Scrabble Psychos of the Internet

by Pat Brown

As we always warn children and young adults, the Internet is a world with little law, a Wild Wild West that extends the circumference of the earth and is peopled by every sort of weirdo one can imagine. They are on blogs, Facebooks, Twitter, chat rooms, and, much to my annoyance, my online Scrabble site.

Not that some of us Scrabble players who show up at the local clubs aren't a bit odd (and while nonScrabble players are thinking I am being judgmental, the Scrabble players themselves are nodding their heads and thinking, well, yeah, that's true). But, at the club and the tournaments (that is me in red at a MN tourney in 2005), we have rules–like you have to hold the bag at eye level so you can't peek down into in and look for a blank or an S to make your big play. Although there are still poor losers and those who whine and argue about how things should be done, there is a code and you have to stay within the group comfort zone or you will be ousted.

Online, however, the personality disordered can have a field day! First of all, they can cheat. They can use electronic dictionaries and programs and simply put in the letters on their rack, hit the button and come up with big words. You can always tell these cheaters because while their strategy is terrible, they know words like DROUKED and DAIKER and DUIKER (yes, those really are words in Scrabble). Then there are those who get mad at you if you happen to actually know some weird words because you are a fairly highly rated player and they furiously type in "CHEATER! CHEATER! CHEATER!" even though they should recognize that they are a novice player and you are not.

There are those who lose and immediately whine that the computerized Scrabble game always give them bad letters! If you win, they call you lucky; if they win, they are skilled.

Sore losers and poor players with personality disorders have interesting ways of punishing their opponents which sometimes includes attempting to force you to stop playing so they can get the win. Sometimes they call you names and cuss at you hoping you won't be able to stand it and run away. Other times, they simply don't play for so long that their opponent goes crazy waiting on them (it is a timed game, but they have twenty minutes on their side). I multitask when they do that and I snicker as I watch their time run down; I am not sitting there staring pointlessly at the board, so, haha, it isn't working, buddy. A variation of this is to log off and on and off and on and off and on until the other player feels like a ping-pong ball.

Another interesting childish maneuver is to play gibberish, an entire game of nonsense words that, of course, one must challenge off the board each and every time. Some are not even trying to win; they are just being abusive and getting a kick out of it. Most people will suffer through a whole game of this crap because if they stop playing, they lose and their rating drops. In one of my last games, the player, losing badly, waited until his last play and then he asked me to abort the game....uh-huh. Didn't happen. So sorry. Nyuck, nyuck. The abusers turn me childish in return.

And, yes, the perverts are there as well.

ScrabbleDude: Hi and good luck.

Pat: Hi and good luck to you too.

ScrabbleDude: GOLDEN 22 points

Pat: SINGULAR 70 points

ScrabbleDude: ZEP 53 points

Pat: HAO 18 points

ScrabbleDude: Do you have big tits?

We have antisocial folks on the site who block any communication during the game and there are those who are friendly until they lose and when you type "Good game!" the reply is "Your opponent is not logged on."

At least in the real world where people have to interact face to face, abusive and psychopathic creeps can get cut off or penalized for bad behavior. On the Internet, they can strike over and over, fueling their feeling of power, getting satisfaction every time they get over on another person in the Cyberworld. One has to wonder that this kind of gratification and validation is not a good thing to be so easily obtained by someone with psychological issues. Even worse, teens and grade school children with personality disorders and behavioral problems are finding out that the Internet provides a world without adult supervision and controls; Facebook and chat rooms are filled with teens abusing teens and children getting some very nonhealthy kicks from antisocial behaviors. Probably some of my opponents in Scrabble on the Internet are juveniles and have no adults in their lives paying attention to what they are doing.

The Internet can be a fabulous tool for communication and socialization but if we aren't careful, bullying and predation and harassment will invade our life online and our children may get the brunt of it. We need to be very aware of the dangers of the Internet to our well-being and our children's well-being and make sure we are vigilant about allowing strangers access to our lives and our minds without even leaving our homes.

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October: Cybersecurity Awareness Month

by Robin Sax

Did you know October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month? Although it's intended to teach Internet users about reporting and avoiding crime, I'd never heard about until recently -- and I live in the world of Internet crime and safety! This is actually the sixth year the Department of Homeland Security has marked Cybersecurity Awareness. They put on events and have lots of information on how to stay safe on the Internet. See http://dhs.gov/ for more details. The information on their site is important to review (for those of us who use the Internet – just a few billion of us), and not many of those billion people know where to get the resources or knowledge to implement Internet safety.

For example, do you know where to file a complaint about a crime that involved the Internet? If you answered law enforcement or the FBI, you get partial credit. The actual answer is much more complicated, an entire protocol for where and how to report crimes related to the ever-growing World Wide Web.

