Kidnapping Hackers (as in "hackers who kidnap")

[RuchiVee]

Twice now in my mere three months on SL I have heard what I can only presume is an urban legend (err...cyberban legend?) about people who hack into your SL account and then show up in RL and kidnap you.

The first time, it was someone at a newbie sim who, ostensibly in an attempt to be helpful and protective, warned me never to give out any personal information, email addresses, or anything else that might lead to my true identity being discovered because there are hackers out there who will use that information to gather more information about me in order to track me down and kidnap me.

Recently, another person, who got angry at me because I rebuffed his solicitations, threatened informed me that I should "be careful who [ I ] cross" because "there are hackers out there who will find you and kidnap you."

Am I correct in believing that this is nothing more than an overblown myth?  Or is there really this dark cadre of SL hackers out there seeking to kidnap young women?  (Note to dark cadre of hacker-kidnappers, if you do exist:  my dad is Liam Neesons, and he has a very particular set of skills.)

Edited September 10, 2018 by RuchiVee

[Phorumities]

How do they know who is a young woman based on their second life info?

[Lucia Nightfire]

There was that incident in 2008. Aside from that, I'd say it's mostly empty threats. I still wouldn't give out personal information willy nilly though.

[Phorumities]

2 minutes ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

There was that incident in 2008. Aside from that, I'd say it's mostly empty threats. I still wouldn't give out personal information willy nilly though.

Why wouldn't they just kidnap young women?

Oh look theres a young woman lets kidnap her.

No you fool we can't, we need her sl info first.

Why do they need to do it based on your second life info?

It's just one of those myths

Edited September 10, 2018 by Phorumities
aded lines

[RuchiVee]

What incident in 2008?

EDIT:  *searches google*

Ohhh...this one???  https://www.geek.com/games/second-life-relationship-leads-to-attempted-kidnapping-577890/

That b¡t¢h be crazy!

Edited September 10, 2018 by RuchiVee

[Phorumities]

1 minute ago, RuchiVee said:

What incident in 2008?

I heard that one time there was this woman who's fantasy was to be tortured to death, and she found someone online that was willing to do it. 

*shrugs*

[RuchiVee]

1 minute ago, Phorumities said:

I heard that one time there was this woman who's fantasy was to be tortured to death, and she found someone online that was willing to do it. 

*shrugs*

I dunno...that sounds cyberban legendy to me.

[MoiraKathleen]

I would question the 'hacking' part.  What I think could happen is the possibility of being stalked in RL if you were, for example, involved in an SL relationship where you had shared personal contact information, and then the relationship went bad.  

If you are careful to not fall for phishing attempts, and are careful about who you share RL contact information with (or at least how much or what type of RL information you share), you should be OK.  

[RuchiVee]

8 minutes ago, Phorumities said:

Why wouldn't they just kidnap young women?

Oh look theres a young woman lets kidnap her.

No you fool we can't, we need her sl info first.

Why do they need to do it based on your second life info?

It's just one of those myths

LOL...that's a hilarious scenario.  I imagine the kidnappers in your vignette to be these guys:

No, what I think the legend implies is that they use SL to phish for information about you, figuring out who might be vulnerable or an easy mark, and then use that information to track you down and then kidnap you.  

Maybe they don't just kidnap women on the street with a van because they're shy.

[Phorumities]

1 hour ago, RuchiVee said:

I dunno...that sounds cyberban legendy to me.

Well there is this:

https://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/headline-story/16932/usenet-sharon-lopatka-consensual-murder/

[Fionalein]

that all sounds like some crazy creepiepasta - but the idea is still good: don't give your RL information away or folks could do something weird...

Edited September 11, 2018 by Fionalein

[Ceka Cianci]

I've heard of people saying they had stalkers in world,but not really heard much about ones that spilled over into rl..

I'm sure it does happen,but probably not as much as we think..

I've never heard of hacker kidnappers mentioned before, until this thread.

 

 

[Fionalein]

1 minute ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I've never heard of hacker kidnappers mentioned before, until this thread.

And I thought that was the favourite recroutment method of KGB and CIA: kidnap your hackers...

