Cyberstalking
A few people have emailed me to see if I am doing okay, as I have not updated for a while. There is actually a reason for this.
In the English law of tort, there was the leading case of R. v Ireland in which the defendant made a large number of silent phone calls to his victims. I think I have been experiencing the cyber equivalent of that in the past few months.
I use Google Analytics to track my site traffic. Since the beginning of 2010, someone from Del Mar (which is apparently an American town with a population of around 4000 people) have been using the search term “what happened to iwa ni hana” to reach my blog. This was repeated for about 40-50 times, sometimes more than once a day. I found it annoying, but let it be for the time being.
And then a few weeks ago it got scarier. The same person from Del Mar began to use the search term “iwanihana suicide” to reach this blog. This has been repeated for over 10 times so far. I wish that person would stop as it is seriously disturbing.
That was also when I began to worry about personal safety. Iwa ni Hana is only a blog about personal hobbies – manga, anime, books, films, languages etc. I never get involved in any kind of flame wars with anyone. It is not even like I have some extreme message in politics or religion to deserve this sort of fanatic attention. And although I still have a ton of stuff to write about, I had to stop and think about what to do with this blog. To be honest, I cannot say I have come up with any good answer. I can only say that I no longer feel comfortable to blog in English, so I will stop that for a quite a long while. In the meantime, I will continue to blog in some other language sphere and see what happens.
I apologize if this is disappointing news to anyone. Please understand that I receive this sort of mental harassment every day. In the mean time, I always welcome emails.
I’m so sorry to hear this. I’ve been wondering what happened, and I assumed you were just busy, but this is far worse and I completely understand why it makes you uncomfortable. I’ve always looked forward to reading your articles (as rarely as I commented, for which I apologize – usually I just don’t feel qualified enough to comment!
), so I hope that person will get tired of this game soon and you can resume blogging in English in the near future. (I’d ask where I can read you in Japanese, if you choose that language sphere, but I suppose that’s not a good idea in this situation…)
Darn, that’s pretty creepy
Really, a one or two month-long break from blogging doesn’t usually warrant that kind of, uh, “concern” from most people.
Anyway, best wishes :] Patiently looking forward to your next blog entry, whenever you feel that should be.
Very sorry to hear this. While I can certainly sympathize with your dread in the psychological sense, in case it helps, I don’t think you have anything to worry about in terms of your personal safety. After all, going by your About page there’s a whole ocean of water between you and the Del Mar person, and if the jerk is stupid enough to harass you from a specific location without even turning off GA (*), I don’t think they’d be any kind of a threat to you IRL. As it seems from your description that they’re not using a proxy service, and you have plenty of logged evidence, you might want to report this behavior to their ISP. Most people like this lose their nerve as soon as they can no longer hide behind anonymity.
Basically, self-serving though it may be, I’d hate to lose the opportunity to occasionally partake in your delightful insights just because some dweeb has dreamed up some imaginary beef with you. But of course do what you feel the most comfortable with, I’m well aware that you don’t owe us anything. Besides, if you continue in Japanese, I’ll still be able to read you
All the best.
(*) As a sidenote, I personally block it because I prefer not to be location tracked. As an added benefit, most English-language bloggers seem to assume you’re an American unless they know different, and more often than not that’s useful in being able to talk about US-related stuff without it being dismissed as coming from a foreigner. I’m mentioning this in case you feel weird getting comments on this topic from what may look like an undisclosed location to you (I’m from Tallinn, Estonia).
My initial words can’t be repeated here (and I’m generally pretty soft-spoken). DD: You have my sympathies.
I thought you were busy or having problems at work. But indeed this is something worse. I’d like to say some more but maybe I’ll just email you one of these days.
Well I guess I’d have to continue with Japanese study then if I am to keep up with your Japanese blog. Looking forward to your next post.
