One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Mashable published an article titled Stalker in the Attic: The Cyberbully Who Spies on 12-Year-Old Girls in Their Home.

This spring, Melody and Julia’s story was big drama in the little world of Florence Stiles Middle School in Leander, Texas. Kids gossiped about the latest message from Danielle; Danielle insisted she wasn’t behind it; school administrators met with police and held anti-bullying rallies.

But by May, the case had outgrown their school, even their suburb. The jealous spat among three girls progressed to cyberbullying and then, apparently, to hacking, online surveillance and real-world stalking. The families enlisted investigators from four law enforcement agencies, private eyes and experts in online security and forensics to make sense of the strange harassment, which seemed to turn every networked device in their homes against them. After Julia’s mother, a blogger with a devoted following, wrote about the ordeal, the case became a crusade among her flock. Anti-bullying activists championed the cause, calling it the worst case of cyberbullying they had ever seen.

To others it seemed a blatant hoax, a bid for sympathy or attention too absurd to be believed. And by June, with no certain suspects or explanations, the threat was apparently over. The messages stopped, the clues dried up, the trail went cold. School staff and police seem baffled. The community, wrapped in forces they still don’t understand, is left to wonder how 12-year-olds, or their phones, could be capable of such a complex scheme.

Source: Mashable