[Ceka Cianci]

1 minute ago, Fionalein said:

And I thought that was the favourite recroutment method of KGB and CIA: kidnap your hackers...

I have no idea,,I'm not even sure who is doing the kidnapping and who is getting kidnapped..

Is it that the hackers are kidnappers,or the hackers are getting kidnapped?

hehehehe

[Madelaine McMasters]

Of course it's true. SL residents are, far and away, the most attractive kidnap targets on Earth.

Where else can you find such a dense population of people who'll be sorely missed by extremely wealthy families who'll spare no expense to get them back?

I, however, am not worried. Some of you may recall that my Father paid out a handsome fee to my ex-husband to take me off his hands on our wedding day. And if you know that,  you also know that a decade later, my ex-hubby returned me and the money.

Ain't nobody gonna kidnap me!

[RuchiVee]

2 hours ago, Phorumities said:

Well there is this:

https://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/headline-story/16932/usenet-sharon-lopatka-consensual-murder/

Oh, okay...so, not an SL-related incident, but an old early-internet-days thing.

[Callum Meriman]

There are a fair number of (let's be kind and call them) unhinged people in SL. People who will take things a little far if they are scorned. Often the unhinged person sticks to making 500 alts an hour and bombarding the person of their focus with obscene messages and copied profiles. We know these ones, we see people come to the forums on a semi regular basis and ask how to be free. (Mute/Ignore/Never reply)

But yes, there are some who will push this further, if they can.

Doxxing is real, stalking is real. While kidnapping might be a little more far fetched I consider the chances of an unhinged and scorned scorned lover crossing over into real life is a thing. From unwanted (and hard to explain) gifts, phonecalls, death threats, farcebook messages, even turning up and knocking on the door.

My partner has had two of these unhinged lunatics give him death threats (In both cases the lunatic was an American, and my Partner is German, so the threats were easily discounted as hot words). You can also see quite a sizable number of news articles that describe other games and people who are swatted, bombarded in unpaid for pizzas, and worse.

It's rather common.

OP, protect your RL info. The risk is real, maybe not of a kidnapper, but certainly of you meeting a deranged person one day. Other protections on top of not including any real life info (not even a true photo): never put your home in picks - in fact choose a Linden sim somewhere for all your pick locations, consider hiding groups of places you like to go.

[Callum Meriman]

Adding: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel

and somewhat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy as well.

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[Tari Landar]

7 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Of course it's true. SL residents are, far and away, the most attractive kidnap targets on Earth.

Where else can you find such a dense population of people who'll be sorely missed by extremely wealthy families who'll spare no expense to get them back?

I, however, am not worried. Some of you may recall that my Father paid out a handsome fee to my ex-husband to take me off his hands on our wedding day. And if you know that,  you also know that a decade later, my ex-hubby returned me and the money.

Ain't nobody gonna kidnap me!

Mom always told my dad "honey, no one is going to kidnap her, they'd pay us to return her if they did". I don't think she was far off the mark on that one...and she still wouldn't be, lol.

Then again, mom also used to tell me I wasn't actually born, they found me on a sandy beach under a rock one day  And I LOVED hearing that my entire life(I mean that sincerely, I really did, and still do). It was even on my graduation cake..."From a sandy beach under a rock...." was awesome

 

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Tari Landar

[Klytyna]

12 hours ago, RuchiVee said:

Twice now in my mere three months on SL I have heard what I can only presume is an urban legend (err...cyberban legend?) about people who hack into your SL account and then show up in RL and kidnap you.

The first time, it was someone at a newbie sim who, ostensibly in an attempt to be helpful and protective, warned me never to give out any personal information, email addresses, or anything else that might lead to my true identity being discovered because there are hackers out there who will use that information to gather more information about me in order to track me down and kidnap me.

Recently, another person, who got angry at me because I rebuffed his solicitations, threatened informed me that I should "be careful who [ I ] cross" because "there are hackers out there who will find you and kidnap you."

