[vmp]

This article hit close to home, albeit my contact with a cyberstalker was (thank god) very brief it was a nerve-wrecking experience, to which end I panicked and deleted a lot of accounts and profiles in an attempt to make it harder to track my online activity. I was scared the stalking and harassment would become more personal, "leaking" in to the real world -- but it thankfully did not.

A lot of the (non-technical) internet users probably don't know how easy it can be to link an online identity to your person, be it through handle (nickname) re-use or simply having a pattern of likes and dislikes or hanging out with the wrong crowd. Once the connection is made you have nothing left to shield yourself with and will have to, like the person in this article, deal with it on a daily basis.

I've since grown up a little, grown a thicker hide and conquered my paranoia to a degree thanks to therapy, and have started to comment and share online again but the fear of coming across the wrong person with too much time on their hands still feels chilling to me.

Garry Newman (the guy behind "Garrys Mod" and "Rust" (game)) published[1] a rather interesting chain of emails, a peek in to the mind of his stalker.

[1] https://garry.tv/2015/11/10/stalkers-and-abuse-part-1/