As Domestic Abuse Goes Digital, Shelters Turn To Counter-surveillance With Tor 133
An anonymous reader writes "Almost every modern abusive relationship has a digital component, from cyberstalking to hacking phones, emails, and social media accounts, but women's shelters increasingly have found themselves on the defensive, ill-equipped to manage and protect their clients from increasingly sophisticated threats. Recently the Tor Project stepped in to help change that. Andrew Lewman, executive director of the project, 'thinks of the digital abuse epidemic like a doctor might consider a biological outbreak. "Step one, do not infect yourself. Step two, do not infect others, especially your co-workers. Step three, help others," he said. In the case of digital infections, like any other, skipping those first two steps can quickly turn caretakers into infected liabilities. For domestic violence prevention organizations that means ensuring their communication lines stay uncompromised. And that means establishing a base level of technology education for staff with generally little to no tech chops who might not understand the gravity of clean communication lines until faced with a situation where their own phone or email gets hacked.'"
Re:Digital Domestic Abuse (Score:5, Interesting)
Sending a nasty email is not domestic abuse.
My wife had to put up with an asshole ex-husband who thought the same thing during the early stages of our relationship. He loved to call her up once in a great while and screw with her head - usually after she'd gotten over the last time he called and once he figured out her new phone number. It wasn't until I called him up one day and said two things that he shut up and went away, never to pester her again.
Her personality brightened up a whole hell of a lot more after that, and we've been extremely happy about things ever since.
(...those two things? The first was a recitation of his home address and the hours he was usually home. I'll plead the fifth before I tell you the second one.)
Re:Teaching physics to 3rd graders... (Score:2, Interesting)
I've seen things swing both ways, where abuse is claimed (to the point of one party in a relationship injuring themselves.)
A person who I worked with has dealt with that. From what I gather, after his messy divorce that he "lost", the other party scoring the house, kids, and both alimony and child support. Now, he is in a nasty cycle:
1: He is unemployed.
2: Ex hauls him into court demanding child support payments.
3: He is unemployed, no money to pay.
4: Judge tosses him in the county cooler for six months for failure to pay with a yet another fine.
5: He gets released, goes back to a friend's house, starts looking for a job... back to step #1.
This has been going on for three years now, usually 1-2 weeks after release before the local finest come and haul him back in front of the judge for another half-year in the pokey.
Re:women are stalkers too (Score:5, Interesting)
Because there aren't shelters filled with abused men and their children they took with them when they escaped the abusive relationship (that I'm aware of). I'm sure that won't stop your miserable whining, though.
Fun fact: That's because there are very few shelters for men.
We've got a couple here in Canada, and they're heavily used. The abuse industry, and I will call it that for good reason has done quite a bit of work pushing the "only men can be abuses" belief. And have pushed it so hard that it's skewed court and family court against men. It of course also doesn't help that there's a huge social stigma on the "the wife/gf/so/etc" beat up the guy. With the "why didn't you stand up for yourself, etc.," bit. Police don't care one way or the other in the case of a domestic here, and try to find the primary person who instigated it. But if the women is the one, there really isn't anywhere for the guy to go.
But let's move onto the homosexual side. Depending on what study you want to cite, the abuse rates between both same sex couples hit as high as 70%, for the women again there's a place they can go to. For the men, not so.
Re:Digital Domestic Abuse (Score:2, Interesting)
First, quit repeating the bullshit that women are the injured party. It is 50/50 [odt.co.nz] not 100/0.
Second, my mother used to attack my father, then beat herself up and ring the police, pretending that he had attacked her.
This went on weekly for about four years, until he left her. Then she proceeded to invite him around, beat herself up, and ring the police.
I REMEMBER THIS OCCURRING.
She got into relationships and used that guy as a weapon against my father, including persuading one to attack him (skinny unskilled fuck vs a guy trained in combatu jiu jutsu who would get into pub fights every day - hence why the cops would believe her every time).
She's also threatened to stab me with a knife after throwing dinner plates at me, she used to regularly assault my brother and I with electrical cables, vacuum cleaner attachments, anything she could get a good swing with.
She still does it, too. After fleecing her mother for more than $15k, she fleeced my father (her ex-) for more than $3k, and now that she's employed refuses to pay it back because it's not her job to support him.
Women are just as capable of being abusers as men. Sadly, it's unknowledgable fools such as yourself who reinforce this idiotic - and readily exploitable - ideal that women are weak, frail creatures who need protecting from the big bullying men.
I've another post much nearer the top detailing my own experiences with an abusive woman (who stole significant amounts of money from me). Go read it.