At-Risk Psyches

"As described in a recent editorial, 'Conveying that bullying alone causes suicide at best minimizes, and at worst ignores, the other factors that may contribute to death by suicide."
"Bullying was present in six deaths and it was the only identified contributing factor in fewer than five deaths."
"There were no deaths [in the study of coroner records] where online or cyberbullying was detected."
"It may be that bullying victims in large cities such as Toronto are less isolated, have more options in their social sphere and better access to mental health treatment, all of which may be protective."
Researchers, Toronto Sunnybrook Health Science Centre

"...And it's no surprise that in almost half of the cases [of suicide] these kids had a depression."
"If you do a psychological autopsy, what you learn is that these kids were struggling -- they may not have been on people's radars, but they were clearly struggling with mood disorders."
"[Conflicts with family or peers may push youth to] where they become quite hopeless, or they become overwhelmed with the stresses that they're managing. That's when they start to think of suicide as an option to deal with the overwhelming stress."
Dr. Hazen Gandy, psychiatrist, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario

Amanda Todd's twitter+facebook profile and Kody Maxson's twitter+facebook

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among youth between the ages of 15 to 25 in Canada, after accidents. Researchers collected data from charts of the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario to study the death by suicide of young people in Toronto between 1998 and 2011. Charts consisting of a coroner's investigation report and pathology report, alongside interviews made up the research material.

The search was conducted for tell-tale stressors that might hint at the desperation to come: being "teased, ridiculed, tormented, assaulted, or otherwise harassed by peers", along with disagreements with parental authority, school grades status, relationships sundered and diagnoses of mental health problems. More than two-thirds of the suicide victims were male; the mean age was 16.8-years.

The records of 94 youth who had committed suicide in Toronto over that fourteen-year period found that bullying alone factored in at 6.4% of the deaths. Depression, on the other hand, and conflicts with parents played a much larger role in the decision by a teen to end life, according to the study conclusion. At 21 percent struggles with parents represented the most common stressor, followed by 17 percent for problems with girl/boyfriends, school problems at 11 percent, and criminal or legal troubles at a matching 11 percent.

In forty percent of the suicides, depression was a motivating factor. Bullying as a causative was "relatively rare", according to the study, published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. No family members of those committing suicide were interviewed for the study for a possible deeper understanding of circumstances. The study acknowledged the possibility that parents might have been unaware of their child's exposure to bullying.

It was established, however, that bullying remains a risk factor for depression or suicidal thinking "months or years after it occurs"; in that the torment experienced by bullying may surface at some future time, though related to the past, leading to depression. Of vital importance, since depression was cited as a 38% factor in committing suicide among the young.

A possible source of misunderstanding or misattribution could be held to the fact that all the study subjects came from the Toronto area. Where in reality, most of the recent cases of bullying in the news that have been held responsible for teens taking their own lives have taken place in smaller, sometimes rural communities. Toronto, they stated, presumably gives youth more options in social spheres and access to mental health treatment, which may lead to more positive outcomes.

The obvious vectors of bullying that are noted in today's technical world of social media, are Twitter, Facebook and other sites, leading to the thought that cyberbullying may now play a larger role in and beyond 2014 than it did in 1998, data for which the study began its examination into the prevalence of youth suicides and its causes. "But I think bullying in the big picture will still remain one of -- and only one of -- several other factors", added Dr. Gandy.

Skids Cybercrime

"Kids are more knowledgeable than their parents. What they have access to and the different forums they can go to, and the different things they can access, it would probably scare the average parent."
"These kids have this access to these forums and other places where they can get these kits with the malware and target things with it. It is a means for them to lash out and do things that are nefarious or cause a lot of angst with businesses and government organizations."
"Mom and Dad are out working and trying to make ends meet, and the kids have access to mobile devices and you name it, and they could be going into these darker areas to do bad things. If you look at what's going on in the market today, a lot of these kits are being provided to anybody who wants them. You can actually go to YouTube and find videos about how to use these malware kits."
"We encourage parents to start early, talking to your children about what it's like to be a good Net-citizen. Teach them good ethics and values so that they stay away from this. This is a challenging time for us."
Gary Davis, chief consumer security officer, McAfee, Intel Security

Why make anonymous telephone calls to people in the middle of the night, waking them from sound sleep to emit over the telephone ungodly laughter and send chills down their spines, or call them at dinnertime to ask whoever answers how they might respond to an innocent query then slap an insolent response in their ears to deafening laughter, when you can aim higher and mess up their computers? And why even focus on individual computers when you can access servers and websites making government agencies and big corporations scramble in panic at their Internet security compromised?

For smart young kids looking for a new kind of challenge in a new kind of universe, the World Wide Web has it over all other types of prospective mischief-making. And if the youths are looking to discharge their sense of social alienation and rage they can do quite a bit of damage to satisfy their sense of grievance. Cyber espionage is a problem, all right, with countries underwriting secret code enterprises and malware enabling commercial and national interests to be compromised. But the growing incidence of computer-literate youth with axes to grind also represent danger.

Website hijacking, swatting, credit card theft, fraud, the malicious spread of malware is increasingly engaged on by "script kiddie" enterprise. In Internet circles they're identified as "skid" attacks for the damage they cause to public institutions, government agencies, financial institutions, corporations in their search for victims and access to systems that have weak spots they are able to take advantage of. And, ultimately carefully boast about, adding to their credentials as nuisance predators online and in business.

The public furore as government agencies admit that their websites have been compromised, as businesses divulge that private customer data may have been compromised, appears to reward some nasty little impulse at the back of some peoples' minds where once they got their thrills stealing lawn furniture, hoisting it up onto roofs, or carrying it into public parks to be retrieved, or not, by the fuming owners. These website assaults are simply the 21st Century equivalent, the adventure calling to the little addicts of social maladaption.

