"I should've been more careful with pictures of my animals"
A tale of a racist stalker, a veteran, and some cute pets
One of my private clients, letâs call him Darren, wanted me to share this story because of the important conclusions he and I both drew from it. Buckle up, because this gets wild.
As many of you know, I teach online safety classes, train journalists, and help out on stalking cases and other sensitive issues when Iâm not busy working on this newsletter. A while ago, Darren came to me seeking help â he wanted me to assess his digital footprint and determine if he was being safe or not. Darren has been a victim of stalking in the past, and he believed his stalker was making contact again.
Darren is a Black man and a military veteran â his race and professional background will become important in a minute â and a few years ago, he was looking to settle down. He met a woman on a dating website and, while she was just as pretty as her pictures, they had a couple of dates that really didnât go well.
The woman, letâs call her Tanya, was very attractive, but seemed erratic to Darren. She called him late at night, made weird demands, and, finally, made some racially insensitive comments to him. He broke it off.
At the time, Darren was living in a suburb of a major American city. Suddenly, he was, in his own words, ârunning into Tanya everywhere.â She was in his grocery store parking lot! She was at the restaurant he liked! SHE FINALLY JUST WENT AHEAD AND DROVE PAST HIS HOUSE!
Darren had only ever met Tanya in the city. He never gave her his address. Then he decided to examine his dating profile pictures.
Iâm not going to include his dating profile pics, but here is an old one of mine. Notice anything amiss here?
Besides the fact that my cat looks like she wants to KILL ME, there is the background color combination. Eggshell brick wall + a bright green brick wall. Note the way the window is facing. Note the fence. My dating profile says that I am in D.C. With enough ingenuity, free time, and creepiness, someone can absolutely figure out where this picture was taken. Geolocation is the simple process of elimination, as we have demonstrated with our joint geolocation challenges time and time again. Bright colors that stand out just make it easier!
In Darrenâs case, he was particularly lax when it came to pictures of his awesome pit bulls. As he noted, âI shouldâve been more careful with pictures of my animals.â We often donât think about security issues when it comes to animals, simply because our brain doesnât often assign a picture that much meaning. I mean, itâs just a cute dog? Where is the potential harm?
Unfortunately for Darren, Tanya had used his pictures of his pitties on their walks to figure out his exact location. She moved on from the dating site, found his Facebook profile, and really went to town on harvesting his info.
Eventually, she was physically stalking him. When confronted about this, Tanya completely owned her behavior and⊠just kidding, lol. Tanya did NOT own her behavior. Instead, she said, âYouâre black and a veteran. If I tell the cops youâre a violent thug and that you raped me, theyâll believe me.â
Some of you may be shocked by this, but it happens all the time. Tanya was a racist who weaponized racism. She also weaponized stereotypes of the military community. Women like Tanya are out there, and while theyâre thankfully a minority, they are honestly terrifying. Itâs especially hard for male victims to come forward. As Darren put it, âIf you know, you know.â
What did Darren do? He was thankfully able to keep his cool, contact a lawyer, and, eventually, get a protection order after Tanya was stupid enough to trespass on his property. Honestly, this was a really good outcome. Itâs always worse when a stalker is smart.
Flash forward to a decent amount of years later. Darren is working in a new city. He didnât scrub his online presence or anything like that â for many victims of stalking, myself included, it feels like letting the stalker win â but he did lock his Facebook down and he became much more careful about how he used his pictures on dating sites. Some of his personal techniques:
â ZOOM in before you post a picture. This gives you a better idea of what it is youâre potentially giving away.
â Double-check your animal photos. Donât post photos of your dogs right next to your house. Similarly, everyone loves pictures of cats on the window. But you can make sure that whatâs in the actual window doesnât give too much info away.
â Think about any objects that youâre holding or showcasing that might give away information that youâre not comfortable sharing. This includes corporate merchandise, high school trophies, and basically anything that could tie you to a particular place.
Darren approached me because he believed that his stalker was making contact again from a sockpuppet account online. This is also very common. Stalkers love a blast from the past.
Without giving too many details away, I reviewed some of the correspondence that he sent to me, and came to the conclusion that he was absolutely correct. I looked at some of the old correspondence between Darren and Tanya, looked at the information associated with the sockpuppet, and cross-referenced a bunch of it with Tanyaâs known accounts. Remember, Tanyaâs a dumb one. It didnât take long for me to make exact matches, which I highlighted and forwarded to Darren for his files.
At this point, legally, there wasnât much that Darren could do. The police can be notoriously bad about handling these cases, plus, it wasnât like Tanyaâs sockpuppet was making overt threats. All she had to do, all she wanted to do, was to unnerve him. His lawyer similarly advised him to keep an eye on her, but not make any sudden moves. Keeping a file on Tanyaâs activities, however, at least made him feel more in control.
We further discussed some strategies about how he could better protect himself, spoke at length about the psychological torture of this behavior, and, in the end, Darren said that it would actually make him feel much better if I shared his story with you all.
Not because he blames himself â we donât do shaming around here, itâs totally unhelpful! â but because itâs important to know that his case is not an isolated one.
These things happen. They happen to men and women. Black men in particular can be vulnerable to white women in these scenarios because of the systemic racism the latter can exploit. Stereotypes about veterans is another problem people like Tanya can exploit. NONE OF THIS IS OK and we need better laws and better protections â our legislation and the way we handle stalking cases are falling behind our technology.
Until we catch up, though, itâs good to be aware that this is happening. Cruel, unbalanced jerks have always been among us. The internet just makes it that much easier for them to operate.
If you learned something new today, please consider a paid subscription. Just $5 a month can go a long way. If you need help with an online stalker, please e-mail me at nvantonova [at] gmail (dot) com â Iâd love to advise you!