How do you determine whether to take a threat seriously? The key is to look for four factors: Credibility. This is rather easy to determine. For a threat to be credible, there must be some reasonable expectation that it could be carried out. For example, suppose a woman in Nebraska is on an Internet discussion board and receives a general threat from another user living in Bangkok in the course of a heated debate. In this scenario, the sender very [...]

The following real-world cases illustrate the problem of cyber stalking. Examining the facts in these cases might help you to get an idea of what legally constitutes cyber stalking: Case 1: An honors graduate from the University of San Diego terrorized five female university students over the Internet for more than a year. The victims received hundreds of violent and threatening e-mails, sometimes four or five a day. The graduate student, who has entered a guilty plea and faces up [...]