Teenage bullies framing the victim for a hack that disrupted their privacy leading the victim to reach out on social media to explain that digital attacks were perpetrated by the very one who now accuses him of what he had suffered, and hoping that his story sounds believable enough. Access to high-speed Internet makes available a veritable stable of tools and anonymity services enabling even a kid with borderline technical skills to become a threat.

In 2014 McAfee Labs identified over 300 new threats surfacing each and every minute; over five new viruses, worms and threats per second. Malware surged by 76 percent year after year. Just as technology powers itself forward into new frontiers at lightning speed, so too do the malignant devices to baffle and infuriate the users of the technology rack up their diligent advances into a scarring enterprise. Sometimes, the parents who profess shame and surprise at their offsprings' devious dealings have themselves taught their kids computer science techniques.

As was the case with a 19-year-old university student from London, Ontario whose father is a university professor of computer science whose son became conversant with the Heartbleed vulnerability to break into Canada Revenue Agency servers. That data breach resulted in hundreds of Social Insurance Numbers along with tax information being stolen from the servers. That student now faces charges of mischief and unlawful use of a computer, charges that don't really sound equal to the serious nature of the attacks.

When a teenager from an Ottawa suburb was arrested for involvement in swatting calls -- false 911 calls to police -- all over North America, it was revealed in subsequent newspaper stories that his father is a computer technician who denies his son's involvement, insisting despite evidence to the contrary that the investigation represented a witch-hunt targeting his innocent child.

Cyberbullying represents yet another social problem of huge dimensions. Dosomething.org, an online youth-focused organization with over 3.1 million members globally reports that 43 percent of youth online report having been a victim of cyberbullying.

With Malice Aforethought

"[The perpetrator] was using sophisticated software in order to mask his identity."
"He's adapted, changed, has knowledge, some technical knowledge, and used it for his own benefit and to the detriment of others."
Acting inspector Carl Cartright, RCMP

"What did I do to make them so mad that for twelve years they're going to keep on doing this and expand it to my daughters, my wife, my mom?"
"Today [day of the arrest] is a great day. It's been a quarter of my life. That's crazy."
One of 38 cyberbullying victims

181 cyberbullying charges laid against Ottawa man

An investigation undertaken by both Ottawa police and the RCMP, named Project Winter, to describe crimes that police characterize as "sophisticated" and "cowardly", has now concluded with 181 cyberbullying charges having been brought against 42-year-old Robert Campbell of Ottawa. He was
arrested and charged with those offences that he committed against no fewer than 38 people.

The charges against Mr. Campbell break down into 27 counts of criminal harassment, 69 counts of identity fraud, and 85 counts of defamatory libel against victims residing in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Eighteen of those victims are from Ottawa. Mr. Campbell, it would seem, found his passion in life embroiled in slandering other people in a manner they could not respond to, and in effect causing all those people irreparable grief in their public and private lives.

Robert Campbell, 42, Ottawa

He is married, his wife appeared in court, a witness to the charges laid against her husband who appeared briefly in court via video. He is alleged to have used Internet anonymity software, a technique that led, through its deliberate and wretchedly secretive manner to an expanded series of criminal charges. The stealth campaign he had embarked upon to visit misery, confusion and the pain of being ostracized on select victims took place over a period of a decade before his identity was finally revealed.

Acting RCMP Inspector Cole Cartright spoke of the unusual nature of the case, its ten-years-long period of execution, the actions involved and the numbers of victims, reflecting the variety and depth of the charges brought against the Internet predator. A man who became extraordinarily skilled at manipulating a wide range of software techniques to serve his criminally harassing agenda.

The investigation was  complex enough and wide-ranging enough to require its expansion and assistance from other police forces; in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, London, England and Michigan, U.S.A. What the investigators were looking at was a mysterious web they were taxed to follow in an effort to discover the links, if any between the 38 targets and their tormentor.

The precise nature of the software was withheld during an interview that Inspector Cartright gave to the media covering the story. But he did issue a warning for online fraud artists who might find inspiration in this case as the details begin to emerge when it comes to court: "We have the technology and the expertise and the ability to seek others globally to bring you to justice."

In this particular case, the accused began in 2002 to send emails to a victim's co-workers 'revealing' that the victim had alcohol issues along with "bizarre sexual fetishes", information of a nature, though untrue, that would isolate the victim from those around him who might believe what they read and hold their co-worker in suspicion thereafter.

A publication ban is in place, so none of the victims can be publicly identified. Letters sent through Canada Post claimed the victim supported the Nazi party, had been banished from Germany after the Second World War and was a pedophile. And then the harassment expanded, capturing members of the victim's family when one of his daughters received a letter claiming her parents to be racist and and she herself to be 'ugly'.

Fake online profiles were created in the name of several of the victims, the profiles reflecting that the victims were exotic dancers, another the president of Ottawa's Gay Teens United, another the senior co-ordinator of Nazi Youth of Canada. Co-workers of victims were also mailed suspicions of their mental health, or that someone's wife had procured an abortion.  Fake email accounts were established in the names of victims, inviting people at random to sex parties.

Letters were sent to unknown addresses accusing one of the victims of making and distributing child pornography. One target was an employee of the Ottawa  Carleton District School Board whose co-workers were emailed information purporting to be related to the woman's husband's poor parenting skills, and details about the couple's marital problems.

RCMP, added Acting Inspector Cartright, during the investigation developed new investigative techniques from the necessity of bringing this particular case to a conclusion. And they are more than prepared to use those new investigative techniques to bring to justice any other perpetrators of these vexingly nasty cybercrimes