Risk sounding mean, as a common matter, people’s search histories are nobody elses’ business; it’s generally not a public record. The comparison with phone stalking is distinguishable by the fact that you have to put some effort into looking up how people are reaching your site, and even so it is kind of absurd. It seems simply unreasonable to ask people not to click on links as results of google searches that might disturb you.
Sympathy aside, I do think you have an excellent idea there. It could be the lead-in to a great mystery story.
I hope your gentle heart can ignore this kind of thing, it’d be sad for your blog to be stopped by some random guy over at er…Del Mar? And in a vain attempt to ease your mind (haha), the search for ‘suicide’ does lead to a very interesting post you wrote on sadness. Maybe he wanted to read his favourite article multiple times while you’re on hiatus? I know I have a number of blog posts that I’ve read over several times, and it is also true that I normally use obvious search terms to find that article instead of saving it. Sometimes the search term may include the blog name, author, and ‘sexual’ to find that interesting article on sexual fantasy of some character of some movie or something…but that doesn’t mean I had anything sexual about the author when I did it!
…o well, I tried. At least it isn’t nearly as bad as the kind of cyberterrorism you’d find in Korea, which can literally ruin your life.
kuromitsu:
Thank you very much for your kind understanding.
exlurker:
The activity did not start because I was slow in updating. It started several months ago and is repeated nearly on a daily basis.
Kirito:
I should add that the worrying thing is that I even remember someone doing WHOIS searches on my domain name a while ago. The domain is privately registered, but I think someone who really has a mind and with the skills would get information like my home/billing address.
I did get an email from someone who claims to be from around Del Mar in the end. The person says she only access this blog from her bookmark and only searched for the keyword “suicide” once. I am really skeptical about that and am even more creeped out than before – either Google Analytics has been wrong for over three months or she is lying. Or maybe she really does not remember if she has a split personality…
I.R.:
I appreciate your kind understanding.
hayase:
Please feel free to email me anytime.
omo:
I do not think I can agree with that. I would not have paid attention if it were search terms entered once or twice by a variety of visitors. I am talking about the same search term used purposely to access this blog for 40-50 times by the same visitor over the space of two months and 10 times by the same visitor over the space of a few weeks. And the search terms themselves are not “iwanihana mononoke” or something like that. If it helps to compare, the next most popular search term is “nokemono to hanayome” and there have only been 36 clicks by 30 different visitors since the 1 Jan 2010.
gaguri:
Yes, of course I have thought of the same. But as I have mentioned above, this is beyond what I would think of as normal.
It’s a pity to read that you will no longer post in english, oh well google translation will come handy for the others languages…
I am surprised you get emotional just for a few keyword on google search term result, though if you have this kind of harassment in real life, it would be troublesome for mental health to get some too on the internet…but be wary that this is the current internet and unless you restrict yourself to read news website, there will be always this kind of attitude on blog and forums.
Just take it easy, ignore the spam/bad word filter and don’t let it get you up to RL.
:O i’m sorry to hear this, must be a bit scary and hard to ignore, what a weird creep that person must be, i hope everything will get better! and things will be sorted out for you and this person will at least stop :O!! they must have some reason.
shame you wont be continuing in English, i’ll still keep a lookout for the next entry though!
I am not very well-versed on the ins and outs of cyber-bullying, but what you have described is rather worrying, and it is very distressing that there is a chance this person may be able to find sensitive information such as your address and phone number and continue this off-line. If you need to take a break, take a break. It is a shame that I will not be able to continue to read your entries in English, but your mental health comes first, and besides, I need to brush up on my Japanese (and perhaps finally pick up another language aside from that) so I am glad I will be able to follow you in some way.
I hope this person ceases harassing you. I’ve always enjoyed what you have to say, and it’s a pity that this person is ruining this for everyone. Good luck. We’re all supporting you.
I’m sorry to hear this as well (hey, long time no see !). :/
But as creepy as this looks, is it not possible that that person is a rabid fan who wondered what happened to your blog and thought maybe you died, trying to find evidence of this on the Internet ? (yeah I know this is stupid because one would google “iwanihana dead” in that case)
Damn, I thought that everything was not going well… I’ve been missing your posts greatly.
