This article outlines how a family
was harassed when a hacker was able to gain access to their baby monitor. Once
he gained access, he was able to find out the child’s name by swiveling the
webcam; he then started to harass the child. The family discovered the actions
of the hacker when they heard a strange voice coming from their child’s room. Once
the family discovered tampering the hacker directed his harassment toward them
as well. In order to stop the onslaught, the family’s only choice was to cease
using the baby monitor. Fortunately, the daughter was deaf and had her cochlear
implant removed while sleeping, so she didn’t hear the hacker’s offensive
tirade.
Unless this man is truly atypical
and regularly invades homes to harass children in his day-to-day activities,
his actions outlined in the article are an apt portrayal of the online
disinhibition effect (a very toxic inhibition)—acting online in a manner that a
person would not otherwise do in the real-world. Specifically, the hacker is
demonstrating dissociative anonymity. The hacker, which the family describes to
have had a “European or British accent,” could have been acting on people thousands
of miles away, who have no possible connection or apparent way of tracking the
hacker’s identity. Thus, the hacker felt completely separated from his actions
upon the family. For all we know, this man could have been a preschool teacher
or a Member of British parliament who gets his kicks on the weekend anonymously
harassing babies. Any restraint his
superego imposed on his real life actions were not in play when he shouted
expletives at a baby. The motivation for this invasion of privacy and
harassment seems to be simple ‘blind catharsis.’
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