (supposed) public agencies investigating you for illicit or illegal activities?

Using the old-fashioned phone – or more correctly the evolutionary cell phone – is still a primary tool for the obsessive psychopath, especially due to new technologies including (but not limited to) “spoofing” caller ID information, so that caller ID enabled phones will see the phone number of the local police department, or FBI office on their call display; this is only one of the many new technological advancements that find themselves in the psychopath’s tool belt.

Who wins?

What can you do?

Avoid any contact with any potential psychopath via early detection. If it’s too late for that, stop any contact with your psychopath immediately and permanently. If you’ve already been targeted by a psychopath, ignore them as much as you can, as any response from you – in your defense or not – will chalk up a perceived “point” for the psycho. This will continue to fuel the fire.

Sometimes, if you are really good at ignoring the psychopath, they take it to the next level by attacking you through your friends, their friends, your associates and/or the media.

Hopefully, you can encourage them to document everything and not to fuel the fire by responding to the psychopath’s assaults in any way, but if they do, it will encourage the psychopath to push that target market even harder.

If you think that prosecution and imprisonment of a psychopath for committing cybercrimes will protect you; think again. We’ve seen these same crimes continue after the offender has been incarcerated via evil minions orchestrated and directed by the offender from behind bars.

 

Psychopath 7 Item Checklist

It is not uncommon to encounter a sociopath or psychopath at some point in one’s life. In the beginning, it may be one of the greatest experiences in your life, but as time goes on, it will likely be the worst experience in your life. They come in both genders, though most are male. They have been referred to as emotional vampires, sucking the life (emotional and financial resources) out of those that they have influence over.

Is-he-or-she-a-psychopath-7-item-checklistSociopath is the new, more politically correct label for a psychopath, so henceforth when I refer to a “sociopath” know that it is interchangeable with psychopath (psychopath is the old-school reference that I believe is a more accurate label of the condition).

The only defense one has against a sociopath is early detection. So, here’s a checklist of seven items that may give you the head’s up that this “someone” in your life, may not be all that he (or she) appears to be. So, here are seven signs to help you figure out if you might be dealing with a sociopath (hopefully before you’ve suffered damages):

  1. Sociopaths are charismatic and are able to attract supporters easily. They are wonderful speakers who are able to engage their audience who can easily engage the emotions and attention of those fortunate enough to be in their presence. They exaggerate stories skewing the truth for their self-serving benefit, and will go as far as to lie and place themselves in someone else’s story and claiming it is their own.
  2. Sociopaths are intellectual. They have a gift of having incredibly sharp wit and intelligence enabling them to masquerade as highly-educated, bob and weave in live situations. This also makes them excellent con artists able to conceive, plan and execute elaborate schemes, while (mostly) staying one step ahead of the authorities.
  3. Sociopaths are devoid of feelings. They do not grieve, are in capable of feeling guilt, shame or remorse, empowering them to easily victimize anyone. They will enthusiastically engage in anything that bolsters their position at someone else’s expense. They do not love. They are incapable of giving or receiving love, but terribly acute at acting as though they are in the throes of love, if it will help them achieve a desired result. They are great actors/performers with no real feelings whatsoever.
  4. Sociopaths are impulsive, often acting or speaking without thinking through potential consequences of their words or actions, and are more likely to take risks, being free of repercussion, since they see themselves as above the law or the constraints of the social norm.
  5. Sociopaths never lose. They will dominate anyone who gets in their way, will vehemently defend their position, often by telling lies and spinning wild tales in an effort to discredit naysayers.
  6. Sociopaths are never wrong. They never apologize; do not feel remorse for hurting others and are incapable of feeling guilt. If asked to apologize, will often strike out and attack their victim, rather than admit they may have made a mistake or misstep.
  7. Sociopaths believe their own press. Once they have said something, it becomes gospel in their mind; so much so, that they can often believe their own bold-faced lies, even to the point of being able to pass a lie detector test. They keep a long list of secrets, and are not forthcoming about intimate details of their past, unless they are fictitious.

So, what do you do if you discover you’re in the presence of a sociopath?

Simply put as much distance between yourself and them as soon and as safely as possible. Curtail any continued communication with them immediately if not sooner. Be aware that if they have not bled you dry, or achieved their goal in manipulating you; they will do anything in their power to repair their relationship with you, so that they can complete their exploitation of you.

Don’t let them do it. Surround yourself with friends who will help shelter you from further exposure.

Thanks to Damon Marturion for this post.