As Domestic Abuse Goes Digital, Shelters Turn To Counter-surveillance With Tor

An anonymous reader writes "Almost every modern abusive relationship has a digital component, from cyberstalking to hacking phones, emails, and social media accounts, but women's shelters increasingly have found themselves on the defensive, ill-equipped to manage and protect their clients from increasingly sophisticated threats. Recently the Tor Project stepped in to help change that. Andrew Lewman, executive director of the project, 'thinks of the digital abuse epidemic like a doctor might consider a biological outbreak. "Step one, do not infect yourself. Step two, do not infect others, especially your co-workers. Step three, help others," he said. In the case of digital infections, like any other, skipping those first two steps can quickly turn caretakers into infected liabilities. For domestic violence prevention organizations that means ensuring their communication lines stay uncompromised. And that means establishing a base level of technology education for staff with generally little to no tech chops who might not understand the gravity of clean communication lines until faced with a situation where their own phone or email gets hacked.'"

Comments

Re:Digital Domestic Abuse

[Penguinisto]

Sending a nasty email is not domestic abuse.

My wife had to put up with an asshole ex-husband who thought the same thing during the early stages of our relationship. He loved to call her up once in a great while and screw with her head - usually after she'd gotten over the last time he called and once he figured out her new phone number. It wasn't until I called him up one day and said two things that he shut up and went away, never to pester her again.

Her personality brightened up a whole hell of a lot more after that, and we've been extremely happy about things ever since.

(...those two things? The first was a recitation of his home address and the hours he was usually home. I'll plead the fifth before I tell you the second one.)