I would prefer the membership-based blog, but it is yours to do as you please. As I hone my Japanese language skills, I would be able to follow your other blog.
Best wishes and hope to hear from you soon.
ado:
It is not the search terms in themselves but the frequency of the search terms from one person.
susperia:
Thank you very much for your understanding. I hope that person will lose interest after enough time has passed.
Mosuke:
Thank you again. I hope this will blow over soon too.
Snoop’:
Long time no see. Are you still on the same email address?
Rabid fans can be worrying as rabid anti-fans too, you know…
Ridiculus:
Many thanks for your kind understanding.
!!!Creepy! And I just thought that you were busy
It’s really sad that you’d stop blogging in English since apart from German ,I don’t know any other language. I hope Google translation will come in hand. But this aside, why would anyone in an unknown place to you would try to harass you like this? Plus, if anyone meant to threaten your life, wouldn’t (s)he try inserting the term ‘iwanihana murdered’ ? It seems to me more like an internet addict or even perhaps someone with bad humour…
Anyways, I hope you’ll be safe and find a solution out of this. Isn’t there any organization against e-terror or about e-safety?
Oh no, it is a bit sad you didn’t tell me this. I am sorry about that. I am not familiar with that sort of thing, so there is nothing I can do for you. But you know, eh, I hope things will be better so you will be able to blog again.
Noted with thanks.
Ahh, how pity. i’ve always found a big pleasure to read your blog. For me it’s not only fun, but also very informative and even educational. I also secretly admire your excellent writing skill of English. I’d wished to be just as good as you. But if you consider to start a new blog in another language, may i suggest Chinese? Because it would be easier for meXD(just a joke, hope you don’t mind)总而言之，博主加油！everything will be fine.
I’m sorry to learn of this bad news,I´m wholeheartedly with you. Take care of yourself. I’ve been reading your articles for a long time. I’ve always found it interesting, I’ve learned a lot grace to you. Thanks for all.
This sounds very horrible. (Ans somewhat scary, too.)
I hope the current situation will not last all that long. I wonder if it has already done some good…?(As two month almost passed by.)
Sorry to hear. I like reading your posts. Not as often as I should, but it’s a joy every time. However, as I’m sure bloggers and web inhabitants are aware, real estate in cyberspace will carry some negative potential blues. I hope this wind passes quickly, and you continue to be your old, informative self.
Just wondering if the situation has improved since and you have any plans of returning to blogging. I miss this place. There aren’t that many anime-related blogs that can give me the feeling of lying on a grassy hilltop with my arms stretched out, looking at the shifting, fleeting cloud-shapes in the blue sky, imagining. In fact, without yours there are none.
Hana-san. This is just my 2 yen, but you shouldn’t take syslogs or analytics too seriously.
If I look at the syslogs of my torrent Mini, I see that I’m “attacked” at least 200 times a day by DSL and University users in China. Probably part of a botnet because they start with user ‘a’ and end with user ‘z’ and then start over. From different IP addresses even.
Are these people or infected machines? Hard to say.
Your problem is one ip block half a world away.
If this is happening too many times a day, the only thing that occurs to me is that someone may be running an SEO script to ‘boost those search terms’. Or if it’s only 1-2 times then someone has put that Google page as their homepage (so that it automatically loads).
Maybe you DO have some jealous luser on the other side of the world. Who wants to promote those key words. That’s all they or their script can do.
Who knows what drives some people to do dumb things like this? Especially so-called ‘fans’.
Most folks who search don’t even know that their searches are not private. Just like most college kids using scripts against another PC don’t know that their actions are logged by SOMEONE (the target, both ISPs, etc).
Just like the ssh attacks on my machine, there’s little you can do other than keep your identity private, and soldier on.
Not blogging means.. well that the luser has won.
-Drunken Economist
http://mindtaker.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/drunk_economist