Am I correct in believing that this is nothing more than an overblown myth?  Or is there really this dark cadre of SL hackers out there seeking to kidnap young women?  (Note to dark cadre of hacker-kidnappers, if you do exist:  my dad is Liam Neesons, and he has a very particular set of skills.)

Realistically...

1. These days, virtually NOBODY's account ever gets "hacked", some people GIVE their passwords away because they are too lazy and stupid to READ web links before clicking on them and attempting to log in with their SL credentials...

https://www.markinpiece.secondwife.con/only-an-idiot-would-click-this-and-attempt-to-/login.html

2. Even if somebody DID manage to log in as you, it's highly unlikely they would then come round to your house and kidnap you as you probably don't live anywhere near them.

3. People looking to kidnap young women are FAR more likely to go somewhere where you find a lot of young wmen, such as, oh, the female dorm block of a university for example, and then wait for targets of opportunity to leave the place, so they can follow them and kidnap them.

4. The macho idiot SL Standard issue Male who threatened you, is, like oh 80? % of the male population of SL, a complete and utter tool, ignore him.

 

[Hintswen Guardian]

3 hours ago, Klytyna said:

Realistically...

1. These days, virtually NOBODY's account ever gets "hacked", some people GIVE their passwords away because they are too lazy and stupid to READ web links before clicking on them and attempting to log in with their SL credentials...

https://www.markinpiece.secondwife.con/only-an-idiot-would-click-this-and-attempt-to-/login.html

2. Even if somebody DID manage to log in as you, it's highly unlikely they would then come round to your house and kidnap you as you probably don't live anywhere near them.

3. People looking to kidnap young women are FAR more likely to go somewhere where you find a lot of young wmen, such as, oh, the female dorm block of a university for example, and then wait for targets of opportunity to leave the place, so they can follow them and kidnap them.

4. The macho idiot SL Standard issue Male who threatened you, is, like oh 80? % of the male population of SL, a complete and utter tool, ignore him.

 

Your link appears to be broken.

[Callum Meriman]

9 minutes ago, Hintswen Guardian said:

Your link appears to be broken.

It asked me for a password, but then i got an error.

[Madelaine McMasters]

7 hours ago, Tari Landar said:

Mom always told my dad "honey, no one is going to kidnap her, they'd pay us to return her if they did". I don't think she was far off the mark on that one...and she still wouldn't be, lol.

Then again, mom also used to tell me I wasn't actually born, they found me on a sandy beach under a rock one day  And I LOVED hearing that my entire life(I mean that sincerely, I really did, and still do). It was even on my graduation cake..."From a sandy beach under a rock...." was awesome

I love that story, Tari.

Though my divorce was amicable, there was still sadness for both of us. We started with the best of intentions and it just didn't work. Shortly after the papers were signed, my ex stopped over at the house and handed Dad a check for exactly the amount he'd received on our wedding. There was laughter all around. There are now two families that love to tell the story of how they had to pay to get rid of me. My ex's four kids know the story and are happy to wonder how much it would cost to make me go away.

As with you being found under a rock on a sandy beach, I will never, ever, ever get tired of hearing, or telling, this story.

[Ceka Cianci]

I picture an SL stalker going through this, just trying to find my house in the mountains off one of the main roads..Once the paved road turns to gravel road, then dirt road,then to two tire tracks in the brush with the woods getting thicker and tighter the deeper they go..More than likely they'll end up missing a couple turns as well,like most  people do new to the area..Then getting lost and  not being able to find their way out..Run out of gas and have to make the walk in the woods..

Day or night,someone not used to those woods,where there are cougars and black bear,rattlers and other snakes and just all kinds of noises they've never heard before..

My woods is a lot thicker and tighter and more like walking on the side of a mountain that the ones this guy is in..

I just picture this..Every horror flick they ever seen with a syco serial killer in the woods entering their mind...hehehehe

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Ceka Cianci

[Madelaine McMasters]

8 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I just picture this..Every horror flick they ever seen with a syco serial killer in the woods entering their mind...hehehehe

As I picture it, the psycho killer doesn't know that the house he's hunting contains someone who's nuttier than he is.

"Don't open that door!"