Michael Nuccitelli, Psy.D.

Thanks

Action Against Stalking

This writer would like to thank Action Against Stalking (AAS) for the opportunity to educate online users about stalking, cyberstalking and his iPredator concept. Pasted below is their YouTube discussion. AAS is the premiere organization for addressing stalking, online stalking and victimization. In addition to education, their help and support to victims is exceptional. Not only should there be a Centre for Action Against Stalking throughout Europe but in every county of the United States. I am honored to be involved with this organization. Provided here is our educational session hosted on YouTube. Also provided are this writer’s iPredator and cyberstalking definitions.

I’d like to give a special thanks to the professionals who participated in our educational discussion and work tirelessly to help the victims of stalking and cyberstalking.

• Ann Moulds, Action Against Stalking Founder and CEO
• Amanda Morrison, Throughcare Practitioner
• Gin Lowdean, Throughcare Service Manager
• Richard Fodor, Community Engagement and Communications Officer

Cyberstalking Definition

Cyberstalking is the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to stalk, control, manipulate or habitually threaten a child, adult, business or group. Cyberstalking is both a tactic used by an ICT assailant and typology of pathological ICT user. Cyberstalking tactics include false accusations, threats of harm, habitual monitoring, surveillance, implied threats, identity theft, damage to property and gathering information to manipulate and control their target.

To meet the criteria of cyber stalking, the information and tactics used must involve a credible or implied physical and psychological threat to the target. These threats cause the target to become frightened.

An example of physical threat involves bodily harm to the target or their loved ones using ICT. Examples of psychological threats involve using disparagement, humiliation, disinformation dissemination and environmental damage to the target’s reputation, credibility or financial status if the target does not acquiesce to the cyber stalker’s demands.

Action Against Stalking Website

iPredator Definition

iPredator: iPredator is a person, group, or nation who, directly or indirectly, engages in exploitation, victimization, coercion, stalking, theft, or disparagement of others using Information and Communications Technology (ICT). iPredators are driven by deviant fantasies, desires for power, control, and retribution, religious fanaticism, political reprisal, psychiatric illness, perceptual distortions, peer acceptance, or personal and financial gain. They can be any age or gender and are not bound by economic status, race, religion, or national heritage. Their sole requirement to get started in this dark dimension is an internet connection.

Central to the concept is the premise that information age criminals, deviants, and the violently disturbed are psychopathological classifications new to humanity. Whether the offender is a cyberbully, cyberstalker, cyber harasser, cybercriminal, online sexual predator, cyberterrorist, internet troll, online child pornography consumer/distributor, or a person engaged in internet defamation or nefarious online deception, they fall within the scope of iPredator. The three criteria used to define an iPredator include:

• A self-awareness of causing harm to others, directly or indirectly, using ICT.
• The usage of ICT to obtain, tamper with, exchange and deliver harmful information.
• A general understanding of cyberstealth used to engage in criminal or deviant activities or to profile, locate, stalk, and engage a target.

Unlike human predators prior to the information age, iPredators rely on the multitude of benefits offered by ICT. The primary differentiators of this very modern kind of predation are also threefold: the unlimited distance over which data can be conveyed, the immediacy with which the data can be conveyed, and the unlimited scope of data that can be conveyed. The importance of these three vectors of capability cannot be overstated. In pre-information age societies, by contrast, a predator’s malicious activity was local, slow-moving, and technologically constrained; the predator was limited to the area he could cover by car, to use an emblematic example, needed careful wooing or “casing” of his victim, and was restricted by the limitations of crude technologies like the telephone.

In the abstract and artificial electronic universe known as cyberspace, none of these restrictive qualifiers obtain. Furthermore, there is a fourth advantage that ICT offers iPredators: anonymity. On the internet it is easy for iPredators to actively design online profiles and diversionary tactics to remain undetected and untraceable.

Free Cyberstalking Assessment Links

Cyberstalking Prevention Checklist [CSPC]

iPredator Probability Inventory – Cyberstalking [IPI-CS]

Cyberstalker Identification Interview [CSII]

Michael Nuccitelli, Psy.D.

Michael Nuccitelli, Psy.D. is a NYS licensed psychologist, cyberpsychology researcher and online safety educator. In 2009, Dr. Nuccitelli finalized his dark side of cyberspace concept called iPredator. Since 2010, he has advised those seeking information about cyberbullying, cyberstalking, cybercriminal minds, internet addiction and his Dark Psychology concept. By day Dr. Nuccitelli is a practicing psychologist, clinical supervisor and owner of MN Psychological Services, PLLC. After work and on the weekends, he volunteers helping online users who have been cyber-attacked. Dr. Nuccitelli’s is always available to interested parties and the media at no cost. This website and everything created by Dr. Nuccitelli is educational, free and public domain.

Donate to Action Against Stalking

Action Against Stalking is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organization (SCIO No: SC044905)