To determine some of the federal investigative law enforcement agencies that may be appropriate for reporting certain kinds of Internet crime, please refer to the following table:

As you can see, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) noted quite a lot on this chart. So what is the IC3? I bet you didn’t even know that it existed. In their own words, The Internet Crime Complaint Center “is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). IC3’s mission is to serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cybercrime. The IC3 gives the victims of cybercrime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of suspected criminal or civil violations. For law enforcement and regulatory agencies at the federal, state, and local level, IC3 provides a central referral mechanism for complaints involving Internet related crimes.”

IC3 seems to give an appearance of some sort of coordinated effort between agencies - at least in the reporting of Internet crime. That is a good thing. But what about before the crime occurs – is there a coordinated effort to prevent the crime. In other words, if someone is reporting a crime it means that most likely someone was already victimized. Is after the fact reporting enough? OR do we need to figure out how to police the Web prior to victimization?

The Internet is the largest city in the world. It literally has portals and accessibility to everyone—adults, children, young, old, thieves, pervs, predators, and hundreds of millions of others. While there may be individual rules and regulations for specific sites, or in specific countries, there is very little “law of the land” -- other than the concept of what is illegal in real life is illegal online as well.

There are many Internet crimes that are readily known due to effective media, astute educators - who take the time to bring information to their school communities, successful public relations campaigns, or from the unfortunate victimization of people we hear about or even our own family and friends.

Most people have heard of -or use- social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and My Space and also know some online lingo (such as LOL, TTYS, etc.). Many people have heard of concepts such as texting, tweeting, sexting, and cyber-bullying. But there are literally of hundreds of aspects of the Internet that we don’t know about…and we may never know about. There is an underground to the Internet, and it can be very scary.

So what do we do? Bury our heads? Pretend it is not happening? Just complain about it? How about we learn about what we don’t know. Staying current with technology is a must our world today. Figuring out what things are worthy of fear and what things are not can save us from a lot of anxiety. It is critical that we keep our knowledge current about Internet “threats” and can be prepared to face them.

And even though I am going to give you some simple steps you take today to be safer on the Internet, the best way to even know what we are worried about is to peruse, search, and click through the Internet. You can't fear something that you don't know about. Don't simply trust the hype, check it out for yourself. For example, many parents fear "Facebook" but I happen to think that Facebook is among the safer social networking sites out there. They actually have a protocol for dealing with hate crimes, pervs, and bullies. They have security and privacy measures and work diligently to address the issues as the site grows. Is every social networking site that way? No way!! And our social networking sites the only place where trouble lurks? No way. There are websites, ad-sites, instant messaging services, and many more avenues where trouble can surface.

So what's the answer? Know what you don't know. I know it seems daunting and time consuming and it can be. But don't let it!!! Chip away with a places, click through, check it out, and if you need help ASK!!! Want to know what your kids are doing online and can't bear checking yourself? There are sources and resources for help. But if nothing else, keep these tips in mind:

For Your Computer

• Make sure that you have anti-virus software and firewalls installed, properly configured, and up-to-date. New threats are discovered every day, and keeping your software updated is one of the easier ways to protect yourself from an attack. Set your computer to automatically update for you.
• Update your operating system and critical program software. Software updates offer the latest protection against malicious activities. Turn on automatic updating if that feature is available.
• Back up key files. If you have important files stored on your computer, copy them onto a removable disc and store it in a safe place.

For Yourself (Habits To Adopt)

• If you get deceptive spam, including email “phishing” for your information (that means a scam site that is looking for you to input your personal information for the purpose of stealing it), forward it immediately to spam@uce.gov. Be sure to include the full Internet header of the email. Also forward the email to the company, bank, or organization that is impersonated in the phishing email.
• Use strong passwords or strong authentication technology to help protect your personal information.
• If your computer gets hacked or infected by a virus immediately unplug the phone or cable line from your machine. Then scan your entire computer with fully updated anti-virus software, and update your firewall.
• If a scammer takes advantage of you through an Internet auction, when you're shopping online, or in any other way, report it to the Federal Trade Commission, at ftc.gov.

For Your Friends, Family, Colleagues

• Use regular communications in your business (newsletters, e-mail alerts, etc.) and in your home (conversations with your partner and children) to increase awareness on Internet safety issues.
• Set up household and workplace rules on issues such as updating software processes, protecting personal information, securing your wireless network, software downloads, spyware, email attachments.
• Make your preferences clear to your friends regarding email “Forwards” and suspicious attachments.

For more tips, visit: http://http//www.staysafeonline.org/top-tips

Bottom line: educate yourself, be smart, be safe online! Treat the online community like a city street – walk where there are lights, don’t travel in a back ally, keep your senses alert, don’t trust strangers, etc. A small amount of preparation will go a long way in protecting yourself and your family!

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